We’ve remarked here many times how the FWD A body became a genuine Roach of the Road – but only the Olds and Buick versions, because the Chevy and Pontiac versions weren’t made for as many years and had largely faded away.
Yet here’s this one, from 1988 I think, a little out of place in one of the toniest neighborhoods of Indianapolis’s wealthiest suburb. It shows every sign of being a survivor, yet somehow it lasted thirty years with only mismatched wheel covers keeping it from being all original.
It is amazing how quickly these aged from their 1982(?) introduction and the time this one was built. That aging could also be spelled T-a-u-r-u-s. By 1988 almost everything had gotten rounded corners, if only even slightly. Think of the long wheelbase K-based New Yorkers. And of course the Taurus was everywhere (along with the Tempo and Thunderbird which preceded them). Jeeze, even the Crown Victoria was getting its corners ground off.
But not these. Proudly angular right through the end. The Olds and Buick eventually got that same treatment, but I don’t believe the Celeb ever did. And I cannot remember the last one of these I saw.
And I had forgotten that the gold bow tie emblem went back this far.
They sort of kind of rounded off the front end when they went to composite headlights. Gotta give credit where it’s due!
I like ‘boxier’-looking cars so it’s nice to see this humble Celebrity hanging on after 30 years with its mostly boxy ‘look’ (with a nod to the sorta, kinda rounded off front end). I hope its owner will find a way to match up the wheel covers. Would it really be a cost-prohibitive thing to do? I honestly don’t know, but if it wouldn’t cost an arm and a leg I know I’d endeavor to find proper wheel covers for Celebrity Survivor.
This owner probably isn’t driving a 30 year old Chevrolet as a protest against materialism. This is rock bottom.
Is it possible its owner actually ~likes~ the car? 😀
No. The idea that the owner of a 30 year old Chevy sedan with bad paint and three mismatched wheelcovers likes the car is ludicrous. All that the owner of this $100 car sees is a rolling trap door waiting to open and drop him/her another economic step.
At least they didn’t round off the bow tie! 🙂
No, the Celebrity was heavily revised for 1986 and had four sealed beam rectangular headlamps. The 1987 model year changed the headlamps to composite type.
I know because I owned a 1986 before…
Am I correct in thinking that the first composite (1987 to maybe 1990) headlamp lenses used on GM cars were made out of glass before manufacturers switched to the Lexan polycarbonate lenses?
Gold bow tie started with the 1973 trucks and started appearing on cars in the later ’70s as Chevy moved back to it from having mainly used a lot of individual-model emblems along with various “CHEVROLET” scripts.
I can hear the Iron Duke moaning from here…just like when the Postman accelerates away from my mailbox……
The Iron Duke has many flaws…it’s vibrations…its weak output…but most annoying is that souless moan it makes off idle…..
That moan – GM probably wanted to move you up to the V6, whereas many customers decided to move off to Honda.
I always found them attractive – especially the 1982 original and ’85 facelift.
Sadly, I can’t find another positive thing to say about it. The driving experience was awful and the build quality was worse.
However, I’m sure Ford, Honda and Toyota LOVED them.
These, along with their brethren, and various Tauri/Sables have pretty much vanished here in salty southern Ontario.
There are three people in my Southern Ontario town who drive a Pontiac 6000. Two are blue and one’s silver. I don’t know who owns the silver and one of the blue ones but they are in absolute pristine condition. The other blue one is very rusty. They’re all definitely runners as I see them rolling around town on a somewhat regular basis.
I don’t know what kind of legendary person it takes to keep your Pontiac 6000 in factory condition, but those people are out there apparently.
These are rare. Come to think of it, even the A-body Century and Ciera are getting pretty scarce, at least in my parts. But even years ago when those A-bodies were everyday sights, the Celebrity, with its earlier discontinuation and lower price point wasn’t as common.
