I had one of these in 1989...white 3 door hatchback with automatic. I managed to get 45k miles out of it in 3 years and had just one electrical problem that was easily fixed. It was all I could afford at the time...just $9k new. It had A/C which worked fine. I took several long road trips in it without failure. It did handle well and was surprisingly quiet. I remember test driving a Hyundai Accent then which literally sounded like riding inside of a tin can.
Sold in Canada as a Passport Optima and later as the Asüna GT and GSE. My friend who had moved here from Switzerland shortly before its launch recognized it as an Opel Kadet and happily bought a three-door hatchback manual. It honestly wasn't all that bad. Certainly better to drive than the contemporary J2000.
Here in Germany the Opel Kadett now is a desired youngtimer, of course especially the sporty versions like the GSi 16V. It's really fun to drive, 150 hp in around 2000 pounds. But also other rare trims with less hp get quite expensive these days. The only problem with these cars is rust, they rust like hell, like so many other cars from this era. That's where the majority of these cars has gone. They were really cheap in the early 2000s, and were beaten to death als beginners cars, winter cars, etc. and just fell into peaces.
How can this POS be a desired car? It screams cheap and cost cutting the production. BTW, it was produced in Uzbekistan Daewoo factory up to 2016 and sold in Russia for a very cheap price, so it's assotiated with illegal immigrants unlicensed cab drivers here. Also, this car rust out in like 3 to 6 years, worse than a Lada. If a car is worse than a Lada, then it's really an awfull car.
@@christianholmstedt8770 - I believe a major reason why is it was built by Daewoo. That was done by GM as importing a Kadett E from Europe would have made it non-competitive cost-wise in the 'econobox' market. GM opted to have it done by Daewoo, who were under their wider umbrella then. Daewoo were not known for building cars seen as being at 'global' quality levels yet, so it was a good design built indifferently and to a typical low-ball GM bean counter price. If you compared a LeMans to the Civic or Corolla in those days, both were light years ahead in terms of overall refinement and quality. Even the VW Golf (Mk2), built in the US then (at Westmoreland, PA), was a far better built car in comparison to a Daewoo LeMans.
@@GetToHellOut It's the design. Design wise it's very balanced and pretty especially in 2 tone paint. Very much like an Alfa 164 as far as balanced design. Very modern at the time as well. In sporty packages the 3 door hatchback has the potential to look like a rally car. Consider the trash that was on sale in the US at the time, from the Cavalier to the Chevette. I'd love to have one here in America. With a European sticker on the back.
As the Vauxhall Astra Mk2 here in the UK, it was hugely popular - regularly a top seller over the Ford Escort which was it’s main rival. Later in it’s life we had the iconic Astra GTE with the legendary 2.0 16v ‘Redtop’ engine which was good for 150hp - it was the ‘hot hatch’ of choice in the 1980s along with the Escort XR3i and the Peugeot 205GTi. Great video
Greetings from Brazil, Adam. Finally, a car that relates to us! Not many cars sold in the US were sold here as well, but the Kadett (Chevrolet for us) was, and also built in Brazil (GM assembly in Sao Caetano do Sul, SP). Chevrolet's lineup of the 80s and 90s was mainly german (Opel), and the Kadett was no exception. It was the Kadett "E" generation, comprising the 3-door hatchback and the wagon (Ipanema), with minor facelifts. The GSi was top of the line, made around 120hp, and there was a convertible version too, both very sought after at the time. The Kadett had a nice run, selling 460k from 89 to 98. Brings back some childhood memories, for sure. Keep up the good work!
The idle and AC problem was the speed sensor, which was supposed to tell the AC compressor to turn off under hard acceleration. We had to manually turn off the ac every time we needed to pull out into traffic. The car would randomly die a lot, we'd have the sensor replaced under extended warranty, and wound up doing that 6 times. The last time, they didn't have oem part, so they asked us if an aftermarket part was OK. It worked flawlessly until we got rid of the car.
The only issues that I had were a short in the heat control (almost started a fire), repeated leaking seals on the engine and the transmission which died after 5 years
Sounds like my 99 Matiz. In a trip from Daegu to Busan, through the hills I had the pedal welded to the floor and it was struggling up hills. My gf turned off the AC and the car got 10% of its power back lol. Great little car, I still have it.
With due respect the "French name" was really collateral damage. GM LOVED tarnishing prestigious race venues by placing said names on their cars. Lemans, Monte Carlo, Bonneville, Monza, Grand Prix, Trans Am, Can Am. Anyway I had completely forgot about this car, the Renault Alliance might be a close contender to this. And younger people these days have no idea how bad it really was during those years. In 1990 the car to have was the Taurus Sho... with 225 hp. Thanks for the memories! :P
One story from my many years working at an Oldsmobile dealership: a customer came in who had won $22,000 from the California lottery. She bought a used Pontiac LeMans (Daewoo, like this one) . . .for cash, of course.
It's so interesting to discover that my 2013 Chevy Spark is essentially the "grand successor" of the Pontiac LeMans. My car was built at a Daewoo (GM Korea) plant (maybe the same one?!). Approximately the same performance numbers, same market segment. Even the front end of the Spark kinda resembles the LeMans a teeny tiny bit.
not the same marketsegment though, one's a subcompact, he other's classed as a citycar...they're two classes apart. Though it IS built in the same factory
Ah....flashbacks to my senior year in college...fall 1988...an acquaintance who bought this as her first new car....she traded a Ford Pinto for it.....somehow, the Pinto seemed superior. She gave me a ride in it...and in the back of my mind, I'm thinking my aging G Body Cutlass seemed more refined than this car. When my car was going in for body work, the dealer gave me a gray 1991 LeMans sedan as a loaner....it was probably the most underwhelming car I've ever driven. Merging on the freeway was exciting...not in the we build excitement..more of a I hope I can get up to traffic speed quickly.
I was a parts counter guy at a Chevy dealership which sold Daewoo's in 2001. Not the best quality and their parts system was straight out of the 1970's. It was a challenge to find and order the right parts to say the least.
It bothered me at the time that the LeMans name was dropped in '82 and rebadged as a Bonneville. Didn't make sense as Bonnevilles had been known as full sized cars.
Pontiac meant for the G-body to be their full size car going forward. They dropped all B-bodies in 1982 due to poor sales. The rest of the GM brands were supposed to drop theirs after 1983. Given fuel prices and the state of the economy, full size cars at every domestic brand were on the chopping block. Chrysler, Dodge, and Plymouth killed their R-bodies in ‘81, letting the formerly midsize M-bodies be their “full-size cars” instead. Ford renamed the Fox-body Granada and Cougar sedans and wagons in 1983 as the LTD and Marquis because they, too, planned to drop the Panthers after the ‘83 model year. But in 1983, fuel prices dropped, the economy finally rebounded, Pontiac brought its B-body back as the late ‘83 Parisienne, and most of the rest got a stay of execution in some form or other.
About 1993/94 I worked for a friend that had a garage. I remember a couple customers coming in with these cars. I don't really remember how they rode or drove but I do remember that they seemed cheaply made. Although few cars in this era really were good examples of quality materials & workmanship. One thing we did discover was that these seemed to be more easily repaired than almost anything else. Perhaps intended to be easily fixed "in the field" with few tools. I think we figured you could replace a clutch without pulling the trans, & it looked like you could do a timing belt with hardly more than a screwdriver & pliers. I think the cover was just on with spring clips you could pop right off.
with the clutch, you're right. on the Opel Kadett "E", this was the nomenclature for this Kadett, and his predecessor, the Opel Kadett "D" (Vauxhall Astra MKI), could the clutch be replaced in 30-45 Minutes without removing the engine or the gearbox. they were very easy to maintain.
@@CommodoreCaravan1981 I had the 1988 Passport Optima VL...VL for Value Leader, and it was. 4 speed stick, no power steering, no tach, no radio, fixed quarter windows. I quickly had them put in a tach, got an aftermarket radio, it was a cassette stereo deck. That car owed me nothing I had it for 14 years and drove it to 270,000km and it only gave me trouble with the muffler, brake job and you’re right about the clutch. I had a shop that had never seen this car before and so he quoted me on what he thought the clutch would cost, I went to pick it up and he said hey this car is kind of awesome there is a little trap door where they dropped the clutch out, I was very happy it cost hardly anything at all, really one of my favourite cars to be honest even though it’s reviled by most.
At the time they were new I was a quality control supervisor that had moved from Germany to integrate a recently acquired American pharmaceutical company and overhaul there manufacturing and quality procedures so that their products could be sold on the European market. I commuted 144 mi round trip per day and wanted an inexpensive commuter car. I recognized the LeMans as a rebadged Opel Kadett and purchased a four-door 5 speed. I commuted to work daily for 5 years as well as took it on sightseeing trips all over the United States and Canada. I was driving it from Chicago to Anchorage Alaska when it turned 150k miles. It certainly lacked the refinement and workmanship of its Opel counterpart but it never failed to start and only left me stranded twice in almost 200,000 miles. Once was from a bad fuel pump relay and the other time was from a bad replacement battery which was hardly the car's fault. Hardly the greatest car I've ever owned but as an inexpensive commuter car it was not as bad as urban legend suggests.
YEah... I had a great experience with this car. Never died, I drove it to the scrapyard feeling sorry for her, but I was traveling abroad for work and nobody wanted it as it was very old. Very cheap maintenance, and never ever leaves you around. Low fuel consumption and very nice performance for its size and cost. Who ever had one, doesn't remember it that bad as the video says. Of course not comparable with a 20K $ car, but also it doesn't dissapoint as one of them when the problems come.
