Although a great decline was looming on the horizon, Oldsmobile was on a remarkable high in the mid-1980s. From 1984-1986, the Olds division posted consecutive output of over 1 million cars each of these years. These numbers were achieved by strong sales of the Cutlass Ciera and Cutlass Supreme (which were both among the top 10 best-selling cars in America for 1985), the final RWD Ninety-Eights and Delta 88s, their FWD successors, and the new Calais (soon to be “Cutlass Calais”). Contributing least of all, save for the Toronado and Custom Cruiser, was the J-body Firenza subcompact.
During this three-year period, the Firenza sold 82,475, 49,040 and 46,701 units, respectively, making it the second worst-selling Olds in ’84 and ’85, and the third in ’86 (when the Custom Cruiser became its own separate line). Even the Toronado, which was double the price, sold 42,185 units in 1985. Considering that the Firenza came in four body styles versus the Toronado’s one, this is even more dismal. Was the Firenza one too many J-bodies? Likely not, as the costlier Buick Skyhawk outsold it by about 2-1, and every other Oldsmobile had multiple corporate cousins.
There’s also the Firenza’s styling. Although most of it was quite bland and similar to the other J-bodies, the Firenza featured a rather blunt front end. Without a traditional grille and with a rather unusual six-headlight cluster design, its nose may have been off-putting to buyers. The Firenza eventually received a more tasteful, Cutlass Ciera-inspired front clip for its swan song season 1988, but it was too little and too late to make a difference.
Then there is the Cutlass Question. Much like Chrysler with the LeBaron name, in the 1980s, Oldsmobile began applying the Cutlass name to multiple model lines at once. Take the Cutlass Calais, for example. Despite overall Oldsmobile sales sliding in the late-1980s, upon gaining the “Cutlass” moniker for 1988, Calais sales remained remarkably steady. Could the Firenza have benefitted from the Cutlass touch?
Regardless of why the Firenza failed to achieve the success of other Oldsmobiles and its non-Cimarron J-body siblings, the bottom line is that the Firenza did not rack up high sales, making it one of the rarest Oldsmobiles of this era. Its economy-car position only enhances its obscurity today. This particular Firenza, spotted by Joseph Dennis, is especially rare due to its exceptional condition. With no serious rust, and the retention of its wire wheel discs, this car was likely senior-owned and lightly driven. Despite the dirt, it would appear to have been pampered for most of its life – and you can’t say that about many J-cars.
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It’s as if GM were trying to hasten its demise, by creating cheap cars that fall apart, so that no one will want to buy their cars. If that’s their intention, then sadly they’ve succeeded.
The Cutlass was a midsize car, so I don’t think this should have been called a Cutlass. Firenza may not have been the best name for it though. Maybe they should have called it a Starfire except that it was nothing like the 1950’s or 1960 Starfires. I bought a 4 door Buick Skyhawk with the T-type suspension upgrade. It was not a horrible car, but also not a great one either.
After googling the Firenza, I see that it is the successor to the Starfire. The might also have called it J180 (with the 1.8 liter engine), a J200 with the 2 L engine…..
Except that the Cutlass Calais was a compact car
I had not realized that. Oldsmobiles have never interested me much, as I mostly bought Buicks until the end of the last millennium. However the first Cutlass was also a compact car. I doubt that adding Cutlass to the Firenza’a name would have made much difference.
I always found it somewhat ludicrous how many cars carried some version or another of the Cutlass name. It was okay in the pre ’78 period when there was a base Cutlass and then a Cutlass Supreme, or from ’78 to ’80 when there were Cutlass Salon, Cutlass Calais, and Cutlass Supreme – because they were different trim levels or configurations of the same car. But when the Cutlass Ciera arrived, it stopped making sense. When the N-body Cutlass Calais arrived, it became absurd. Three completely different cars sharing a nameplate? Why, why, why? It’s almost as bad as the LeBaron nonsense over at Chrysler.
So, no, this should not have been the Cutlass Firenza! 🙂
When I was shopping for a new car in 81 or 82 I “cross-shopped” the Firenza and the J2000. Mechanically, the Firenza was the better choice as it had the OHC engine used in the J cars. Unfortunately, the only car available in my immediate area was a 4 door sedan in that not so attractive taupe color with a velour interior of a dark….not quite maroon shade. So I went with the Pontiac in medium blue with a medium blue ALL VINYL interior. I wanted the Pontiac because it looked like a mini Firebird.
