Photos from the Cohort by Hyperpack.
Every decade has its memorable moments; events that bring joy, surprise, or shock. On the other hand, every era is filled with plenty of moments that pass you by, without notice.
Of course, the memorable moments are just that; you recall them with ease as they’ve become part of yourself. The others, well, you have to search hard into your mind and struggle to bring them back. For such forgotten moments, an image, a sound, or a smell may be needed as a trigger. Anything to reawaken the senses to remind the brain such a thing occurred.
And the existence of the first-gen. Lumina is such a case with me. Without the help of these images uploaded at the Cohort, I would struggle to recall the car at all. Talk about a bunch of memory cells I –easily– devoted to more important matters back then.
But such are the priorities of the brain, right? Do you want a casual observer to remember your newly released Lumina? Well, if so, this wasn’t quite the shape to leave an impression. Of any kind. Mind you, I’m no casual observer but used to be a Chevy fan in my youth.
Talk about underwhelming…
Just a few days ago, I was talking about being glad to see a first-gen. Ford Escort posted at the Cohort. An average ’80s econo-shape, that my brain cells did recall –with ease.
The sight of the car brought back some long-gone memories and filled in some blanks from my teen days. Somehow, the little car felt like it had been part of my previous life.
But this Lumina? I actually had to Google in search of period ads to see if anything triggered any memories. Bingo! This Disney ad appeared! A rather common one I remembered from my college days.
Just one important issue, however. I recalled everything about the ad, except the car.
The Lumina has been labeled a Deadly Sin at CC on more than one occasion. And rightly so. That such a disposable shape arrived to replace Chevy’s long-running Celebrity to face the likes of the Taurus and the Camry is all the more damning.
“Where’s the Light?” was Paul’s title for his Deadly Sin Lumina piece. And indeed, this Lumina’s Lumina badge seems to agree. It has faded almost to the point of non-existence.
Maybe my little recollection of the Lumina relates to my living in California during the 1990s. Probably. After all, looks like most Luminas that arrived to the Golden State did so solely to fleets.
In any case, I’m sure some CC readers out there will tell of these being decent daily transport, etc. Which I guess they were. A point in favor. Or two. And I’ll admit that it’s remarkable when an unremarkable car such as this survives in this condition to this day. But for this fan-boy of Chevy’s better days, as nice as this old Lumina is, I’ll do my best to leave any memory of it in the past.
Related CC reading:
Curbside Classic: 1991 Chevrolet Lumina Euro — GM’s Deadly Sin #18 — Where’s The Light?
Curbside Classic: 1997 Chevrolet Lumina — GM’s Deadly Sin #28 — The Re-gifter
I have a very vivid memory of a rental Lumina. Except I realize that maybe it wasn’t a Lumina at all, maybe a Corsica? I’m pretty sure it was before the first FWD Malibu. So in fact not very memorable as a car. What I do remember is that it was a mid-size front wheel drive Chevy, and not a Celebrity or Citation, and the power steering failed just as I was parking at our hotel in Vancouver, BC on a family vacation. The rental company was unhelpful, suggesting I return this almost undriveable car to exchange it. I held out till they came to the hotel with its replacement, a GrandAm. Poor visibility and embarrassing cladding, but reliable transport to explore the area. So I remember that GrandAm more positively than the Lumina?Corsica? Probably the last Pontiac I ever drove.
These are a bit forgettable but I knew a nu8mber of people that owned them and I rode in a bunch. The thin I remember the most was how comfortable they were. Like the rode a lot like my mothers 88 Caprice, which is weird to think about a FWD car that drives like a land yacht but they did. The only other FWD car I experienced like this was the early 90’s Chrysler new yorkers and dodge dynasty.
Thank you for reminding me that this car existed. I like simple vehicles that work, so I wanted to enjoy these. The Celebrities were around a long time, but they were pretty good cars. It was a moment of recognition when they were replaced by the Lumina.
First off, I never liked the name. Celebrity was a well established brand so when Chevrolet renamed its replacement, I assumed there was a difference between the cars. This raised expectations, and then when you realized that it was basically the same car – you felt a little taken advantage of. What I liked about the Celebrity was in the Lumina, but instead of straight lines, it was rounded ones. Big woo. No reason to drop an established brand name for something just weird.
