Upon getting married in June of 1998, we were now DINKS- double income, no kids. Life was good, and we were happy newlyweds. We went on a honeymoon to Jamaica and upon getting back we started merging bank accounts and such. We did not live together prior to getting married, so we were going through the transition of sharing a house and everything else. Mrs. C is an interior designer and we were in the process of renovating parts of our house, built in 1947. All was good.
Four years earlier, I had been involved in a broken engagement five months before I was to be married to another woman. The jilting hit me hard, but it was the best thing that never happened to me and there was no looking back, no regrets. I met my future wife about 8 months after all that drama and 20 years on, I tell everyone who will listen that by far, I got the better end of the deal, hands down.
The Right and Wrong Purple Car is a Matter Of Perspective
My wife brought into the marriage a 1995 Pontiac Grand Am V-6 that she had bought new just as we met in the fall of 1994. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the car. She drove it a fair amount and it had 60,000 trouble-free miles on the odometer. But it had one attribute I just couldn’t overcome: it was purple. No doubt, there have been some desirable purple cars over the years. More recently, there are Dodge Challengers and Mustang’s that were available in purple, and they look right as rain on those cars. As you’ve seen from my other cars so far, I do not suffer from vanity issues. At the most basic level, a car’s mission is to get you from point A to point B and the end of the day, does it really matter?
But this one did not feel right when I was driving in it nor being seen getting into or out of it. An old New York times article back then stated that 60-70% of Grand Am buyers were female. I really cannot say what attributes about the car made it so appealing to the ladies, but one thing was certain in that it definitely didn’t appeal to me. I knew I wasn’t being rational, but it had to go. We had the money, and well…why not. I slowly begin planting the seed to sell the ‘Dam with the notion that she would be primarily driving the new car. I had my still fairly new-to-me 1994 Pontiac Grand Prix which would be my daily. In the ‘Tradin Times the Grand Am went and a nice guy who was a mechanic bought it for his fiance in short order.
Gen 1 Aurora Nixed By the Mrs.
20 years on I cannot recall what drew us to the Bravada over the Blazer or anything else in the GM stable. The SUV craze was in full swing and I guess maybe it seemed the trendy thing to do at the time. We had my brothers GM employee discount and the lease deals in the fall of 98 were pretty good. It was $378 per month, zero down, 18,000 miles per year, a substantial chunk of this which would be offset by our car mileage allowances. In those days, the now defunct GMAC would send you a check if you didn’t use all the miles in the lease term. It was our first lease and we didn’t want to have to worry about mile overage and wanted to take trips in it. I suggested we look at a Gen 1 Aurora, a car I still find quite handsome to this day. It was only slightly more per month, and I was excited about having my first ever V-8. But the Bravada felt right to my wife and a deal was done at Al Dittrich Oldsmobile in Waterford, MI.
Old (1981-1996) and New (1996-2004) Logos
The Bravada was introduced by Oldsmobile at a time when brands like Oldsmobile and Buick were suffering major structural problems. Among these problems were an aging demographic, look-alike cars, product overlap with other GM divisions, lack of a clear and specific mission, and most importantly, declining sales. The sheer economics of giving adequate resources to all of their brands to keep them viable was becoming untenable. To their credit, GM really tried to pump some new life into Oldsmobile with cars like the Bravada, Achieva, Intrigue and the Aurora. If you are of a certain age , you remember the TV commercial slogan, “This is not your fathers Oldsmobile”. The brand was even given a new logo. In the new logo, the rocket pierces the oval, suggesting it was going in a new direction, outside the boundaries. The first Bravada debuted in 1990, took a hiatus for 1995, then came back for 1996. It came in just one trim level for 1998: loaded, and stickered at just under $31,000.00. This was not a small sum in 1998 (nor now), and it equates to over $47,000 today.
The Bravada’s Lux Interior
Speaking of look-alike cars, nobody would confuse the Bravada as anything more than a slightly massaged and nicer Blazer. Though not luxury car by any stretch, the Bravada marked the first “nicer car” either of us ever had. It had leather seats and all option boxes checked. Built alongside it’s platform mates in Moraine, Ohio on the GMT330 platform, it did however receive a few things its brothers didn’t, despite the same 4.3L Vortec V-6 under the hood for all. Unique to the Bravada and new for 1998 was an all-wheel drive system called “Smart Track” (Blazer and Jimmy were 4WD). It received no skid plates, so serious off-roading was discouraged in the owner’s manual. For the 1998 refresh on the exterior, the Bravada received a new front fascia with the new Old’s logo. The interior was upgraded with seats similar to the Aurora’s and new faux wood trim. It was the only one of the three platform mates to have a console shifter.