Yeah! I like how you included an image @ 2:20 of one of these tooling around my home -Wisconsin. Exactly as I remember them too, largely ignored rusty crusty winter beaters that I can't believe someone bothered to take a picture of🙂, plus nicely matching the rusty broke tranny-Focus in the background even -sweet! Cheers!!
I think I remember everyone back then shaking their heads at most of the new cars coming out. A lot of "these gov regs are such bs!" Lol and a lot of modifications too.
My Mom bought a Pontiac Sunbird convertible new in '89. It was red with a white top and even sported 'turbo' emblems. It was loud, uncomfortable, idled roughly and really didn't have much power. She pretended to like it for awhile (for my dad's sake), then traded it in for a new '92 Mazda
I have owned a 1970 Pontiac T-37, 1974 Grand Prix, 1975 and 1978 Firebirds, and a 1977 Ventura. All rear wheel drive, all carbureted. I loved all of them. But as you said, the 1988-1993 "LeMans" was not a Pontiac at all, but a Daewoo, a Korean brand. Daewoo vehicles have been sold under several GM names. They were all junk, including my sisters former 2010 Daewoo Aveo, sold under the Chevrolet name.
It was an Opel...made worse by GM costcutting (in the worst way...considering it didn't end up saving a lot of money for them, but did ruin the comparable quality when you looked at the Opel Kadett at the time).
I had to say that european version, built in Germany under the brand / model Opel Kadett, is one of the bests cars of 80's and 90's. The main reason I use to say if a car is good or not, is not design, power or small issues like part's adjustements, the main reason is reliability. As always you could find someone whose design, size or power would suit him. And this car is a rock, so it is not rare to see one of them riding now a days, with more than 30 years. I had one when I was young, and this one is the first car I really enjoyed, because it was old when I bought it, so I didn't worry to park it everywere or driving it along a beach and going off-road. It was also very cheap to maintain, so I didn't have to spend all my earnings on it. The only "problem" I had was the water pump, that I had to change (at a very low cost) when the car was more than 300K Kilometers. I remember once I took it to the workshop and asked for a distribution chain change, and the owner told me there was no need to change in this one, as if it ends breaking the chain, the engine wont suffer as it was robust enough, and the only pieces to replace would be the cheap rockers.
A friend had the Aero Coupé 5-spd and it suffered a crisis with every added passenger. Little thing refused to quit amd was never failed, except for the hood latch.
You have that pos covered very well. Maybe an idea for one of your "strange" features videos - do you remember the Dodge Colt with the twin stick transaxle? A 4 speed you could shift 8 times - and even 2 more in reverse.
@@terry-zi7eh in nz rhey sold as pontiac lemans...i still have a brochure...i dont think ive seen a single one on the roads...ever...tells you something eh
@@terry-zi7eh Cool. A kid I used to know in the early 80's had one, and of course abused it to no end, but he could get 8 shifts out of it. 2 hands I think.
The cars you really wanna compare these against were the 85-92 Jetta and Golf here in the states. They had a major advantage in the form of multipoint fuel injection and a history of having to meet us emissions regs that Opel didn’t plan these cars around. VW lost lots of ground to the Japanese in this era with dated interiors and stodgy upright looks, an absence of power assists and poor quality but the cars were at least quick for the price and handled well. By contrast the Kadett’s primary shortcomings in Europe were its chassis dynamics. So basically imagine a Golf with understeer and poor damping and a throttle body injection system built in Korea.
I can remember looking at one of these at my local Pontiac/Isuzu dealer here in TX. Awful little thing; I bought an Isuzu pickup that lasted over 300K miles without an engine rebuild. Justice of the Peace rearended it, totaling it, or I'd probably still be driving it! Great video--looking forward to more on that Ambassador.
Isuzu is/was highly underrated, especially their Diesel engines. Even the rebadged GM vehicles weren’t bad. But Isuzu’s own designs were generally perfectly reliable even if they did rust.
fun fact: this Korean built "Pontiac Le Mans", labeled Opel Kadett, came back to Europe and Germany as the Daewoo Nexia in 1994. The Kadett already was a rustbucket, but the Daewoo Nexia topped it. this car fell apart when you're leaving the showroom with it >_
Those were called Daewoo Cielo in my neck of the woods, the did all rott away (either rusted to oblivion, or just broke down so much that they were just finished in junkyards).
If they wanted the sporty slant to the Pontiac brand, I wonder why they didn't bring the GSi engine? It had a 150 hp, 16 valve engine with a catalytic converter, and a manual 5-speed gearbox back in 1988 and did 0-60 in 6.7 seconds.
The Kadett GSi 16v/Astra GTE 16v, crikey that was a fast car. It had multipoint Bosch EFi with the Motronic ECU if I remember correctly and it wasn't that heavy on petrol either.
Some would point at the final year of 1st gen GTO production with that same finger, but '74 GTOs are still pretty dang cool! The 21st century GTO should've been badged as a Malibu SS. That would've been most appropriate.
We used to own Opel Kadett , my father bought it from Germany in 1986, we sold it in 2010. nice car, reliable, comfy. she served us loyally for 24 years. The common issue we faced with this car was the camshaft was always broken.
Among my parents Pontiacs that I remember were a 1979 Bonneville Brougham Coupe (black with red velour but totally loaded otherwise) and a 1987 Bonneville SE metallic red with grey cloth but loaded otherwise but since it was bought in Florida, it didn't have the rear defroster option... not necessarily the best thing for its Vermont life... that said, both of these cars were great and I miss them...
My parents also had a loaded 1979 Bonneville Brougham Landau coupe. I think it was Carmine Iridescent red, and it had a super comfy red velour interior. I'd love to have that car today.
You nailed it Adam - what a POS!!! I knew a guy who bought one new. It actually did OK, but the seats were junk. You know? One time in the early 1990s on I75 In Ohio, I saw one of these cars, and the badge on the decklid said "Ultima." The car had Canadian plates, and as I remember, it had a different grill than the Pontiac version. I remember thinking it was a rental, maybe because of a bar code decal or something like that. I recognized this LeMans as a crime against its namesake, from day one!
I vaguely remember the car you are talking about. GM sold these as the Passport Optima for a very short time in the late '80's, early '90's in Canada. Good luck finding one of those...
Back in the day, we had these as Taxis in Pakistan as a part of Yellow Cab Scheme in the early 90s. Although, these were badge-engineered by Daewoo as Daewoo Racer.
Adam, What an odd way to celebrate the semi-monumental 😉achievement of reaching 75,000 SUBSCRIBERS!! Daewoo was/is probably the worst partner GM ever had. Somehow, long after ending relationships with Saab, Subaru, Suzuki and Toyota, GM still inexplicably lets Daewoo build cars for them. 🤨 Pontiac still lives 0:24 in hearts and minds as well as my driveway where my 2005 Vibe keeps on purring like a kitten 🤩🤩
I got rear- ended 4 times in my 91 Le Mans- by a Town Car in a drive thru, a Coupe DeVille at speed, by a Ranger- that impact destroyed his chrome front bumper, and some other car, and never even scratched my bumper. Later, the driver's seat frame broke in 3 places; I figure that was from all these impacts.
@@howebrad4601 um, NO. The lady driving the Town Car floored it after placing her order in the drive thru, knocking me into the car in front of me, damaging his license plate frame. The Caddy didn't notice me slowing down with signal on to make a left turn, and knocked me 20 feet forward. The Ranger hit me at a red light.
@@howebrad4601 that was decades ago, and I mostly laughed at the drivers. I asked the Town Car lady, "are you hungry, or what?" The Ranger guy was like, 'Now what am I gonna do? That bumper cost me $600!' I couldn't help laughing at that one, since he hit me. It was kind of funny when I got out of the car when the Caddy lady hit me and I saw how far she'd shoved me :) It became a routine of grabbing my keys, making sure the hatch still opened ok, and driving on. (Don't remember the 4th incident beyond it being the 4th, but by that time it was boring....)
The Opel Kadett GSi was a high performance hatch in Europe; it was fast on the highway and handled well in the mountains. The German built Kadett had a good build reputation. The Korean made LeMans was junk. I suppose the closest car to the Opel Kadett GSi in the US would have been a VW GTI (German, not Mexican built). The Peugeot 205 GTI was smaller, more fun, and a bit more "basic"; that was the best hot hatch ever made. Can't understand why US automakers reserved the best cars for Europe and sent so much junk to the US. I suppose living standards in Europe were much higher so they could pay up.
In high school in the mid nineties I was in love with a young woman who drove a 4 door Pontiac LeMans exactly like the white one in your video. Thank you for not naming the Pontiac Aztec as everyone else does. The Aztec was an awesome vehicle overall.
As a new car detail guy at a Pontiac dealer in Texas I don’t have bad memories of the Lemans. Yes it was homely but from a build quality initial perspective it seemed better than all the other new Pontiacs on the lot.
@@michaellinner7772 Not going to argue about that, the design was a bit plain, but this was also due to the aero-wars in europe at the time, with every carmaker sacrificing style for functionality in terms of aerodynamic designs.