I think Chevrolet makes attractive cars – but the lines on their 1990s vehicles looked cheap. The cut lines for the fenders, the flat sides, it had near zero surface details. It was a style Chevrolet used on the Baretta with better effect, but on the Lumina, it was not as nice a look. The classic Chevy grille on that year was a bit too vanilla, even for me.
That said, the interior. The interior also looked cheap. The materials used looked cheap. The dash wasn’t as attractive as the Celebrity’s dated rectangular design. The Lumina had a strange dash layout. I liked the attempt – but the attempt didn’t work. This was later replaced with a better design years later.
The Lumina seemed like a “me-too” design. As though GM wasn’t sold on the aerodynamic designs popular at the time, but didn’t have an alternative to offer. So – instead of doing something different and original, GM just rounded off the previously squared up formal look from the 1980s without any enthusiasm. The Lumina doesn’t look like the team of engineers and designers were excited about this car. Instead, the Lumina looked like someone was threatened with being canned if they screwed up – and that is what “Don’t screw up!” looks like after spending a half billion dollars.
I drove the Lumina, and it wasn’t bad – not good – but also not bad. It felt cheap in some ways, but then, how much did you really pay for this car when it was new in comparison to the competition? Less, right? I mean, no one paid more for a Lumina than they did for a Camry, Accord or Taurus/Sable, right? So, in the rental car fleets, the Lumina’s noisier ways of providing movement was more acceptable when you realized you save thousands of dollars. You got what you paid for.
A GM deadly sin. Sadly yes. We were ready for an exciting new Celebrity replacement because Chrysler was showing exciting new cars, and so was Ford, Toyota and Honda. The Big Number One Domestic Manufacturer was going to show us a “come back”, right?
Nope. And that was pretty deadly, right?
Not a fan of this one. Until the second generation arrived of course, talk about a disposable Fisher-Price quality interior without the longevity of the actual F-P products. That made this one look better; it’s all relative. This is an Irv Rybicki design, right? The rear wheel to D-pillar relationship makes me guess that without looking it up.
It seems to be remarkably rust free for a Pennsylvania car. I’m guessing grandparent purchase, dry weather driven only, maybe 60k miles total, now passed down to someone else.
This car seemed old even when it was new. As forgettable as the outside is, the inside was even worse. I’ll give it a few points for the nearly flat floor front and rear, and the low beltline (although outward visibility was compromised by the fat A pillars and the shoulder belf on the front doors.
I’ve mentioned this with the Lumina before, but I thought the flattened ellipse-shaped wheel arches on the first and second generation versions, dated the design. And created an unusual look.
Perhaps, Chevrolet was aiming to appeal to traditional buyers, with the 1970’s Colonnade Malibu-style shaped wheel arches. I felt they looked out-of-place, on a modern automobile. Most every competitor was going with more rounded wheel arches. Made the Lumina, look more like a middle-aged, or older person’s choice.
Quick Photoshop, using the second gen Lumina as an example, with rounded wheel arches. Looks more modern IMO. A bit more, Oldsmobile Aurora-like.
I remember when these came out, and thought these were really attractive cars. True it didn’t look like a Taurus or Camry, but several articles DID compare the styling to a Honda Accord. And the 3.1 MPFI V6 was one of the best engines GM ever made.
I think the deadly sin is the 95 redesign, which was about as bland and lifeless as you could get. That along with the 3100 engine, with the intake manifold/gasket issue.
I don’t this car qualifies as a deadly sin. The Lumina was neither a great or terrible car. It was an average early 90’s mid size sedan that neither helped nor hurt GM. Yes, it was not a 1955 Chevy, but it wasn’t an X-body either.
GM would have been better off just giving Chevrolet an H body and restyling the G body coupes abd not developing the W body
Remember seeing way more “two door”, Lumina’s in this version. This one appears to be “quite preserved”. Did you see the inside? In good shape too?
A high school friend was gifted a new ’93 navy blue Lumina Coupe to drive when he got his license at 16. Not a Z34 with a stick, but a regular coupe with 3.1 V6 & automatic. Not a horrible car, but not cool. Shortly after getting his license he told a group of us, within earshot of another friend’s extremely cool divorced mom, that although the Lumina sedan was boring, the coupe was a “chick magnet.”
Said cool divorced mom literally dropped everything she was holding as she walked by, immediately ran out to the driveway, started screaming for us to come quickly and help her, as she had sprawled out on the Lumina Coupe’s hood, complaining she was stuck to the magnet and could not escape its spell.
