Bill Mitchell, GM's brilliant vice president of design, retired from GM just as the downsized 1977 full size models debuted. Something tells me he had little if anything to do with the downsized intermediates that rolled out for 1978. Especially the four door sedans like this 1986 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme.
As over the top ridiculous as the coupes were, especially those slant back nightmares, these sedans were equally as boring and nondescript. What's more, with the Oldsmobile and Buick models, they were virtually indistinguishable from one another.
You can't blame this car's banality on a GM mandate that their new mid size cars had to be within certain dimensions since these cars were larger on the outside than a 1955 Chevrolet; often times we can blame the size of the canvas for a compromised design but not in this case. If anything this car highlights just how difficult the design process is.
Poor design spilled over into the cabin too. The drive shaft hump is inexplicably huge and the location of the HVAC and radio controls are an ergonomic nightmare. The coupes suffered from the same goofy dash layout as well.
Things got worse back here. Not only is the hump as big as it is up front, the rear windows, famously, don't roll down. On my dad's 1980 Buick Century - again, literally the same car with Buick badging - I thought they didn't roll down as a safety precaution. Wishful thinking. No, they won't roll down because the rear bulk head is too far forward; there isn't room for the window to roll down.
Amazingly, these cars sold very well at first and held onto respectable sales through it's interminably long ten year production run. However, especially in the late 1970's, buyers had little choice. The imports really hadn't begun to take a bite out of GM sales and Ford and Chrysler were clueless. Well, to be fair, Chrysler was. Ford at least had a decent midsize car for 1978 with their Fox body Fairmont and Mercury Zephyr but they were, subjectively, ugly. At the end of the day, all things being equal and everything from The Big Three back then was a pile of poorly screwed together junk, styling wins.
Therefore, the Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme won by default; it was still better looking than anything Ford had. However, soon as viable options became available to buyers they jumped ship and more importantly, never came back. GM responded to the import onslaught and Ford's game changing Taurus replacing these cars with a series of intermediate coupes that showed buyers that not only could they no longer design a car that people found alluring, they had no idea what they wanted in the first place.
No comments:
Post a Comment