As rare as these are, I must see 20 of them for every Pontiac 6000 I see. For whatever reason, it seemed the vast majority of the Pontiac A-bodies never made it past the 90’s. It’s only been the past couple of years that I’ve really noticed the Ciera’s and Century’s are starting to get scarce
CC effect. I saw two of these on a store errand today (4 mi round trip). Both were well preserved Olds Cieras driven by younger peeps, And yes, a pretty upscale neighborhood too.
That one doesn’t look long for this world…
In MN, that would be considered immaculate.
It’s pretty pristine, especially for Indianapolis. It’s likely got another decade or two left in it by the way it looks.
This car is worth less than the cost of a brake job and a set of tires. It has a year or two, not a decade or two.
And those tires and that brake job are still less outlay than buying something else (used, undoubtedly) that will likely need tires and possibly brakes.
No, Grandma’s $700 92 Skylark doesn’t need tires or brakes. That’s why “perfectly good” cars like this hopeless sled go to the junkyard.
The other day I passed one of these on a four-lane highway. A young engineer who works for me was in the car.
I commented to myself about seeing an old Celebrity. He was puzzled – “A what?”
A Chevrolet Celebrity.
“God, that thing looks ancient.”
Yeah, 1980s.
“What is that ‘2.8 FI’ badge on the front fender mean?”
Times do change.
+1 for “The Ancient ’80s”. I was watching “T.J. HOOKER” last night on feTV and it was an episode from 1986. Doesn’t seem that long ago . . . until you realize William Shatner is now 87 and James Darren is 82.
Did you tell him ‘forced induction’ – its supercharged!, just to mess with him?
How much of the X-body made it into the A-body? While the Celebrity was still craptacular, it was a definite improvement and, unlike the Citation, was tolerable. I wonder how differently things might have transpired if GM had been able to get the Celebrity into production instead of the Citation.
To me it looks like the doors and B-pillar are the same… but I am not an expert on these cars, so don’t take my word for it.
The X body got all of the mechanical improvements of the A, but the Citation name and style was poison after Chevrolet dropped a million turds on America’s driveways.
I ordered parts for a bazillion A and X bodies so I can say quite a lot was common, like the entire power train, suspension, GM’s ancient even then wiring harness, the works. All the window motors and the like were also the same.
Whatever upgrades were not easy to see. For example, although they changed the rear shoe material to one less prone to locking, it retained the same part number. Same for the grind themselves to dust strut mounts. Most of the problems of the X cars was due to rushed developed and wide-open assembly line. Once this was sorted they were not as bad.
They were, however, all bad cars. Disposable trash, like a 1960 BelAir. Problem was buyers wanted better quality, which was dished up by GM’s competition.
A friends mother had one, a four cylinder. I think the motor mounts were shot. The car was absolutely horrid and it felt like it would shake itself apart at idle. I call this a deadly sin.
Didn’t these things have a “dogbone” engine mount at the top front of the engine bay to prevent vibration in the 4-cyl models? As if that really worked!
There are two scrapped early ones at a house not far from where I live.
I still see a 1984-85 (pre-facelift model) wagon parked at the Texas Roadhouse parking lot which makes me believe the vehicle is owned by an employee
We had an Iron Duke/’87 Eurosport from ’97 to 2000. Shaked, rattled and rolled it’s way into our hearts. Just kidding. It was a car and did car stuff. Liked the maroon seats and the sporty steering wheel. Not a car for passionate driving. But plain old car things it excelled at. Going, check. Stopping, check. Turning, check. Dropping off a cheque, check. Good times…check.
Check!
I saw a similar color Buick A Body today. Haven’t seen … or at least noticed … a Celebrity for a while.
The company I work for had dozens, ’82-’85, 2.5L TBI, base models. Dull, uninspired, noisy, but very reliable and lots of room. At the same time we had a number of like vintage Tempo’s with the 2.3L HSC engine. They too were dull, uninspired, and noisy, but they were not reliable at all and were very cramped inside.
