CC Wordless Outtake: Suddenly It’s 1988
– Posted on July 11, 2018
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The S10 is one of the best looking trucks ever made. the Cavalier…….say what you want i see more of them than i do it’s Japanese competition of the same era.
A little worse for wear, but they’re still here. Minus some paint finish. Dealing with the paint recalls was no fun. Drove tons of these at a Chevy dealership in ’88 when I was 21. (I have some pretty similar stories like Paul’s…destructive fun.)
Kinda makes me miss my ’89 Ranger. I still see it around town. Oh well, I still have my ’93 Ranger Sport. Complete with original graphics. Maybe I’ll post some pics to the Cohort.
Remarkable to see a Chevy truck that isn’t towering over the car next to it.
Proof that after several tries, with clean sheet designs, GM still couldn’t produce a small car that equalled….much less surpassed Toyota and Nissan.
I can count on one hand the number of Cavaliers (even Cobalts are getting rare) that I have seen in the last 6 months. Same with 1st generation S-10s.
I dunno about that. A good many people got good service out of those J cars back in the day. Granted, the base 4 bangers were usually saddled with 3 speed slushboxes offering an all around soggy experience….but they plodded on, and the coupes actually looked like something youd ‘want’ to own, not just another econo-penalty box. A Cavalier Z24 with the 60 degree V6 and a 5spd wasn’t a bad ride at all for those times. Not until the Sentra SE-R did Nissan have anything comparable. Toyota…nothing I know of.
Corolla GT-S. Celica GT-S.
I’m not so sure GM tried to compete with the Civic and Corolla by the mid 80’s. In theory it does but in theory Miller High Life competes with Heineken. The Cavalier was a good deal cheaper than the Civic or Corolla and GMAC was pretty liberal when choosing customers. You bought the Cavalier because you had better uses for the money than a better car like security deposits or tuition. You buy Miller High Life because you have better uses for the extra money like propane for the grill or nachos or more beer. As cheap durable cars go, the Cavalier isn’t a bad one. As cheap beers go, Miller High Life isn’t bad.
Are you saying the Cavalier is the Champagne of compacts? 🙂
Actually GM joined the party by rebadging the Corolla itself as the Nova and then bringing in the Sprint for good measure followed later by a passle of Isuzus in Geo guise. But actual in-house engineering? No.
At least here in mass, 95-05 cavaliers are everywhere and there seem to be a lot more first gen s10s than Rangers.
Back in ’88, I rented a Cavalier (with the “graph paper” instrument panel) on a trip to Massachusetts to visit some friends where I used to work (I’d moved to Texas 5 years prior). Somehow they “snuck” me into where I used to work to show me all the changes since I left on stuff I worked on…one of the guys is still working there (well, the company got bought out, but he really never changed jobs, just got absorbed…..he’s been there since 1979.
The Cavalier seemed OK, but my parents had bought a ’84 Pontiac Sunbird brand new, which I think has the distinction of being the worst car they ever owned (and they owned Renaults, AMC cars, and others)…the timing belt broke when the car was only a few months old, and it had a replacement engine at around 40k miles….by that time my youngest sister took it over to go to college and it had leaky steering pump (she kept having to fill the reservoir)…and the 2nd engine went probably with about 85k miles (threw a rod)…car was serviced regularly at Pontiac. My sister had previously bought an 84 Sunbird new also (only new car I ever remember my brother in law buying), but she had more luck with hers, it lasted on its original engine until the rust finally got to it.
I disagree with the Nissan assessment. They were junk in the late 1980’s into the 1990’s. I live in the MD/VA/DC area and I have seen more early 1990’s VW products in the last 10 years then early 1990’s Nissan products .
The Nissan Hardbody pickup truck was everywhere in my area when they were still being made. 10 years later there are non around.
Old Toyota products are still around in droves (92-96 Camrys, 93-97 Corollas and pick up trucks)
Surprisingly as Maryland happens to be the rock salt capital of the USA, there are plenty of first generation S-10 trucks, plenty of 2nd generation S-10 trucks and second generation s-10 Blazers
Actually in my neck of woods there is still plenty of 80s celebrities and cavaliers are on the road but I keep hearing my American friends complaining about their quality is it possible the export models were better made than Domestic ones?
Not sure where you live but rust was a massive killer of most 80’s GM cars, and really most domestic cars. The benefit of buying an 80’s GM car (and there aren’t many) is that you were getting already proven drivetrains, just in different cars.
It seemed like the later square Cavaliers rusted worse than the ’82-87s, at that.
Makes me remember of my old article about my 4 different ’88 cars I had: http://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/cars-of-a-lifetime-four-times-88-equals-success/
Spot-on for the Cavalier, but the grille says that’s a 1990-1993 S-10.
I find the crispness of both of these strangely attractive against today’s riot of strakes, cuts, bulges, and otherwise Transformers-inspired design.
My 1990 Cavalier with it’s 2.2 and THM125 is still going strong. I replaced the strut assemblies myself about two months ago. Made a huge difference in the ride and steering response.
in 2006 i purchased an 89 cavalier coupe RS with 90k miles, from the original owner. this car was fairly clean and looked rather taken care of, but it was obviously just not a quality car. the interior was a joke- the arm rest on the door fell off, crusty yellow foam from the fabric delaminating from the roof and sun visor surface, bent seat rails, non functioning delco radio, broken windshield/turn signal stalks, no ac (broken condenser – which likely died a long time before i bought it like most GM vehicles.) it only mechanically lasted me a year before i decided it’s not worth fixing. (head gasket and emission issues)
im sure some of this could be related to owner abuse and neglect over the course of 17 years, but even in 2006, the car was on its death bed. the car appeared to be as clean as a whistle on the outside but had a myriad of cosmetic and mechanical faults, not to mention inherent ergonomic issues. i have no interest to see what the car would look like in 2018. i imagine the whole vehicle would be more like a fine pyramid of delaminated fabric foam by now.
in comparison, in 2012 i found a 1 owner 92 honda accord with 71k miles that was sitting for 5 years, and after new fluids/tires/battery/wash, was literally showroom perfect and had no problem collecting another 75k miles before i sold it for $1000 more than what i paid for it 3 years earlier.
i’ll take a 20 year old honda over a 17 year old cavalier any day, but i’ll always hold close the memories i’ve collected with the heartbeat of america.