Greetings from Europe and thanks for showcasing this town bicycle of GM design. This exact car was sold as an Opel Kadett in Europe, sold as Pontiac LeMans over you guys, actually sold as a Passport Optima in Canada, made under license and used as a basis for various Daewoo cars like the Racer (!) and the Nexia, then sold AGAIN to Uzbekistan and made until 2008 (I think) as the Uz-Daewoo Nexia (with the mildest of facelifts but the shell was the same). GM really did not know how to use their German branch effectively. When the ever-maligned Cadillac Cimarron was being designed, GM was actually thinking of taking the moderately successful Opel Admiral (In the 70s it was difficult to say the least to sell an Opel with Mercedes pricing and a honkin' 327 V8 to a German buyer) and move production to the US. The Admiral would've been an excellent small executive car in the US. When they looked into it, Fisher Body nixed the thing saying that they would have to fully reengineer the chassis because to keep the panel fitments, all measurements needed to be converted from metric to imperial.
yeah, just shows the idiocy of GM... that Admiral/Diplomat V8 model would've been a cool fit to the US, it already had US styling and as you said: a honking V8... it would've been perfect.
What a fascinating piece! It’s probably been said a hundred times in the comments, but this was the Vauxhall Astra in Britain. It sold in unbelievable numbers. We had a generation before this, and you can still buy an Astra today. But why oh why GM thought this would sell stateside is beyond me. It’s so so wrong for America!
I would really enjoy a financial breakdown of Chrysler in the same fashion and time period of the video you made about AMC. I have periodically heard about how Chrysler was constantly catch strapped from the 60s and on but I've never seen any numbers regarding money or vehicle sales.
Here in the uk it was a Vauxhall Astra MK2 (Derived from the Opel Kaddett) from 1984 to 1991 it was a popular car and the sporty ones were Hot Hatches of the 80s , they were fairly reliable here in the uk apart from they Rusted out fairly quickly.
I used to only blame Daewoo for the abysmal quality of the Lemans but it was approved for US sales by GM corporate people right here in the states. How anyone could have done that after seeing the brittle plastics and general poor assembly is beyond me
Yes. Overall, the interior quality of the Daewoo cars is incomparable to the one of Opel cars. Opel just used better materials. I've seen tons of plastic pieces broken and dashboards cracked in a Daewoo.
These and the Ford Aspire deserve to be on some kind of list of the worst. The Festiva wasn't actually a bad car, in my experience was pretty reliable. If you want to talk about the worst captive import from Chrysler, I'd say the Plymouth Cricket from the early seventies, imported from the UK would be the worst. A few years ago, the auto writer Murilee Martin looked and was unable to find a single specimen still on the road.
I saw very few Plymouth Crickets even back in the 70s, they didnt seem to sell very well. I dont remember seeing any in the 1980s or since. There were a few more Dodge Colts around (as I remembered they were built by Mitsubishi) but theyve also been gone for decades. We used to call the Aspire the Expire, because they disappeared off the roads quickly along with the Renault Alliance and Fiat sedans, although the Fiat sports car of the late 70s is still occasionally seen. The Mitsubishi built Plymouth Sapporo and its virtual twin, the Dodge Challenger, also have vanished.
I always loved Pontiacs. Not this one, though. The last Canadian Tempests were lousy, too. Mom had a '71 LeMans Sport back in the day. Now that was a sweet ride...
Adam, you think you could do some videos on Isuzu’s from the 70’s/80’s/90’s? I think it would make good videos, especially regarding their rebadging with General Motors.
My dad had one of these when i was young, A red on. As a Opel Kadett and it was a wagon. He took me to a used car dealer once and let me pick a car. I picked this one, He bought it, And it lived for a good while. We even went on vacation with it several times. My step-dad later on had a blue hatchback model like it, I always felt like it was more comfortable than it had to be, I always liked the way they looked, As i do with many Opels from that time, But a little later i learned about the GSI version of it and loved them ever since.
My dad had a 73 Lemans. They took what should have been called the Lemans in the 80s and named it the Bonneville. The Bonneville was on a G Body for a while
I knew a co-worker who had a Korean LeMans and liked it. Theirs was a good car. At the time, Pontiac needed a more modern entry level small car than the dated Sunbird.
GM also reused the Chevy Nova name in the '80s on a rebadged Toyota Corolla built at NUMMI in California, where they were supposed to learn from the Japanese how to make good-quality cars. Pontiac advertised the LeMans as "imported", but didn't say _where_ it was imported from. They also sold a rebadged Geo Metro (Suzuki Swift) as the Pontiac Firefly in Canada.
The use of Daewoo was definitely a cost cutting tactic, but the warranty costs must have been a nightmare. That GM would later buy the output of Daewoo Kalos and recharge them as Chevy Aveo and very briefly a Pontiac G3 before the end of the old GM, was not a great decision given that they knew what Daewoo amounted to from that "Lemans" debacle. Personally, I have always referred to the Avid as a ChevWoolet.
I bought a 1988 2-door LeMans from the original owner. The car had 75k on it; I paid $150 bucks for it. It was economical; had a manual trans. It was my beater unit. Since the Daewoo engine was built with no head gasket (it just had a bead of caulking instead), I had to check the oil level with every fill-up. I usually had to add some oil each time. I drove it for a few years but ended up giving it to a friend who was in between cars. The deal was that when he sold it, we would split on the profit. We sold it for $650. We told the new owner to check the oil level with each fill-up. He did not. Well he threw a rod and that was the end of the LeMans.
Sold in Aussie as Daewoo 1.5 at a knockdown price and few frills. It was _cheap cheap cheap._ They ended up giving it a very mild facelift, renaming it Cielo in its old age.
I remember well when these LeMans came out in 1988. Even at that time, i don't recall seeing many of them on the road at all. My area of the country, sold a lot of Pontiacs and to not see but maybe 2 or 3 of these Lemans in that time period says that they must have been poor sellers. When was the last time you say one of these driving around??? I haven't seen one in PERSON for over 25 years.
The 88-93 Pontiac LeMans is what created the Pontiac Aztek. Although odd, one of the coolest SUVs I've ever seen. It came with a tent that would attach to the hatch and extend the length of the vehicle a bit so you could camp out of your own SUV. And to be honest, it was quite neat looking inside. I am a muscle car fan and I understand that the name plate being used for a compact European car is blasphemy. The Dodge Dart, Ford 500, Chevrolet Monte Carlo, Pontiac Tempest and many other cars were butchered this way.
I worked at a general automotive repair shop in the 90's - We observed a lot of the problems you mentioned (axles were very frequent) at embarrassingly low mileage. The other drawback to this car was replacement parts prices. For whatever reason, even common tune up parts were far more expensive that Toyota or Honda, and some specialty parts were just off the charts. You never see these on the road any more. It wasn't that great to start with, and definitely not economical to repair.
The original car, the Opel Kadett E(1984-1991), was a very good, economical, practical and fun little car. Only issue was rust, but which car in the 80's didn't rust? I still own one from 1986 and it still runs straight...it's 1.3i 60bhp automatic.
Kinda like the revival of the Nova nameplate revived around the same time. It didn’t do well either. I’ve always hated when US carmakers take a great car’s name & put it on a subpar one. But as always, Adam does a great job in presenting the material!,
At GM headquarters, what did they have in their minds to offer this car in US?. In Colombia, Adam, the Daewoo Motor Corporation did so, offering this one as 1993/1999 Daewoo Racer/Cielo (Sky, in Spanish), fitted with a TBI injection, 1.6 liter, 95 HP, 5 speed closed ratio manual transaxle, and the model proved to be a nice performer, for example, as Taxi Cab duty, reaching most of them more than 200.000 miles with any engine issues, if correct maintenance program was done, making a big hit sales car here in those years. By the way, my present car is from Daewoo, a model named Espero (I wait, in Spanish) or Aranos, the European name plate marketed there, fitted with a multi port fuel injection, 2.0 liter engine, coupled to a 4 speed automatic trans. The engine is rated by manufacturer`s data, with 108 HP. This Espero is based in J car frame, but the body was an Italian desing job, from Bertone, in a 1991/1997 production program, assembled in Korea. Thanks for this particular information. The time when GM touched to much in world wide markets, thanks to Opel joint venture.
I had a white Bedford Astramax van here in the UK. Officially endorsed by Clarkson as the fastest thing on 4 (or sometimes 3) wheels It is still in the back of the barn due to sentimental reasons 😀
GM had some very strange marketing initiatives. Here in New Zealand right hand drive Daewoo-made Opel Kadett E's were marketed in two forms, in 1988-1990 as Pontiac Lemans although the logic of GMNZ really has to be questioned. The mid-sized Lemans or it's Canadian Beaumont equivalent were never sold new here, so by the time this thing arrived, the relevance of both marque and model names was dubious at best. We did market Canadian Larentian and Parisienne models under restrictive import laws until the late sixties, then Pontiac had vanished from GMNZ's lineup. Of course it flopped as being a cheap irrelevance, with Holden being the most visible GM brand and Opel providing some Euro snobbery. After that, the car resurfaced briefly in the nineties as a Daewoo Cielo. It wasn't any better or anyore successful.
In Canada near the end of its production run, this was sold under the Asuna brand. I'd love to get my hands on one of those TBH, if there even any still around.
@@joshuagibson2520 This car was built in various other parts of the world until 2017. Parts may have to be imported but they're available. I just like things that are weird and different.
Had one of these from new, a Passport Optima that I later rebadged to a Pontiac, I got 500,000 km (about 300,000 miles) out of it. The car started to fall apart at about 450,000 km, welds were breaking in the doors and the side rails were rusting out. The driver's seat literally broke, had t swap it out for the passenger's seat. The motor and transmission lasted forever, and it delivered 45-50 mpg all throughout its life. You had to know how to drive these, and the harder the better. I don't think I ever did the speed limit. It was also still on the original clutch when a hailstorm finished it off and it got written off. I'd have another one in a heartbeat.