When a Celebrity got the shakes, it was usually due to the torque strut bushings being shot or in extreme cases missing altogether. This was often caused by parking on a grade and not using the parking brake. Cheap and easy fix.
Oh, but pish-tosh! The maid and the cook and the miscellaneous other help have got to get to work somehow…
Celebrity, yeah, uhm, like Abe Vigoda was a celebrity, right?
Hey, he was enough of a celebrity to have a website dedicated to the sole purpose of reporting if he was alive or dead…
http://www.abevigoda.com
Abe made the same mistake McLean Stevenson did a couple of years earlier: He left a successful ensemble series for his own show which only lasted 1 season.
The other night, I was behind an early celebrity coupe.
The 80s A bodies excel at being a GM sedan that I actually like the looks of, especially the Century. The downside is when the engine started. To my ear, 80s GM products all seemed to have a wheezing, laboring sound to them.
Last time I saw an 80s A body, a Century, was maybe 5 years ago, wheezing, and clattering, it’s way into a Wendy’s. That rust bucket was the first A body I had seen in many years, and it made the car in the OP look factory fresh.
Of course, the most famous A body was the Ciera.
I would love one of the pre facelift versions.
The rounded front with the composite headlights doesn’t suit the rest of the design.
Granted it was dated by the time it hit, but I have very fond memories of an 87 cutlass ciera that was bought by my friends mom when we were in high school. So I have a soft spot for these cars. Bought by a single Mom doing her best to raise kids and give them the opportunity to be themselves. We put 80K miles on that car, in 3 years. I will always enjoy seeing one.
I just noticed that it’s the single ventiport edition! For it’s wee supercharger.
The only car in my area I see that is even close to being this old is a early 90s Accord with duct tape holding up widows and severely rusted rear fenders. I have never seen it move so I am unsure it even runs.
Old trucks seem to be more common for some reason.
I was present and helped negotiations when my brother bought a slightly used ’87 from a Chevy dealer in the spring of ’88. Identical to this CC down to the color and the Iron Duke. It was far from an exciting car but was reliable and ran well. Not all of them were turds as at least his wasn’t DS worthy.
Does anyone remember this car in the Eurosport VR edition?
Like here…
I despised my Celebrity for many years after I unceremoniously sent it off to the Great A-Body Pasture in the sky in 1997. Now, I have a strange yearning for one.
At least, I could choose a better car from the 1980s to soothe my yearning: 1984 Oldsmobile 98 Regency saloon or perhaps Chevrolet Caprice estate.
GM waited for what seemed like an eternity, to bring out the new W body replacements. And by the time they did, buyers didn’t care, and moved on…
Lumina was forgotten by 2001.
Olds and Buick keeping the A bodies another decade didn’t help W sales. But, at least GM wrung out the R&D cost of the W by keepin Impala around until 2016!
I had an ’87 Celebrity wagon. Iron Duke. It was’t a bad car. I still have a soft spot for them, not sure why. Maybe because the styling was clean?
Here is a Celebrity that is a daily driver and I see in my office parking lot quite often. I’m going to guess 1986 based on looking the car up since I never paid attention to American cars in the ’80s like these.
Back side
My hands are just itching to take a polisher to that paint to see if it can be brought back. Love me some A-body. Solid workhorses of middle America, in some working class neighborhoods around here not uncommon to see to this day.
Why anyone bought these after 1986 when the Corsica and beretta came out in 87 is beyond me. They look better and much more well put together. The seats in these cars hurt my back and don’t adjust unless it has bucket seats. Not to mention the strange (arch) on the trunk lid, that and the dopey steering wheel always annoyed me. I however do like the Eurosport models and the wagons somewhat. The euros handle nice, the non euro without the f41 steering and suspension handle awful, bouncy, sloppy steering etc. they did get better after 1985, the earlier ones were exceptionally bad.