Probably as many Firenzas as J2000 and Skyhawks were sold in my central Texas area. A co-worker had a white Firenza 4 door and liked it. ALL were outsold by the very plain/boring Cavalier.
Better cars than the Tempo/Topaz and better looking than the K car twins….but that isn’t saying much.
When I got out of school, there was a legal secretary where I worked who had one of these. Living in the midwest, the car seemed as normal and natural to me as corn dogs at the State Fair. At the time I knew I didn’t like them, but had not yet gained the perspective that people on the coasts liked them WAAAAY less than I did.
This car gets bonus points for surviving this long with that awful dull light yellow paint that had a minor run of popularity in the mid 80s.
The original few years of the Firenza had a more angled nose, which was not dramatically different from the Skyhawk, or even the J2000. Later on, it got more blunt and upright. I think Buick did a better job of presenting their version as sporty, which might explain the sales lead. The Olds was just kind of “there.” Maybe you would buy one as a commuter car, while picking out your new Custom Cruiser…
The best of the bunch, and in my opinion the most attractive J-car period, was the Skyhawk Limited with hidden headlamps and a very attractively sloped nose. The Firenza isn’t bad (I personally like the “six lamp” look that both Olds and Pontiac toyed with) but it doesn’t measure up to the Skyhawk or J2000/Sunbird. Plus, for some reason, that nose looks mismatched on the very plain sedan body–seems like there should be more going on back there. The Firenza looked best in hatchback form, as the more interesting hatchback body better balanced the more complex nose styling.
The final variant of the Firenza with the “cutlass lite” front clip? Now *those* I had forgotten all about. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen one. If those were sold at the same time as the late N-body Calais, which also had a “cutlass lite” nose job, Oldsmobile may have been in the interesting position of selling three different cars with essentially the same “face”. Not new territory really though as there were a couple of years earlier in the 80’s where the B-body 88 and the Cutlass Supreme sedan were basically indistinguishable from the direct front view.
You’ve really put some impressive thought into this, haven’t you? In looking at your Cutlass comment, it wasn’t all that different than the BMW 3-5-7 series similarities at the time….different length sausages and all that…
I loved my 1984 Firenza S coupe in the same beige color. It was a good little car for me and I could pile a lot of crap under the long sloping hatch. Obviously I am biased but I thought it was the best looking of the J bodies during it’s run. It was one of the reasons I kept buying small GM cars, from it to my 1992 Cavalier up until it all ended with my craptastic 2005 Cobalt.
No, they should not have called a Cutlass. The “Cutlass Division” did itself no favors watering down the name that way.
Too many J bodies? Hard to say. It was actually something of a success if it sold 82,000 copies the first year. As a slightly modified upmarket Chevy Cavalier, the extra bits of nicer trim probably brought GM better margins for their efforts of building and marketing this.
And, never rule out the effects of CAFE. Every J body that Oldsmobile sold was an offset for the gazillion 307 V-8s they were selling in the 88, Ninety-Eight, Custom Cruiser, Toronado and Cutlass Supreme lines. In some ways GM needed the milege credits more than they needed profits from these cars, which probably reflects the rather indifferent design and quality of these vehicles.
The story was that GM put a in new accounting system in the late 1980s and was surprised to find out a lot their models were not actually profitable. I assume the Firenza was one those cars they didn’t really need.
GM was in such a hurry to downsize everything in the 1980s that they ended up with a lot of overlapping models. The Omega and Calais were very similar in size to this car. And Olds often shared a showroom with at least one other GM brand.
“The story was that GM put a in new accounting system in the late 1980s and was surprised to find out a lot their models were not actually profitable. I assume the Firenza was one those cars they didn’t really need.”
Having worked in a corporate product and service division that was constantly either profitable or almost losing money depending on how finance decided to dice the numbers in a given year, I learned you can do anything you want with numbers, including political maneuvers.