There was really no drama to speak of with the Bravada in our 3 years of leasing it. It was the first brand new vehicle I’d had in almost 10 years. It didn’t go back to the shop for any reason and required nothing but basic oil and fluid changes. Gas mileage wasn’t great, but in 1998, gas prices were under $1.50 per gallon for a good part of the year, so it didn’t matter. It was comfortable, adequately powered and we enjoyed the room and utility of the truck. I also liked taking it out in fresh snow, where with it would willingly plow through tall drifts with ease . I cannot recall the last time I’ve seen a Bravada in these parts. Sadly of course, we all know how things turned out for the brand. The 90’s new product infusion failed to significantly move the needle for Oldsmobile, and in December 2000, GM announced the brand would be shut down. In April of 2004, the last Oldsmobile Alero rolled off the line in Lansing, MI , ending a proud history that went back to its founding in 1897.
While this wasn’t always the case with us when we leased, we turned this car back in and were assessed no damage or abnormal wear charges. The mileage excess meant a $700 check was coming our way. This car transitioned with us into our new home in the winter of 2000. And most notably, it also brought home from the hospital our first born, Adam, in April of 2001. I absolutely cannot believe it, but he is now a senior in high school. Leasing worked out for us this time, so we thought we’d do another one, hopefully the payment would come in a bit less expensive than the Bravada. A new model was out at a sister GM brand that I already had my eye on . It would be something I always had wanted.
On the subject of purple cars, Ford had a few purple cars in the mid 90s, I seem to remember that the Probe was available in a shade of purple as was the Escort. You could get a purple Escort wagon, though I can’t say if Mercury offered a purple car.
As far as Oldsmobile goes (no pun intended) they had some truly great cars over the years. And they also had some not so great cars, like the Bravada (mostly because of it’s obvious badge engineering) and their minivan the Silhouette…for the same reason.
To me, Oldsmobile seemed like the car for a person who didn’t want to appear old/stuffy by driving a Buick, nor did they feel young and brash enough to want to be seen in a Pontiac. Truly a betwixt or between brand.
Please don’t tell us you bought an Accord or Camry.
I had a purple escort wagon. Great little car. I also had a 95 grand am. It was gray not purple.
Purple was pretty common. The Intrigue had a deep purple option, the Maxima, Altima and Avalon had some metallic gray-purples. The GM N-Bodies all had purple options. The Neon had not only a purple, but a bright fuchsia as well.
Aqua greens were pretty common, too. And Ford had that odd “flesh” color on the Aspire, Contour, Windstar, and maybe a few others. Yuck.
My friend’s brother had two of those Grand Ams. One was purple and one was green. He used to call them his “grapes”. He usually used the purple one, and let his girlfriend use the green one. On his way back from getting a vasectomy, pulling up in his purple car, my friend said “Now it is a seedless grape.” He was quite proud of his cleverness. One day a large portion of a tree fell onto the back ends of both of them, in the front yard by the street. The matching dents on them led to the brother calling them his “raisins”. He wasn’t as witty as my friend but he tried. The two cars stayed parked together for years, outlasting the girlfriend and the one after that. I haven’t kept in touch with them for some years now, but I wonder if those cars are now being referred to as “the prunes”. Oh, and nice looking Olds by the way.
All of that made me chuckle. Seedless grapes, especially.
Nice Bravada.
That Grand Am is not purple; it’s maroon. A very dark maroon.
And, the “not your father’s Oldsmobile” ads always kind of bugged me:
A. I am the “father” or probably the “grand father” being referenced.
B. My 1957 Oldsmobile was was a glamorous and quite quick white over red beauty.
C. Oldsmobiles were true automotive rockets of the 1950s and early 60s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_88.
D. It is never a good business idea to disparage choices made by past customers.
E. Now, get off my lawn.
I always thought that ad campaign was not particularly effective for Oldsmobile. For older carbuyers like you, it was at best off-putting and at worst drove you away, sending the message that you no longer mattered to Oldsmobile or that Oldsmobile felt that your tastes in cars were no longer valid. And in the other direction, hindsight has shown that it didn’t attract a significant number of new younger buyers to Oldsmobile, either.
Then they followed it up with “Demand Better” then the disgustingly innocuous “Start Something.” Demand better than what, Oldsmobile’s offerings? Start what, any old “something” like, say, an Oldsmobile?