Not surprisingly, said Lumina Coupe driver was impressively embarrassed, said cool divorced mom became that much cooler in all our minds, and said Lumina was very soon thereafter replaced by a Chevy S10 Blazer. But every first-gen Lumina Coupe will always give me a smile and be the definition of a “chick magnet.”
Something about those rear doors reminded me of one of the Citroen CX models, or used to-I don’t notice that as much anymore.
The styling is pretty anodyne, but I’ve seen worse. It did seem like a three-year-old design when it came out. I think the elements that didn’t jive for me were the chrome mesh grille (the slatted Euro grille worked much better) and the lowered side window line. It should have been more harmoniously incorporated into the beltline. We didn’t need a four-door Beretta look.
“…the rear wheel to D- pillar relationship.” That should be C- pillar relationship, in reference to pushing the rear wheels back- Citroën-like- behind the back door window leading to odd proportions. This car has some of that, but it’s less noticeable than on the ’86 Seville. The real problem here is that this short- lived model should not have been produced at all. There should have been a Chevy H body that carried the Impala/Caprice name forward. That would have been a solid hit. The large rear drive model might have carried on as well, but under a different moniker- perhaps as a Bel Air.
In 1993 I was considering the newly released Z34 version of the Lumina with the H.O. DOHC engine after reading about it in all the car magazines. I went to the dealer and test drove one and was quite impressed overall with the drive. It came with a nice Bose sound system from the factory and other options. However, because of its dashboard design, interior materials, etc. were “cheap looking” and I did not wind up purchasing one. Overall concept of a sporty car for the times were good, but GM fell short in those areas.
These were EVERYWHERE when I was a kid. A high school friend’s parents had a red Euro two door that was pretty sharp, but the base sedans were nowhere in terms of styling.
We had one of these as a pool car at work. I was never so disappointed. Interior seemed cramped. Yet, the rest of the car felt like a mile long. Also, interior fit and finish was lacking, dashboard was awful, etc. IIRC, this was part of the GM10 initiative which failed to earn back its tremendous investment.
Curious cars did a review of a Buick Century GM10:
My extremely Catholic high school math teacher got one of these, new. Or rather, her husband got it—watching and listening to her talk about him and the two of them interact was a creepy 50-year throwback; one got the strong sense he only allowed her to put on shoes and leave the kitchen because teacher was a job god and Jesus and that lot had approved for self-confessed…women.
Anyhow: Lumina. It caught on fire all by itself one day while it was parked in the school parking lot. When she told about it, I said something like “Huh, that’s usually a Ford thing” (because in high school, as one does, I knew everything about which car companies were good and which ones were poopy). Her eyes got wide and she said “That’s exactly what one of the firefighters said!”.
These were contemptible, halfassed garbage through and through.
I drove a Lumina sedan once. It was an almost new and perfectly maintained specimen. At every turn dangerous understeer forced the wheels to lock in that direction. Decided then I would never be in another.
I love that ad: “Welcome to the new standard in family cars”
It is so sad to think that GM actually believed this. There was a time when GM routinely set the standard for family cars. By the time the Lumina was on the drawing board (let alone in showrooms) that time was long past.
I saw one of these this morning! And a Celebrity wagon an hour later lol.
CC pre effect!
As I have said before, I believe GM could have saved billions giving the a
billions via a proper A update instead of the expensive botched launch of these with the Ciera/Century soldiering on. In fact the Ciera and Century were sold for 2 years while the 2nd gen Lumina was out lol. And these never had wagons I assume because of the dustbuster vans and the As sticking around.
Overall you can see Ford and GMs drift from passenger cars. Ford probably should have had an updated 92 style Taurus a year or two earlier, and then come out with a more conventionally styled Camry par replacement in 94 or 95. You might have been able to bring an extended Mondeo here as the Taurus. I would have just let the in between Escort and Taurus size die
Similarly the redesigned As probably could have been strung out to 94 or so with something like the 97 Malibu (but better)replacing them. Never do the W/GM10. Give Chevy an H and maybe keep one consumer/fleet version of the B in limited production longer. Both companies would have been more profitable and less truck dependent. As it was, GM literally had no real competition for the CRV/RAV until 2005 and to this day its entries lose badly to Toyota/Honda in what is the modern equivalent to midsize sedans.