“GM was in such a hurry to downsize everything in the 1980s that they ended up with a lot of overlapping models. ”
That’s no joke, and they could not seem to cancel any of the older models as the newer ones came out. I ran across this Buick brochure that really drives home the point. Ignoring door counts, Buick had 8 basic body shells / models for 1988. In 1970, they had 4, which exploded to 8 for the mid and late ’80s. Oldsmobile was a had a near mirror image for all of these Buicks – 16 cars where 8 had covered things 17 years earlier.
http://www.oldcarbrochures.com/static/NA/Buick/1988%20Buick/1988%20Buick%20Prestige%20Brochure/index1.html
Great brochure! Keep in mind several of those models also had 2 door and wagon versions as well!
Don’t recall ever seeing that Buick Sky-whatever front end before…
Setting aside the J’s inherent flaws….
….this gambit might have actually worked if the roof was not exactly like every other J body.
I think the bodies were identical except for the front ends and tail lights. The Buick and Oldsmobile did get a different layout for the instrument panel.
Thanks for posting this one Brendan..I have not seen one since the 90’s.
One of these is floating around town, but I think I just figured out one of its burdens.
Its front is way too Pontiac, likely a repellent for Olds buyers. May I present the 1980 Grand Prix.
I see what you mean, but the Olds does not have a radiator grill making it look quite different.
I bought the Skyhawk because it had two things I wanted: a fuel injected engine and automatic climate control.
My ’84 Firenza had fuel injection and climate control, not automatic climate control though. How did that automatic climate control work back then? Was it effective?
It was the same automatic system that the full size Buicks had, electronic touch. I worked very well. I think that offering the automatic system was an experiment to see if it would sell on lower end cars. I think the option was dropped after the first 3 years.
I had the 1.8 liter OHC engine with the 5 speed manual transmission.
Oldsmobile was probably trying to evoke the front of the 1959 Oldsmobile, and 1967 Delta 88 and 1967-68 F-85/Cutlass, all of which featured a parking light placed between the headlights.
Unfortunately, the Pontiac Grand Prix had been introduced with that arrangement for 1977, and continued to use it with the downsized generation, so most people probably made the association with the Pontiac, not Oldsmobiles of the past.
I’ve always liked that generation of GP a lot. I know purists say it lost the original unique of the late 60’s early 70s GP, but I thought it might have been the best downsizing GM did at that time.
Looks like a Cavalier to me.
Should have just kept OMEGA, although perhaps in an ironic gesture they should have affixed “OMEGA” badges to the last Oldsmobiles to be built before the brand folded.
+1
“Omega” isn’t a bad name for a modern car either.
The Buick and Oldsmobile versions of the front-wheel-drive J-bodies seemed like afterthoughts at the time. We had just experienced a serious run-up in gasoline prices, and the economy was still in the dumpster when these were introduced. Interest rates on new-car loans for people with good credit had hit the double digits, as the federal government worked to “wring” inflation out of the economy. No doubt Oldsmobile dealers were demanding a small car to sell during those trying times.
Most people didn’t think of visiting their Oldsmobile dealer when shopping for a small car during that time. The old, rear-wheel-drive Omega had been a weak seller for the division, and I believe that even the front-wheel-drive version was the sales laggard among all of the X-cars. People who wanted Oldsmobiles during this era did not want compacts, let alone subcompacts.
Slapping the Cutlass moniker wouldn’t have done much good, and only further degraded the Cutlass nameplate by adding to buyer confusion. The problem wasn’t the nameplate. The problem was that the Oldsmobile dealer wasn’t the place that people shopping for a small car visited. Slapping a new fascia and taillights on to the basic J-car wasn’t going to change that fact.
I think I shared one of these to the cohort as well. About two years ago, I first saw it in the parking lot of a local shopping plaza. The fact that it was in such great shape while being out in road salt hell tells me it was recently inherited from its original elderly owner. I still see it from time to time, but continued exposure to “white death” (road salt) up here in rust country will surely kill it within the next 5 or so years. Sad end for a car which was obviously well cared for at one time in its life.
Here’s another angle without the sun shadow
No Cadillac,Buick or Oldsmobile should have been a J car. The Chevrolet version made sense and I’ll allow for a slightly up market (or slightly sporty) Poncho, But these were never designed as luxury or near-luxury platforms. I blame CAFE as much as anything else for these. (and K – based LeBaron /New Yorkers!)