For a company that seemingly put a premium on advertising in the 1990s, as opposed to building quality products, GM sure whiffed it a lot.
It’s surprising the “not your father’s Oldsmobile ” campaign was approved. It seemed amateurish and shallow as if it was a product of a first-year marketing student. I always thought it would be offensive to those millions of potential buyers who grew up without a father in their life. Stirring memories of unhappy childhoods, of family breakup, loss or single parent homes didn’t seem wise to me.
I should add, I was their target demographic at the time, the right age, and I had fond memories of my dad’s two Oldsmobiles. If this tag line didn’t resonate with me, how could it work on others?
People weren’t woke 20 years ago, I’m sure people would be all over Twitter accusing GM of shaming if that campaign aired today!
That’s what strikes me so bad, as a millennial I was a little kid during this campaign, but I was into cars and I had books and books full of cars and often there’d be 442s, Toronados, Rocket 88s etc. When a commercial would come on the TV for the Intrigue or something proclaiming “this isn’t your father’s Oldsmobile” I’d be perplexed by the idea why they wouldn’t want it to be. Now a days most people who even know what an Oldsmobile is basically group anything made after the 70s into the same undesirable category, making no hard distinction on the point they launched that ad.
To me it was Olds admitting their brand wasn’t considered cool by young people, which is not the way to sell somewhat premium cars to young people.
The ad campaign has been reincarnated as “That’s a Buick???”. It isn’t going much better for Buick than it did for Oldsmobile.
I actually think “that’s a Buick???” is an even worse ad campaign than Oldsmobile’s. At least Oldsmobile’s campaign made a statement, Buick’s is an easily answered question:
The answer is no, no it’s not a Buick, actually it’s a badge engineered product from a European subsidiary GM sold to PSA, so that’s why it looks weird, and don’t bother getting attached.
Sugar’s sweet and so’s maple surple
My pappy was a pistol, I’m a sonuva gun
I grew up hearing about the legendary Rocket 88s.
Ha, in June of ’98 I married a woman with a (deep) purple car, a ’95 Prizm. The car was fine, the marriage, not so much.
I had a purple Neon coupe.
Have a good donor Bravada for anyone interested…identical to the one pictured…2000 with 128,500 miles…mz1675.mz@gmail.com
The Bravada was the better choice than the Aurora. I had a used first generation Aurora and it was an electrical nightmare. Especially the broken wire in the door harness that allowed the power window to work only when the door was open. I managed to fix that broken wire, but fortunately the car was stolen before I got to the rest of the gremlins….
Oldsmobile was still selling something like 250k cars annually in the last full year before gm axed the brand. Not a million cars like in 1986, but respectable considering that two big sellers, particularly to fleets, the ciera and 88 were gone in 2000. Oldsmobile to me was upscale sporty compared with Buick’s upscale more geriatric feel. Gm could have revived Oldsmobile, look at how Hyundai, Kia, and Audi all turned around. The 100k warranty does a lot to Allay customer quality concerns, and hyundais and kias got a lot better. But as 83 lebaron points out, the quality was sorely lacking. Woe betide anyone who replaced an 88 with an Aurora or a 88-95 Cutlass with the suave and sophisticated new intrigue. They were worse than their immediate predecessors.
I once saw a purple Saab 96. Had to have been a repaint. I think the factory colors were better.
There were very purple SAAB 99s & Sonnetts, Sonnett even had a lavender. Don’t remember seeing purple 96, but believe that it could have happened.
The badge jobs like the Bravada and N-body Cutlass undid whatever credibility cars like the Aurora or Intrigue did to make the “not your father’s Oldsmobile” slogan true. That’s what Oldsmobile was all through the 80s and quicky nosedived the brand. Maybe had they pared down the lineup they could have pulled it off, but dealers certainly wouldn’t have it I’m sure. In the 90s your father’s Oldsmobile was likely a 80s A or H body that was nearly indistinguishable from other A or H bodies, that was Oldsmobile’s core problem, and that owner demographics skewed older was simply a byproduct of them being loyal and nostalgic for the good Oldsmobile’s of their own youth. GM marketing throwing that demographic under the bus because of their own half assed product development is unforgivable.
I remember that purple on Grand Ams, it was very common at the time, just behind bright red and teal. I’d gladly drive a purple car of any shade over beige or silver though. Seems like that’s all Auroras came in.
The brand was even given a new logo. In the new logo, the rocket pierces the oval, suggesting it was going in a new direction, outside the boundaries
Only rockets I ever see launched at an angle are missiles that will come back to earth with a crashing thud. Quite prophetic for the brand.