Daewoo maybe re-badged the 4-door saloon version of it and exported it as "Racer" in 1992. There were a number of Racers exported under "yellow cab" scheme. It was a big car but only 4-speed manual with an odd reverse gear. One had to pull up a ring type thing on the gear lever and shift to 1st gear for reversing.
Great video, loved the photo of the unit with the New Brunswick plate; a better car than the Hyandai Excel, in my opinion, which is faint praise. An ideal candidate for LeMons.
Original build in Germany, the Quality was excellent and a success as Opel Kadett. But I have experienced this Car while, working abroad as a Daewo. A horrible difference. Poor materials used, badly assambled. This indeed is away how you can kill a brand.
I will defend this car. I owned a blue 1988 Pontiac LeMans "Value Leader" hatchback. It was my first new car. It was definitely a stripper, with no AC, no radio, and passenger windows that did not open. In my late twenties at the time, I did not really need the AC, especially since the car had a very good vent system, with each dash vent having independent open and close as well as good directional controls. At anything above 30mph you were getting a good breeze. There were exit vents in the rear C-pillars for a flow through ventilation, so the sealed rear windows were not really a problem. I live in KY, so plenty of hot and humid weather. I put a nice aftermarket stereo in the dash that exceeded what the dealer would have offered. The four-speed, in my opinion, was a better match for the 1.6L engine than the five-speed. Fourth was overdrive, so the ratios were not to close together. I test drove the five-speed, and city driving was a chore. The four-speed was actually pretty good in traffic because you were really driving a three. On the highway, the overdrive fourth got me 40 mile per gallon! Honest! Twenty-five - thirty mpg in the city, and the little 1.6L engine had plenty of power for a car that only weighed a little over 1800 lbs. The seats were great and the cargo capacity was huge! I once bought a full size recliner and brought it home in the back with the rear seat folded forward and the hatch closed! The engine was very well laid out and easy to work on. I changed the timing belt in the parking lot with simple tools in about 30 minutes! Spark plugs were right up front and easy access, as was the oil filter. On the con side. The sheet metal was thin, as was common to all cars of that era. Do NOT sit on the hood! The engine castings looked cheap, with visible stress fractures, but I never had any problems from that. The valve cover bolts would vibrate loose and you had to retorque them once a month, kindof like an old Harley. The car was not very good in slippery conditions. Rain or snow brought lots of wheel spin because there was not much weight over the wheels. And, as noted in the video, I did have to replace a front half-axel and both CV joints. Also, changing brake pads was a"" paininthebutt"! The little pins were always warped and stuck, but that may have been my braking technique. On dry pavement, that car was big fun to throw around the curves! I drove that car for seven years and put a bit over 130,000 miles on it, if memory serves. I loved my 1988 Pontiac LeMans hatch-back!
I drove lots of these in 1990 when I worked for National Car Rental. The brakes got a little weird after 5000 miles and were terrible at 20000. I drove one that had 45000 miles that was terrifying.
I was never a big GM guy but Pontiac was always my favorite brand of them followed by Buick but only because of the GN. My Dad was a Pontiac guy back in the day. Had everything from a 63 LeMans, 66 GTO, 74 LeMans and 79 Lemans. I currently drive an 05 GTP.
I think they all were german engineered, then choked by EPA standards and manufactured in Brazil for the US market. Basically: GM knew how to ruin a perfectly good european car by trying to cut costs and failing to do so :D
I worked at a Pontiac dealer when these where brand new. They sure were a pile of crap! Most customers called it a pontiac lemon. Tons of problems, blown head gaskets, electrical gremlins, auto retracting seat belts glitches, water leak into cabin. I liked working on them, real easy to do most jobs. The clutch could be replaced without removing the transmission. Funny thing I noticed, is they all had a distinct chemical odor inside, must have been off gassing of the crappy plastic used. One thing for sure is DAWOO continues the tradition of building crap.
I'd rather say their biggest mistake was existing. GM at that time was bad all across the line, with european holdings also suffering under the cost-cutting mentality, which drove down quality, but not so much cost. Had they put the pontiac badge on anything else, it would still be a scrap pile. But to be honest, if they had used the TC, 16v 2.0L engine with 150 bhp from the european GSI's/GSE's it would've actually been an exciting car for US customers...
Thanks for this Adam. These "Le Mans" were on-par with the likes of the 70's Renault Le-Car here in the states. Not good cars at all on this side of the pond.
it's less about not being good cars and more about americans simply not understanding the use of small cars. When it came to quality, it wasn't like GM had anything all that better on offer. Heck, in the eighties, cars coming from Cadillac were rated worse in terms of quality and finish than the cheapest european brands...just to give you a comparison.
The 1988-1993 "Pontiac" Le Mans had been kinda upscaled Opel Kadett-E series. These had been appeared in limited numbers throughout Europe by undefined conditions. Some Pontiac badged examples slipped through the very early Daewoo Racer GTE imports around mid and late '80s in the South-Eastern European countries but not on the west. Some others as used cars came in from the North-Americas via private imports on the waves of the well established reputation of the Opel Kadett-E series during the early '90s. Daewoo Motor came in officially around 1995 with the 5 and 4-door Daewoo Racer Base and GSi. As well as with the 3, 4 and 5-door Daewoo Nexia/Cielo model which was the last model of this/then elderly platform. Personally had owned 2 examples of the Pontiac Le Mans. Firstly a 1990 LE 4-door 3 speed a/t with aircon and automatic safety belts, later a 1988 Base 4-door with 3 speed a/t and aircon, plus a 1996 Daewoo Nexia 4 speed a/t, no aircon. All of them were reliable daily commuters.
In the UK we got the " hot hatch" Astra GSI, 148 bhp normally aspirated 2.0l.
0 - 60 in 8 sec / 130 ish top speed.
Not bad for the day.
@Gavin Tye Sounds tasty.
I had one of these in 1989...white 3 door hatchback with automatic. I managed to get 45k miles out of it in 3 years and had just one electrical problem that was easily fixed. It was all I could afford at the time...just $9k new. It had A/C which worked fine. I took several long road trips in it without failure. It did handle well and was surprisingly quiet. I remember test driving a Hyundai Accent then which literally sounded like riding inside of a tin can.
hyundai's were bad when they first came here but they got it straight finally
Sold in Canada as a Passport Optima and later as the Asüna GT and GSE. My friend who had moved here from Switzerland shortly before its launch recognized it as an Opel Kadet and happily bought a three-door hatchback manual. It honestly wasn't all that bad. Certainly better to drive than the contemporary J2000.
Saw an Asüna in the rear view mirror...had to do a double take. 😊
It also had one single year as the Pontiac LeMans (1992)
Here in Germany the Opel Kadett now is a desired youngtimer, of course especially the sporty versions like the GSi 16V. It's really fun to drive, 150 hp in around 2000 pounds. But also other rare trims with less hp get quite expensive these days. The only problem with these cars is rust, they rust like hell, like so many other cars from this era. That's where the majority of these cars has gone. They were really cheap in the early 2000s, and were beaten to death als beginners cars, winter cars, etc. and just fell into peaces.
Yes, I remember the Kadett being a good and poplar car. I don't understand how the US version could be this bad.
How can this POS be a desired car? It screams cheap and cost cutting the production. BTW, it was produced in Uzbekistan Daewoo factory up to 2016 and sold in Russia for a very cheap price, so it's assotiated with illegal immigrants unlicensed cab drivers here. Also, this car rust out in like 3 to 6 years, worse than a Lada.
If a car is worse than a Lada, then it's really an awfull car.
Either a GTI or a GSI - that were the options considered at the time. Or Irmscher parts 😅
@@christianholmstedt8770 - I believe a major reason why is it was built by Daewoo. That was done by GM as importing a Kadett E from Europe would have made it non-competitive cost-wise in the 'econobox' market. GM opted to have it done by Daewoo, who were under their wider umbrella then. Daewoo were not known for building cars seen as being at 'global' quality levels yet, so it was a good design built indifferently and to a typical low-ball GM bean counter price.
If you compared a LeMans to the Civic or Corolla in those days, both were light years ahead in terms of overall refinement and quality. Even the VW Golf (Mk2), built in the US then (at Westmoreland, PA), was a far better built car in comparison to a Daewoo LeMans.
@@GetToHellOut It's the design. Design wise it's very balanced and pretty especially in 2 tone paint. Very much like an Alfa 164 as far as balanced design. Very modern at the time as well. In sporty packages the 3 door hatchback has the potential to look like a rally car. Consider the trash that was on sale in the US at the time, from the Cavalier to the Chevette. I'd love to have one here in America. With a European sticker on the back.
I had a 2 door, loved it. It was a radio delete and 4 speed. Seriously loved that stripped down and fun little car!!
As the Vauxhall Astra Mk2 here in the UK, it was hugely popular - regularly a top seller over the Ford Escort which was it’s main rival. Later in it’s life we had the iconic Astra GTE with the legendary 2.0 16v ‘Redtop’ engine which was good for 150hp - it was the ‘hot hatch’ of choice in the 1980s along with the Escort XR3i and the Peugeot 205GTi. Great video
I had the 2.0 8 valver (Cav Sri lump) cracking cars. I moved onto a Cav GSI with the red top. Boy that was corker of an engine.