Had a teacher in high school with the wagon version with woodgrain, the last one I saw was a coupe in 2010.
My sister had a wagon version of this, light blue. Standard shift. She drove it mercilessly, into the ground. We kinda laugh about it now.
I think it was the name Firenza that put people off. It sounds like some cheap-euro-half-made up name. Not American enough. Oh, that and they were ugly. Adding Cutlass would have helped.
Did the Oldsmobile Firenza and Buick Skyhawk J-cars get all their cooling air from under their bumpers? The Cavaliers and Citations had conventional grills. Were they blanked out, or did these cars have completely different airflow properties?
Offhand I don’t know, but you are right that the Firenza and Skyhawk got their cooling air under the bumpers. I do know that my Skyhawk never seemed to run warm, even in 100+ temperatures on my way home from the Marshal Space Flight Center in August. But the Oldsmobile Aurora, with cooling come from below the bumper, did tend to run warm in stop and go traffic on hot (90+) days.
I think they were all mouth breathers. My first car was an ’89 Cavalier, with an actual grille, but it drew air up from under the bumper. There was a big plastic air dam underneath that fed the radiator – tough to see, but very easy to catch on the lip of driveways and the slightest of inclines.
The Firenza seemed more like an advertising prop than an actual car, so I’m sure Olds would have loved to rename it and run deceptive ads for a “Cutlass* starting at $5,999!” or whatever. Of course, that obviously would have sullied the name even further.
I know we’ve discussed it before, but that final year restyle is sooooooo much better looking. If they’d gone with something closer to that from the get-go, I think they probably would have sold a few more. I wonder what it would look like transplanted onto a hatchback…
I remember when they Firenza first came out, they sold so poorly the local Oldsmobile dealer put “Li’l Cutlass” emblems on the front fenders.
They should have, and eventually did, call it “quits. “
Before the advent of the J-Car, the Firenza was the pseudo-musclecar version of the H-Body Olds Starfire. It was basically Oldsmobile’s version of the Chevy Monza Spyder.
While many people claim the Vega was the worst car GM ever built, to me it was this one. Most of these cars fell completely apart in the first few years. I did see a Monza (or one of the BOP versions) at the dragstrip a couple of times, but it had a complete tube frame, and the body was seriously reinforced. The structure on these cars was so weak that it twisted, causing doors, hood, and hatchback to not line up properly. Putting a V8 in one of these in stock form would turn it into a pretzel if you were an aggressive driver.
My then girlfriend (now my Wife) had a strange passion for small 4doors with manual transmissions. Her 77 Corolla was just done so I went on the hunt for a appropriate compact 4 door with a stick, didn`t really matter what it was beyond that. I was at that time going to several salvage auctions buying damaged vehicle on a weekly basis. I found a very clean lightly damaged Firenza sedan with a stick. Being an Olds 4door with a stick I knew this car was going to be cheap, and it was, I was the only bidder (salvage auctions were lots of fun before the internet let the public in) I drove the car home & had it fixed it a in a few days. It served her well all thru her collage years. They were not common even when they where late models (4doors with sticks even more so). I remember buying a few 87-88s with the ‘mini Cutlass’ fronts. Those later front end parts were so hard to find most got fixed with earlier style parts.Here in the Wisconsin I havn`t seen a nice Firenza in years
I always thought the Oldsmobile Firenza was the best looking of the J body cars, definitely a car I haven’t seen in almost a decade, I always thought the Firenza should have been named for Oldsmobile’s version of the Chevy Monza instead of the Starfire, for some odd reason I have seen more Cadillac Cimarron’s and Buick Skyhawk’s of this vintage than I did with the Oldsmobile Firenza.
I personally thought this car looked better with the quad headlights than the Euro headlights, what year did the Firenza switch to the Euro headlights?
The composite headlights and new front clip were added in 1988. Then the Firenza was discontinued the following year.
My Aunt Betty had one of these, in metallic tan with blacked-out trim (!) and one of those fake luggage racks on the trunk lid. Eventually she replaced it with one of the last square-body Cavaliers after the Olds went crazy on her in the parking lot (I suspect some gas/brake confusion error on her part too).