You bought this at exactly the same time we bought our Explorer V8. I don’t think we even looked at the GM offerings though – mainly due to my inlaws being very satisfied with their Explorer and me enjoying driving it when I got the chance as well as the Explorer being THE vehicle in the SF Bay Area at the time.
Looking back on it we’d probably make the same choice again, but I can’t fault anyone for this choice. While Olds was definitely out of favor on the west coast by this time, it seems a lot nicer trimmed that the Chevy or GMC version. You timed it right with the lease though, the resale value likely dropped as soon as Olds closing up shop was announced, but that didn’t become your problem.
Weird question: which side mirrors did your Bravada have? The heftier units shown in the lede image came towards the end of the 1998 MY and fixed vibration issues with the earlier design shown in the interior pic.
BTW, “SmartTrak” (one word and no “c”) AWD was introduced with the first-gen Bravada in 1991. GM introduced a revised system in 1998 but it kept the same branding. I’m also fairly sure you could get a console shifter in the ’98 GMC Jimmy, although selecting that option removed the ability to have a remote cassette deck installed at the front of the console, in addition to the head unit’s single CD player. Bravadas had unique-for-Olds radios that had both contained in one piece.
We used to have a cabin well above the snowline in the Sierra, on a road a mile uphill from the highway, and which wasn’t plowed by the county. Access was challenging. One of our neighbors, a savvy car guy, replaced his old Subaru Loyale with a used Bravada, after the brand was shut down. He didn’t seem like an Oldsmobile guy, but told me that between the low resale prices and AWD, it was perfect for the snow. By the way, the Olds only took him halfway to his cabin; he had restored a Tucker Sno-Cat to get the last mile.
I was unaware of the full-time AWD being exclusive to Oldsmobile. Ford did the same thing for awhile with the Mercury Mountaineer having an AWD setup that wasn’t available in the Explorer.
I also was involved in a broken engagement, although I’ve remained single since. I do on rare occasion think back and wonder “what if” we had gone through with the marriage. Probably we would have been long divorced by now….
My wife has a thing for purple, for some reason she really, really, really likes the color. She did have one purple car, a 2003 Chrysler PT Cruiser; the dealer ended up calling 8 or 10 other dealers before they found one in the required color. Her current vehicle, a 2017 RAV4, is the closest she has come to another purple car; Toyota calls it Black Currant Metallic. At least it isn’t white/black/silver/gray like 95% of the cars on the road today.
I had often wondered about the changes to the Oldsmobile logo since it was first shaped into a rocket during the 1960s. The first one I ever saw (the 1981-96 logo; on my grandparents’ ’88 Cutlass Ciera) to me resembled either some kind of pretzel or a rectangular “peace” symbol. Looking at the previous logo made it obvious what it actually was (a soaring rocket). The final logo change was indeed the most drastic one & seemed to have a clear sense of a new direction, but it simply wasn’t enough to rejuvenate an already dying brand. At least it managed to reach its 100th birthday (and several more years after), and was among the very first automotive brands if not THE first to do so at that.
When I first noticed the old hood ornament, I wondered if it was a peace symbol too!
Very pricey vehicle, shows how trendy the compact BOF SUV movement was back in the 90s.
Curious what the advantages of the Blazer/Jimmy/Bravada were over the now-legendary 3rd gen 4Runner? Looking at market value 15-20 years later, it is obvious which should have been purchased, but at the time what would compel someone to buy the GM versions over the Toyota?
MSRP.
My 93 Crown Vic was a color Ford called Dark Cranberry. Most of the time it was a really dark maroon, but in bright sunlight it had just a touch of purple to it. I tolerated it. My daughter loved it. The early 90s was maybe the last period of joyful abandon when it came to paint colors on cars.
One thing about the Bravada, GM did a credible job of making this a visible upgrade over the Blazer.
Had three Olds over the years. The 1950 was the only one that I remember fondly. The 72 had a (metric?) transmission that liked to break. The third was a Bravada from possibly 98. There seemed to be two kinds of Bravadas. One kind went 300k with nothing but oil changes and the other was always broken. At least that was so if one can believe the internet. I had the latter. That was quite a surprise to me since my prior vehicle was s sweet running S10.
Just based on looks I always thought Saturn should have been Oldsmobiles. My average would have been improved;. Had two SLs and two Vues. Only the first year Vue was a lemon. Afraid I lost patience with the General but happy it worked for you. Had you kept it I’m certain it would have gone 300k with no repairs;