Greetings from Brazil, Adam. Finally, a car that relates to us! Not many cars sold in the US were sold here as well, but the Kadett (Chevrolet for us) was, and also built in Brazil (GM assembly in Sao Caetano do Sul, SP).
Chevrolet's lineup of the 80s and 90s was mainly german (Opel), and the Kadett was no exception. It was the Kadett "E" generation, comprising the 3-door hatchback and the wagon (Ipanema), with minor facelifts. The GSi was top of the line, made around 120hp, and there was a convertible version too, both very sought after at the time.
The Kadett had a nice run, selling 460k from 89 to 98. Brings back some childhood memories, for sure. Keep up the good work!
Obrigado!
Gustavo, we also had the sedan, it was the “monza”
The idle and AC problem was the speed sensor, which was supposed to tell the AC compressor to turn off under hard acceleration. We had to manually turn off the ac every time we needed to pull out into traffic. The car would randomly die a lot, we'd have the sensor replaced under extended warranty, and wound up doing that 6 times. The last time, they didn't have oem part, so they asked us if an aftermarket part was OK. It worked flawlessly until we got rid of the car.
Awesome Insight into the problem. Thanks for commenting.
Had the same AC problem with a 90s Volvo and would turn it off too to accelerate too
The only issues that I had were a short in the heat control (almost started a fire), repeated leaking seals on the engine and the transmission which died after 5 years
@@ceemichel oh I had PLENTY more problems, to the point where I researched lemon laws.
Sounds like my 99 Matiz. In a trip from Daegu to Busan, through the hills I had the pedal welded to the floor and it was struggling up hills. My gf turned off the AC and the car got 10% of its power back lol.
Great little car, I still have it.
With due respect the "French name" was really collateral damage. GM LOVED tarnishing prestigious race venues by placing said names on their cars. Lemans, Monte Carlo, Bonneville, Monza, Grand Prix, Trans Am, Can Am. Anyway I had completely forgot about this car, the Renault Alliance might be a close contender to this. And younger people these days have no idea how bad it really was during those years. In 1990 the car to have was the Taurus Sho... with 225 hp. Thanks for the memories! :P
Also sold in Canada
One story from my many years working at an Oldsmobile dealership: a customer came in who had won $22,000 from the California lottery. She bought a used Pontiac LeMans (Daewoo, like this one) . . .for cash, of course.
Tragic!
We cringe, but she may have made a smart move there, by not spending it all on a car.
It's so interesting to discover that my 2013 Chevy Spark is essentially the "grand successor" of the Pontiac LeMans. My car was built at a Daewoo (GM Korea) plant (maybe the same one?!). Approximately the same performance numbers, same market segment. Even the front end of the Spark kinda resembles the LeMans a teeny tiny bit.
not the same marketsegment though, one's a subcompact, he other's classed as a citycar...they're two classes apart. Though it IS built in the same factory
My cousin has a Spark she has had no major problems with it other the the thermostat housing cracked.
But the Spark is a good car.
Agreed
@@rpf6562 no.
Ah....flashbacks to my senior year in college...fall 1988...an acquaintance who bought this as her first new car....she traded a Ford Pinto for it.....somehow, the Pinto seemed superior. She gave me a ride in it...and in the back of my mind, I'm thinking my aging G Body Cutlass seemed more refined than this car.
When my car was going in for body work, the dealer gave me a gray 1991 LeMans sedan as a loaner....it was probably the most underwhelming car I've ever driven. Merging on the freeway was exciting...not in the we build excitement..more of a I hope I can get up to traffic speed quickly.
I was a parts counter guy at a Chevy dealership which sold Daewoo's in 2001. Not the best quality and their parts system was straight out of the 1970's. It was a challenge to find and order the right parts to say the least.
They should've imported the GSE twin cam version. GM had THE WORST management ever
It bothered me at the time that the LeMans name was dropped in '82 and rebadged as a Bonneville. Didn't make sense as Bonnevilles had been known as full sized cars.
Pontiac meant for the G-body to be their full size car going forward. They dropped all B-bodies in 1982 due to poor sales. The rest of the GM brands were supposed to drop theirs after 1983. Given fuel prices and the state of the economy, full size cars at every domestic brand were on the chopping block. Chrysler, Dodge, and Plymouth killed their R-bodies in ‘81, letting the formerly midsize M-bodies be their “full-size cars” instead.
Ford renamed the Fox-body Granada and Cougar sedans and wagons in 1983 as the LTD and Marquis because they, too, planned to drop the Panthers after the ‘83 model year.
But in 1983, fuel prices dropped, the economy finally rebounded, Pontiac brought its B-body back as the late ‘83 Parisienne, and most of the rest got a stay of execution in some form or other.
About 1993/94 I worked for a friend that had a garage. I remember a couple customers coming in with these cars. I don't really remember how they rode or drove but I do remember that they seemed cheaply made. Although few cars in this era really were good examples of quality materials & workmanship. One thing we did discover was that these seemed to be more easily repaired than almost anything else. Perhaps intended to be easily fixed "in the field" with few tools. I think we figured you could replace a clutch without pulling the trans, & it looked like you could do a timing belt with hardly more than a screwdriver & pliers. I think the cover was just on with spring clips you could pop right off.
with the clutch, you're right. on the Opel Kadett "E", this was the nomenclature for this Kadett, and his predecessor, the Opel Kadett "D" (Vauxhall Astra MKI), could the clutch be replaced in 30-45 Minutes without removing the engine or the gearbox. they were very easy to maintain.
@@CommodoreCaravan1981
I had the 1988 Passport Optima VL...VL for Value Leader, and it was. 4 speed stick, no power steering, no tach, no radio, fixed quarter windows. I quickly had them put in a tach, got an aftermarket radio, it was a cassette stereo deck.
That car owed me nothing I had it for 14 years and drove it to 270,000km and it only gave me trouble with the muffler, brake job and you’re right about the clutch. I had a shop that had never seen this car before and so he quoted me on what he thought the clutch would cost, I went to pick it up and he said hey this car is kind of awesome there is a little trap door where they dropped the clutch out, I was very happy it cost hardly anything at all, really one of my favourite cars to be honest even though it’s reviled by most.
At the time they were new I was a quality control supervisor that had moved from Germany to integrate a recently acquired American pharmaceutical company and overhaul there manufacturing and quality procedures so that their products could be sold on the European market.
I commuted 144 mi round trip per day and wanted an inexpensive commuter car.
I recognized the LeMans as a rebadged Opel Kadett and purchased a four-door 5 speed.
I commuted to work daily for 5 years as well as took it on sightseeing trips all over the United States and Canada.
I was driving it from Chicago to Anchorage Alaska when it turned 150k miles.
It certainly lacked the refinement and workmanship of its Opel counterpart but it never failed to start and only left me stranded twice in almost 200,000 miles.
Once was from a bad fuel pump relay and the other time was from a bad replacement battery which was hardly the car's fault.
Hardly the greatest car I've ever owned but as an inexpensive commuter car it was not as bad as urban legend suggests.
YEah... I had a great experience with this car. Never died, I drove it to the scrapyard feeling sorry for her, but I was traveling abroad for work and nobody wanted it as it was very old. Very cheap maintenance, and never ever leaves you around. Low fuel consumption and very nice performance for its size and cost. Who ever had one, doesn't remember it that bad as the video says. Of course not comparable with a 20K $ car, but also it doesn't dissapoint as one of them when the problems come.
@@antonioalonso2986 subsequently I owned a couple of Daewoo models.
They also provided years of trouble-free service at minimal cost.
Yeah! I like how you included an image @ 2:20 of one of these tooling around my home -Wisconsin. Exactly as I remember them too, largely ignored rusty crusty winter beaters that I can't believe someone bothered to take a picture of🙂, plus nicely matching the rusty broke tranny-Focus in the background even -sweet! Cheers!!
I think I remember everyone back then shaking their heads at most of the new cars coming out. A lot of "these gov regs are such bs!" Lol and a lot of modifications too.
My Mom bought a Pontiac Sunbird convertible new in '89. It was red with a white top and even sported 'turbo' emblems. It was loud, uncomfortable, idled roughly and really didn't have much power. She pretended to like it for awhile (for my dad's sake), then traded it in for a new '92 Mazda
I have owned a 1970 Pontiac T-37, 1974 Grand Prix, 1975 and 1978 Firebirds, and a 1977 Ventura. All rear wheel drive, all carbureted. I loved all of them. But as you said, the 1988-1993 "LeMans" was not a Pontiac at all, but a Daewoo, a Korean brand. Daewoo vehicles have been sold under several GM names. They were all junk, including my sisters former 2010 Daewoo Aveo, sold under the Chevrolet name.
I had a 71 Lemans sport convertible. Fun car ! And yes these 80s generation Lemans were a disgrace 😤
It was an Opel...made worse by GM costcutting (in the worst way...considering it didn't end up saving a lot of money for them, but did ruin the comparable quality when you looked at the Opel Kadett at the time).
I had to say that european version, built in Germany under the brand / model Opel Kadett, is one of the bests cars of 80's and 90's. The main reason I use to say if a car is good or not, is not design, power or small issues like part's adjustements, the main reason is reliability. As always you could find someone whose design, size or power would suit him. And this car is a rock, so it is not rare to see one of them riding now a days, with more than 30 years. I had one when I was young, and this one is the first car I really enjoyed, because it was old when I bought it, so I didn't worry to park it everywere or driving it along a beach and going off-road. It was also very cheap to maintain, so I didn't have to spend all my earnings on it. The only "problem" I had was the water pump, that I had to change (at a very low cost) when the car was more than 300K Kilometers. I remember once I took it to the workshop and asked for a distribution chain change, and the owner told me there was no need to change in this one, as if it ends breaking the chain, the engine wont suffer as it was robust enough, and the only pieces to replace would be the cheap rockers.