I think it was one J too many.
On the surface the Skyhawk doesn’t make sense either, but I wonder if it sold to the folks who had been buying Opels? Olds dealers just didn’t have that history of selling cars this small.
I’ve always wanted to see a 1988 version in person, with that Cutlass Ciera front end (seriously uncanny how identical looking it is) Sadly the chances of that are about zero at this point considering they offered it for one year, sold virtually none at that point, and 27 years have passed to let these disposable machines die out. Maybe there’s one still left in the universe, sitting in an old lady’s garage in Kansas somewhere. Maybe.
Until I read about the Firenza on the Internet I never even knew that facelifted version existed. I have seen a handful of the earlier versions, but lately even the pre-’95 Cavaliers/Sunbirds are scarce… yet another car that littered my high school parking lot, then went extinct instantly.
You can call me Copycat…….
You can call me Curiosity……….
You can call me Conundrum……..
But ya’ doesn’t have to call me Cutlass…….
For those born after 1980, this video helps explain the syntax…………
I never paid much attention to these cars, to me they were just fleet cars. I do know the first generation Cavalier was available as a convertible. I don’t know if any other versions of the J-Body were or not. they really weren’t on my radar back then. The only J-Body car I ever really liked the looks of was the 1995–2005 Pontiac Sunfire. Something else that was Pontiac only. None of the other divisions had anything like it. The 2 door coupe was a very nice looking car.
?? The ’95-’05 Sunfire and Cavalier are identical aside from styling/interior trim differences.
“Should They Have Called It A Cutlass?”
No, they should have called off the whole idea of slapping Oldsmobile emblems on a J-body.
Ditto for Buick and (especially!) Cadillac emblems on J-bodies.
My parents tell me stories of the Firenza that they bought a couple years after they got married and had me. They were quite young and quite poor at the time, and I’ve never worked out if they bought it new with some iffy financing or bought it a year or two old (so 1983 or ’84). The part they’re clear on, though, is that the Firenza was a mechanical nightmare! Apparently at one point it spent six weeks in the shop, and all told, it went in something like monthly with a new issue. From what they said, they tried to lemon-law the thing, but got denied because it went in for different issues each time.
After a year of that, they decided enough was enough. They went to their local Chevy dealer and bought the least expensive, but brand new, 1985 Chevy Cavalier Type-10 they could. Four-speed manual, two-door, black with gray interior and no A/C. As a young kid, I suffered in the back seat, with no access to openable windows and plenty of sun streaming in on me. I hated that car! To this day, I still hate Cavaliers (for many reasons) partly because from the time I was 5 until I was 11, I rode around in a greenhouse sweating and suffering.
I realize the humor in the fact that mom and dad traded in a POS J-body for another J-Body. But, after I’d had an accident as a toddler and their Ford pickup stalled on the way to the hospital, they weren’t about to buy another Ford (and to this day, they still haven’t!). Oddly enough, the Cavalier was a brilliant car, though. We never had a problem with it for the 100,000 my parents drove it until my mom totaled it (at 99,987 miles, no less!).
I have no memory of the Firenza myself, but if my parents’ commentary is any indication, that’s probably just fine.
My 86 Firenza was awesome! I got it from the original family who bought it new, they only asked $100. It was unkillable. We beat the ever loving shit out of that Cavalier-lookalike in various states of anger, bliss, and day-to-day bullshit and it just wouldn’t die. It was used as a getaway vehicle a couple times and at times driven in various degrees of impairment. We were young & dumb. I scorned my Firenza for not being a “real” Oldsmobile IE V8, RWD, etc like my Delta 88 and TRIED to hate it. Thought I did. Now i look back on those days with nothing but admiration for the car and kinda miss the lil Firenza, you can cram a lot of people and stuff in those things and it got us into and out of some pretty sticky situations. Mine was a 4-door automatic, what a dog but it took a hellava whuppin and never left me stranded until the last day when my CV joint busted and that was my excuse to ditch it. What a shameless waste. Firenzas rock!
I will always wonder how Oldsmobile fell so far, so fast. From a million a year in the ’80’s to dead in a little over a decade…hard to believe. Of course I was just a kid in the late ’80’s so….