Vauxhall Astra in the UK, Chevrolet Kadett in Brazil
A friend had the Aero Coupé 5-spd and it suffered a crisis with every added passenger. Little thing refused to quit amd was never failed, except for the hood latch.
You have that pos covered very well.
Maybe an idea for one of your "strange" features videos - do you remember the Dodge Colt with the twin stick transaxle? A 4 speed you could shift 8 times - and even 2 more in reverse.
yes here in NZ Mitsubishi cars came with that feature.I think they called it supershift
I owned two of them, 79 and 80. Interesting little cars.
@@terry-zi7eh in nz rhey sold as pontiac lemans...i still have a brochure...i dont think ive seen a single one on the roads...ever...tells you something eh
@@terry-zi7eh Cool. A kid I used to know in the early 80's had one, and of course abused it to no end, but he could get 8 shifts out of it. 2 hands I think.
The cars you really wanna compare these against were the 85-92 Jetta and Golf here in the states. They had a major advantage in the form of multipoint fuel injection and a history of having to meet us emissions regs that Opel didn’t plan these cars around. VW lost lots of ground to the Japanese in this era with dated interiors and stodgy upright looks, an absence of power assists and poor quality but the cars were at least quick for the price and handled well. By contrast the Kadett’s primary shortcomings in Europe were its chassis dynamics. So basically imagine a Golf with understeer and poor damping and a throttle body injection system built in Korea.
I don't think that car, the OPEL Kadett was all that bad, it worked decently in Europe. It was, however, entirely misplaced on the US market.
I can remember looking at one of these at my local Pontiac/Isuzu dealer here in TX. Awful little thing; I bought an Isuzu pickup that lasted over 300K miles without an engine rebuild. Justice of the Peace rearended it, totaling it, or I'd probably still be driving it! Great video--looking forward to more on that Ambassador.
Isuzu is/was highly underrated, especially their Diesel engines. Even the rebadged GM vehicles weren’t bad. But Isuzu’s own designs were generally perfectly reliable even if they did rust.
@@stoneylonesome4062 isuzu was the only great japan maker
fun fact: this Korean built "Pontiac Le Mans", labeled Opel Kadett, came back to Europe and Germany as the Daewoo Nexia in 1994. The Kadett already was a rustbucket, but the Daewoo Nexia topped it. this car fell apart when you're leaving the showroom with it >_
Daewoo LeMans in South Korea, Pontiac Lemans in North America and New Zealand, Daewoo Racer in Asia and overseas, etc..
If I could find one of these in decent shape, cheap, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. These things fascinate me.
Good luck! I see one about every 3 years.
@@jamesengland7461 yeah last time I seen one was late 90s
@@jamesengland7461 Try more like 1 every 25 years. Lol
There was one of these LeMans in my driver's ed class in 1988. My car for the course was a 1988 Ford Tempo.
@@beezertwelvewashingbeard8703 HEHEH🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Good ole Ford Tempo
Forget the cracker box car... But that gal standing against the stone ramp has some impressive underpinnings.👀
When Pontiac started to "build excitement" instead of AUTOMOBILES, well...
(Oh, please!! YOU remember the television commercial!!)
I thought the Vega and Monza were the worst GM car’s in history. Thanks for the great videos!
Those were called Daewoo Cielo in my neck of the woods, the did all rott away (either rusted to oblivion, or just broke down so much that they were just finished in junkyards).
This went right along with that Chevrolet Nova of the same vintage.
The re-badged Toyota Corolla
And the FWD Skylark.
In the UK we had this as the Vauxhall Astra, with a 150bhp GTE 16v version with its Cosworth-developed XE20 red-top twin-cam
If they wanted the sporty slant to the Pontiac brand, I wonder why they didn't bring the GSi engine? It had a 150 hp, 16 valve engine with a catalytic converter, and a manual 5-speed gearbox back in 1988 and did 0-60 in 6.7 seconds.
The Kadett GSi 16v/Astra GTE 16v, crikey that was a fast car. It had multipoint Bosch EFi with the Motronic ECU if I remember correctly and it wasn't that heavy on petrol either.
And you thought the last GTO was a bad use of a nameplate…
Some would point at the final year of 1st gen GTO production with that same finger, but '74 GTOs are still pretty dang cool!
The 21st century GTO should've been badged as a Malibu SS. That would've been most appropriate.
@@DanEBoyd Exactly mate
We used to own Opel Kadett , my father bought it from Germany in 1986, we sold it in 2010. nice car, reliable, comfy. she served us loyally for 24 years. The common issue we faced with this car was the camshaft was always broken.
Among my parents Pontiacs that I remember were a 1979 Bonneville Brougham Coupe (black with red velour but totally loaded otherwise) and a 1987 Bonneville SE metallic red with grey cloth but loaded otherwise but since it was bought in Florida, it didn't have the rear defroster option... not necessarily the best thing for its Vermont life... that said, both of these cars were great and I miss them...
My parents also had a loaded 1979 Bonneville Brougham Landau coupe. I think it was Carmine Iridescent red, and it had a super comfy red velour interior. I'd love to have that car today.
You nailed it Adam - what a POS!!! I knew a guy who bought one new. It actually did OK, but the seats were junk.
You know? One time in the early 1990s on I75 In Ohio, I saw one of these cars, and the badge on the decklid said "Ultima." The car had Canadian plates, and as I remember, it had a different grill than the Pontiac version. I remember thinking it was a rental, maybe because of a bar code decal or something like that.
I recognized this LeMans as a crime against its namesake, from day one!
I vaguely remember the car you are talking about. GM sold these as the Passport Optima for a very short time in the late '80's, early '90's in Canada. Good luck finding one of those...
@@volktales7005 Ah, I think you're right! It was an Optima. Been a while, and not a memorable car of course...
Back in the day, we had these as Taxis in Pakistan as a part of Yellow Cab Scheme in the early 90s. Although, these were badge-engineered by Daewoo as Daewoo Racer.
Adam, What an odd way to celebrate the semi-monumental 😉achievement of reaching 75,000 SUBSCRIBERS!! Daewoo was/is probably the worst partner GM ever had. Somehow, long after ending relationships with Saab, Subaru, Suzuki and Toyota, GM still inexplicably lets Daewoo build cars for them. 🤨 Pontiac still lives 0:24 in hearts and minds as well as my driveway where my 2005 Vibe keeps on purring like a kitten 🤩🤩
Because your car is a Toyota Matrix in “Disguise”…
Which for you is a good thing since Toyota makes great cars.
Unsurprising since your "Pontiac" is really a Toyota.
Daewoo has been wholly owned by GM for a long time. They were turned in to the Korean arm of Chevrolet back in 2011.
which is funny to hear...considering the low bar GM has on "quality" with their US made vehicles...
@@robertdragoff6909 😉
I got rear- ended 4 times in my 91 Le Mans- by a Town Car in a drive thru, a Coupe DeVille at speed, by a Ranger- that impact destroyed his chrome front bumper, and some other car, and never even scratched my bumper. Later, the driver's seat frame broke in 3 places; I figure that was from all these impacts.
Did you ever wonder why you got hit so often in rear end collisions?
@@howebrad4601 um, NO. The lady driving the Town Car floored it after placing her order in the drive thru, knocking me into the car in front of me, damaging his license plate frame. The Caddy didn't notice me slowing down with signal on to make a left turn, and knocked me 20 feet forward. The Ranger hit me at a red light.
@@jamesengland7461 honestly didn't mean it personally. They say bad things happen in threes so hopefully it's over now for you
@@howebrad4601 that was decades ago, and I mostly laughed at the drivers. I asked the Town Car lady, "are you hungry, or what?" The Ranger guy was like, 'Now what am I gonna do? That bumper cost me $600!' I couldn't help laughing at that one, since he hit me. It was kind of funny when I got out of the car when the Caddy lady hit me and I saw how far she'd shoved me :) It became a routine of grabbing my keys, making sure the hatch still opened ok, and driving on. (Don't remember the 4th incident beyond it being the 4th, but by that time it was boring....)
The Opel Kadett GSi was a high performance hatch in Europe; it was fast on the highway and handled well in the mountains. The German built Kadett had a good build reputation. The Korean made LeMans was junk.
I suppose the closest car to the Opel Kadett GSi in the US would have been a VW GTI (German, not Mexican built). The Peugeot 205 GTI was smaller, more fun, and a bit more "basic"; that was the best hot hatch ever made.
Can't understand why US automakers reserved the best cars for Europe and sent so much junk to the US. I suppose living standards in Europe were much higher so they could pay up.
In high school in the mid nineties I was in love with a young woman who drove a 4 door Pontiac LeMans exactly like the white one in your video.
Thank you for not naming the Pontiac Aztec as everyone else does. The Aztec was an awesome vehicle overall.
Haha I had one too white 4 door when I was in high school from like 99-01 That thing was such a pos
As a new car detail guy at a Pontiac dealer in Texas I don’t have bad memories of the Lemans. Yes it was homely but from a build quality initial perspective it seemed better than all the other new Pontiacs on the lot.
It wasn't exactly ugly just unbelievably plain. It looked like it was designed by a kid who was asked to draw a generic car.
@@michaellinner7772 Not going to argue about that, the design was a bit plain, but this was also due to the aero-wars in europe at the time, with every carmaker sacrificing style for functionality in terms of aerodynamic designs.
Greetings from Europe and thanks for showcasing this town bicycle of GM design. This exact car was sold as an Opel Kadett in Europe, sold as Pontiac LeMans over you guys, actually sold as a Passport Optima in Canada, made under license and used as a basis for various Daewoo cars like the Racer (!) and the Nexia, then sold AGAIN to Uzbekistan and made until 2008 (I think) as the Uz-Daewoo Nexia (with the mildest of facelifts but the shell was the same).
GM really did not know how to use their German branch effectively. When the ever-maligned Cadillac Cimarron was being designed, GM was actually thinking of taking the moderately successful Opel Admiral (In the 70s it was difficult to say the least to sell an Opel with Mercedes pricing and a honkin' 327 V8 to a German buyer) and move production to the US. The Admiral would've been an excellent small executive car in the US. When they looked into it, Fisher Body nixed the thing saying that they would have to fully reengineer the chassis because to keep the panel fitments, all measurements needed to be converted from metric to imperial.
yeah, just shows the idiocy of GM... that Admiral/Diplomat V8 model would've been a cool fit to the US, it already had US styling and as you said: a honking V8... it would've been perfect.
What a fascinating piece!
It’s probably been said a hundred times in the comments, but this was the Vauxhall Astra in Britain. It sold in unbelievable numbers. We had a generation before this, and you can still buy an Astra today.
But why oh why GM thought this would sell stateside is beyond me. It’s so so wrong for America!
I would really enjoy a financial breakdown of Chrysler in the same fashion and time period of the video you made about AMC. I have periodically heard about how Chrysler was constantly catch strapped from the 60s and on but I've never seen any numbers regarding money or vehicle sales.
Here in the uk it was a Vauxhall Astra MK2 (Derived from the Opel Kaddett) from 1984 to 1991 it was a popular car and the sporty ones were Hot Hatches of the 80s , they were fairly reliable here in the uk apart from they Rusted out fairly quickly.
I used to only blame Daewoo for the abysmal quality of the Lemans but it was approved for US sales by GM corporate people right here in the states. How anyone could have done that after seeing the brittle plastics and general poor assembly is beyond me
Yes. Overall, the interior quality of the Daewoo cars is incomparable to the one of Opel cars. Opel just used better materials. I've seen tons of plastic pieces broken and dashboards cracked in a Daewoo.
@@MihaiGradin I had the UK Vauxhall Astra badged version, The dash creaked from new. Still it was a fun car particularly in 16v GTE form..
@@amigachris That's interesting, I've never heard that before about any car.
These and the Ford Aspire deserve to be on some kind of list of the worst. The Festiva wasn't actually a bad car, in my experience was pretty reliable. If you want to talk about the worst captive import from Chrysler, I'd say the Plymouth Cricket from the early seventies, imported from the UK would be the worst. A few years ago, the auto writer Murilee Martin looked and was unable to find a single specimen still on the road.
I saw very few Plymouth Crickets even back in the 70s, they didnt seem to sell very well. I dont remember seeing any in the 1980s or since. There were a few more Dodge Colts around (as I remembered they were built by Mitsubishi) but theyve also been gone for decades. We used to call the Aspire the Expire, because they disappeared off the roads quickly along with the Renault Alliance and Fiat sedans, although the Fiat sports car of the late 70s is still occasionally seen.
The Mitsubishi built Plymouth Sapporo and its virtual twin, the Dodge Challenger, also have vanished.
I’ve seen a Plymouth cricket driving around in Milwaukee, not too long ago
It disgusts me when any car company resurects an old moniker and fails to employ it on something that’s not worthy of its heritage
I always loved Pontiacs. Not this one, though. The last Canadian Tempests were lousy, too. Mom had a '71 LeMans Sport back in the day. Now that was a sweet ride...
Adam, you think you could do some videos on Isuzu’s from the 70’s/80’s/90’s? I think it would make good videos, especially regarding their rebadging with General Motors.
Isuzu Commercial trucks would be a good video.
The Isuzu Piazza/Impulse. Also known as the prettiest Chevette ever made
@@mrspandel5737 An Isuzu Piazza RS Turbo AWD was the poor man’s Audi Quattro.
@@stoneylonesome4062 Does that mean the older RWD Piazza Turbo was the poor mans RX7
Esse carro foi fabricado aqui no Brasil como Chevrolet Kadett.
Era igual ao Opel Kadett.
My dad had one of these when i was young, A red on. As a Opel Kadett and it was a wagon.
He took me to a used car dealer once and let me pick a car. I picked this one, He bought it, And it lived for a good while.
We even went on vacation with it several times. My step-dad later on had a blue hatchback model like it, I always felt like it was more comfortable than it had to be,
I always liked the way they looked, As i do with many Opels from that time, But a little later i learned about the GSI version of it and loved them ever since.
My dad had a 73 Lemans. They took what should have been called the Lemans in the 80s and named it the Bonneville. The Bonneville was on a G Body for a while
I knew a co-worker who had a Korean LeMans and liked it. Theirs was a good car. At the time, Pontiac needed a more modern entry level small car than the dated Sunbird.
GM also reused the Chevy Nova name in the '80s on a rebadged Toyota Corolla built at NUMMI in California, where they were supposed to learn from the Japanese how to make good-quality cars. Pontiac advertised the LeMans as "imported", but didn't say _where_ it was imported from. They also sold a rebadged Geo Metro (Suzuki Swift) as the Pontiac Firefly in Canada.
The use of Daewoo was definitely a cost cutting tactic, but the warranty costs must have been a nightmare.
That GM would later buy the output of Daewoo Kalos and recharge them as Chevy Aveo and very briefly a Pontiac G3 before the end of the old GM, was not a great decision given that they knew what Daewoo amounted to from that "Lemans" debacle. Personally, I have always referred to the Avid as a ChevWoolet.
I bought a 1988 2-door LeMans from the original owner. The car had 75k on it; I paid $150 bucks for it. It was economical; had a manual trans. It was my beater unit. Since the Daewoo engine was built with no head gasket (it just had a bead of caulking instead), I had to check the oil level with every fill-up. I usually had to add some oil each time. I drove it for a few years but ended up giving it to a friend who was in between cars. The deal was that when he sold it, we would split on the profit. We sold it for $650. We told the new owner to check the oil level with each fill-up. He did not. Well he threw a rod and that was the end of the LeMans.
I always loved the Pontiac SEEI’s with all the buttons were a airbag should have been lol
SSEi
Sold in Aussie as Daewoo 1.5 at a knockdown price and few frills. It was _cheap cheap cheap._
They ended up giving it a very mild facelift, renaming it Cielo in its old age.
Yikes, let's get back to the comfort of the malaise era quick! Congrats on reaching 75k subscribers!
I hardly saw any of these on the roads and highways when I was a kid during the 90s. This was one of the vehicles that spelled trouble for Pontiac.
I remember well when these LeMans came out in 1988. Even at that time, i don't recall seeing many of them on the road at all. My area of the country, sold a lot of Pontiacs and to not see but maybe 2 or 3 of these Lemans in that time period says that they must have been poor sellers. When was the last time you say one of these driving around??? I haven't seen one in PERSON for over 25 years.
2:16 I love how the blue Focus in the background is completely rusted out.
The 88-93 Pontiac LeMans is what created the Pontiac Aztek. Although odd, one of the coolest SUVs I've ever seen. It came with a tent that would attach to the hatch and extend the length of the vehicle a bit so you could camp out of your own SUV. And to be honest, it was quite neat looking inside.
I am a muscle car fan and I understand that the name plate being used for a compact European car is blasphemy. The Dodge Dart, Ford 500, Chevrolet Monte Carlo, Pontiac Tempest and many other cars were butchered this way.
I worked at a general automotive repair shop in the 90's - We observed a lot of the problems you mentioned (axles were very frequent) at embarrassingly low mileage. The other drawback to this car was replacement parts prices. For whatever reason, even common tune up parts were far more expensive that Toyota or Honda, and some specialty parts were just off the charts.
You never see these on the road any more. It wasn't that great to start with, and definitely not economical to repair.
The original car, the Opel Kadett E(1984-1991), was a very good, economical, practical and fun little car.
Only issue was rust, but which car in the 80's didn't rust?
I still own one from 1986 and it still runs straight...it's 1.3i 60bhp automatic.
Kinda like the revival of the Nova nameplate revived around the same time. It didn’t do well either. I’ve always hated when US carmakers take a great car’s name & put it on a subpar one. But as always, Adam does a great job in presenting the material!,
I don't know, the astre (ashtray) remains my "worst" nominee for pontrash.
At GM headquarters, what did they have in their minds to offer this car in US?. In Colombia, Adam, the Daewoo Motor Corporation did so, offering this one as 1993/1999 Daewoo Racer/Cielo (Sky, in Spanish), fitted with a TBI injection, 1.6 liter, 95 HP, 5 speed closed ratio manual transaxle, and the model proved to be a nice performer, for example, as Taxi Cab duty, reaching most of them more than 200.000 miles with any engine issues, if correct maintenance program was done, making a big hit sales car here in those years. By the way, my present car is from Daewoo, a model named Espero (I wait, in Spanish) or Aranos, the European name plate marketed there, fitted with a multi port fuel injection, 2.0 liter engine, coupled to a 4 speed automatic trans. The engine is rated by manufacturer`s data, with 108 HP. This Espero is based in J car frame, but the body was an Italian desing job, from Bertone, in a 1991/1997 production program, assembled in Korea. Thanks for this particular information. The time when GM touched to much in world wide markets, thanks to Opel joint venture.
I had almost managed to completely forget about the Le _Mons._
I enjoy your channel, but sometimes the knife goes in deep. 🤣
Back in the day, my neighbor had one and lugged his grandkids around to and from school.
It seems quite logical for GM to replace the T1000 with this car since both are based on older and newer versions of the Opel Cadet.
Congrats on 75K.
I had a white Bedford Astramax van here in the UK. Officially endorsed by Clarkson as the fastest thing on 4 (or sometimes 3) wheels It is still in the back of the barn due to sentimental reasons 😀
GM had some very strange marketing initiatives.
Here in New Zealand right hand drive Daewoo-made Opel Kadett E's were marketed in two forms, in 1988-1990 as Pontiac Lemans although the logic of GMNZ really has to be questioned. The mid-sized Lemans or it's Canadian Beaumont equivalent were never sold new here, so by the time this thing arrived, the relevance of both marque and model names was dubious at best. We did market Canadian Larentian and Parisienne models under restrictive import laws until the late sixties, then Pontiac had vanished from GMNZ's lineup.
Of course it flopped as being a cheap irrelevance, with Holden being the most visible GM brand and Opel providing some Euro snobbery.
After that, the car resurfaced briefly in the nineties as a Daewoo Cielo. It wasn't any better or anyore successful.
we had a Le Mans when I was a kid, I need to find the rego and look it up on carjam if it's still alive
In Canada near the end of its production run, this was sold under the Asuna brand. I'd love to get my hands on one of those TBH, if there even any still around.
Why? I'd bet parts are going to be a real problem, if not already.
i saw one in poland 2 years a go
@@joshuagibson2520 This car was built in various other parts of the world until 2017. Parts may have to be imported but they're available. I just like things that are weird and different.
@@danmccarthy4700 ah I see. I didn't realize they built them so long. I think they kept making VW Beetles in Mexico till almost the 90s too.
@@joshuagibson2520 The rear-engined Beetle actually made it until 2003 in Mexico. Insanely long production run.
Had one of these from new, a Passport Optima that I later rebadged to a Pontiac, I got 500,000 km (about 300,000 miles) out of it. The car started to fall apart at about 450,000 km, welds were breaking in the doors and the side rails were rusting out. The driver's seat literally broke, had t swap it out for the passenger's seat. The motor and transmission lasted forever, and it delivered 45-50 mpg all throughout its life. You had to know how to drive these, and the harder the better. I don't think I ever did the speed limit. It was also still on the original clutch when a hailstorm finished it off and it got written off. I'd have another one in a heartbeat.
Daewoo maybe re-badged the 4-door saloon version of it and exported it as "Racer" in 1992. There were a number of Racers exported under "yellow cab" scheme. It was a big car but only 4-speed manual with an odd reverse gear. One had to pull up a ring type thing on the gear lever and shift to 1st gear for reversing.
Great video, loved the photo of the unit with the New Brunswick plate; a better car than the Hyandai Excel, in my opinion, which is faint praise. An ideal candidate for LeMons.
Well the Hyundai Excel outsold the Lemans like 1000 to 1 so your opinion is not well founded on the quality of the Lemans.
I sold them in Fredericton in the late 80s
Original build in Germany, the Quality was excellent and a success as Opel Kadett. But I have experienced this Car while, working abroad as a Daewo. A horrible difference. Poor materials used, badly assambled. This indeed is away how you can kill a brand.
I will defend this car. I owned a blue 1988 Pontiac LeMans "Value Leader" hatchback. It was my first new car. It was definitely a stripper, with no AC, no radio, and passenger windows that did not open. In my late twenties at the time, I did not really need the AC, especially since the car had a very good vent system, with each dash vent having independent open and close as well as good directional controls. At anything above 30mph you were getting a good breeze. There were exit vents in the rear C-pillars for a flow through ventilation, so the sealed rear windows were not really a problem. I live in KY, so plenty of hot and humid weather. I put a nice aftermarket stereo in the dash that exceeded what the dealer would have offered. The four-speed, in my opinion, was a better match for the 1.6L engine than the five-speed. Fourth was overdrive, so the ratios were not to close together. I test drove the five-speed, and city driving was a chore. The four-speed was actually pretty good in traffic because you were really driving a three. On the highway, the overdrive fourth got me 40 mile per gallon! Honest! Twenty-five - thirty mpg in the city, and the little 1.6L engine had plenty of power for a car that only weighed a little over 1800 lbs. The seats were great and the cargo capacity was huge! I once bought a full size recliner and brought it home in the back with the rear seat folded forward and the hatch closed! The engine was very well laid out and easy to work on. I changed the timing belt in the parking lot with simple tools in about 30 minutes! Spark plugs were right up front and easy access, as was the oil filter.
On the con side. The sheet metal was thin, as was common to all cars of that era. Do NOT sit on the hood! The engine castings looked cheap, with visible stress fractures, but I never had any problems from that. The valve cover bolts would vibrate loose and you had to retorque them once a month, kindof like an old Harley. The car was not very good in slippery conditions. Rain or snow brought lots of wheel spin because there was not much weight over the wheels. And, as noted in the video, I did have to replace a front half-axel and both CV joints. Also, changing brake pads was a"" paininthebutt"! The little pins were always warped and stuck, but that may have been my braking technique. On dry pavement, that car was big fun to throw around the curves!
I drove that car for seven years and put a bit over 130,000 miles on it, if memory serves. I loved my 1988 Pontiac LeMans hatch-back!
6:35 The W body Grand Prix was excellent. I found it to have a supple ride when I drove a lower trim airport rental example at the time.
Pontiac "LeMons" brought you by "Pontiac....we build excrement." LOL! We teenage Honda Civic fans were brutal.
I drove lots of these in 1990 when I worked for National Car Rental. The brakes got a little weird after 5000 miles and were terrible at 20000. I drove one that had 45000 miles that was terrifying.
I was never a big GM guy but Pontiac was always my favorite brand of them followed by Buick but only because of the GN. My Dad was a Pontiac guy back in the day. Had everything from a 63 LeMans, 66 GTO, 74 LeMans and 79 Lemans. I currently drive an 05 GTP.
Adam. you mentioned that the 1.6 engine was German engineered. But I recall those engines were made in Brazil. Or was that a 1.8 variant?
I think they all were german engineered, then choked by EPA standards and manufactured in Brazil for the US market. Basically: GM knew how to ruin a perfectly good european car by trying to cut costs and failing to do so :D
The 1.8 was the Brazil engine
There is actually a huge support community for these cars.
I worked at a Pontiac dealer when these where brand new. They sure were a pile of crap! Most customers called it a pontiac lemon. Tons of problems, blown head gaskets, electrical gremlins, auto retracting seat belts glitches, water leak into cabin. I liked working on them, real easy to do most jobs. The clutch could be replaced without removing the transmission. Funny thing I noticed, is they all had a distinct chemical odor inside, must have been off gassing of the crappy plastic used. One thing for sure is DAWOO continues the tradition of building crap.
One of the biggest mistakes GM has ever done was put Pontiac badges on scrap pile on wheels😐🙄
I'd rather say their biggest mistake was existing. GM at that time was bad all across the line, with european holdings also suffering under the cost-cutting mentality, which drove down quality, but not so much cost. Had they put the pontiac badge on anything else, it would still be a scrap pile. But to be honest, if they had used the TC, 16v 2.0L engine with 150 bhp from the european GSI's/GSE's it would've actually been an exciting car for US customers...
Speaking of crappy GM cars… remember when the Monte Carlo was a two-door Lumina?
When this takes the place of 'worst Pontiac ever' over the Aztek, really says something
This video should be shown as an opening act to Michael Moore’s ROGER & ME (1989).
Someone I knew bought one of these brand new and after 2-3 years and maybe 50K miles, it was ready for the junkyard after having many major issues.
Thanks for this Adam. These "Le Mans" were on-par with the likes of the 70's Renault Le-Car here in the states. Not good cars at all on this side of the pond.
Can't agree. The Renault 5 was quite successful in Canada where it handled our winters with aplomb.
it's less about not being good cars and more about americans simply not understanding the use of small cars. When it came to quality, it wasn't like GM had anything all that better on offer. Heck, in the eighties, cars coming from Cadillac were rated worse in terms of quality and finish than the cheapest european brands...just to give you a comparison.
The 1988-1993 "Pontiac" Le Mans had been kinda upscaled Opel Kadett-E series. These had been appeared in limited numbers throughout Europe by undefined conditions. Some Pontiac badged examples slipped through the very early Daewoo Racer GTE imports around mid and late '80s in the South-Eastern European countries but not on the west. Some others as used cars came in from the North-Americas via private imports on the waves of the well established reputation of the Opel Kadett-E series during the early '90s.
Daewoo Motor came in officially around 1995 with the 5 and 4-door Daewoo Racer Base and GSi. As well as with the 3, 4 and 5-door Daewoo Nexia/Cielo model which was the last model of this/then elderly platform. Personally had owned 2 examples of the Pontiac Le Mans. Firstly a 1990 LE 4-door 3 speed a/t with aircon and automatic safety belts, later a 1988 Base 4-door with 3 speed a/t and aircon, plus a 1996 Daewoo Nexia 4 speed a/t, no aircon. All of them were reliable daily commuters.