i have a very nice 1997 grand prix L36 (3800 normally aspirated) and a 2003 bonneville SSEi (supercharged 3800) and i refuse to drive them in the winter. both get driven from march until October. they are a dying breed for sure, so i try to preserve the 2 that i have that are still in decent shape. the grand prix only has 56K on it.
You mentioned the digital instruments in the '84 Nissan 300ZX Turbo and the operation of the tachometer. It moved left to right for RPMs and expanded up and down to indicate turbo boost. The dual motion was really quite fun to watch while driving. Especially at night!
I had a 1988 Pontiac 6000 STE with the 2.8 litre engine and (the quite rare) 5 speed Getrag transmission. It was also equipped with the fully electronic instrument cluster (which I, at the time, called the "Tokyo by Night" cluster) and the full meal deal steering wheel controls for stereo, etc. It was pretty damn cool ride back then. Kind of wish, now, that I'd held on to it. Oh well.
My 1986 Celica GT had a digital dash where a red RPM gauge wrapped around an oval green digital speedo...The contrast was amazing, especially at night. Definitely the coolest implementation of the technology in the 80's, though my bias is obvious..LOL 😂
Loved my 89 Grand Am with Quad 4. I had a sales job that required a lot of driving. Comfortable interior, great power and fuel economy. Car ended up with 169,000 miles. Key was catching the head gasket leaking early, usually around 100k.
We had a calais s with the quad 4 and loved it 2, but lost a headgasket at 89 K and then motor at 145k but on a long trip it achieved 32 mpg. Pontiac dash cluster was the only that had it right with a standard temp guage so you could see when it got hot and shut it down, standard olds and buick instrument panels had warning lights and by that point once lights illuminated, head and valves were washed up and contaminated as it had over heated. I think they added a temp guage in the final 2 yrs of production but the 94 and up had better head designs and full guages. This was when Pontiac like Oldsmobile[although Olds was a test mule for Cadillac but some Pontiac ideas did go in refined form on the Cadillac] was also an innovator and created excitement cars and trends and competed mainly against the performance dodge turbo coupes and sedans and some foreign competitors. The 87 up Bonneville SSEI was a full size car that was great in the snow had BMW 7 series designs themes and a reliable engine and Oldsmobile jumped into the market with the 98 touring Sedan , which was great car too. Pontiac almost lost this heritage when the firebird and 2 dr Grand Prix was dropped and they started to get it back with the G6 and G5 GT models which were great fun to drive cars but the buyout was the end of the era.
I had two Grand Ams, a ‘92 and a 2002. Both had head gasket failures. GM paid for the repair on the ‘02, though I had to pay for the oil change. Go figure.
@@thegoldendog7991 friend had 92 grand am after last payment, it also lost a head gasket and engine at 110 k. They put a used low mileage engine in and resealed it but used the Cadillac Northstar sealant in the cooling system. It gave another 3 years before a car wreck.
I didn’t have one of these gee-whiz models, but my ‘87 Sunbird had all red lights on the dash. I did a lot of night driving at the time, and that really helped with eye strain.
Our 1986 Pontiac Bonneville had fake allen key recesses implying that sections of the instruments could be removed, yet the dash was one piece of woodgrain coloured plastic.
My 1982 Cavalier had what Car & Driver said were fake allen head screws, but they were actually real Torx screws. I know this because I removed them once to replace a light bulb. I don't know about your Bonneville, though, they could very well have been fake. I owned 1992 and 2000 Bonnevilles but GM had apparently gotten over that exposed screw head theme by then, there were none in sight.
Those interiors drove mechanics mad back in the day because while some of the allen screws were real and most weren't so you'd be screwing around all day trying to turn every bolt to figure out what needed to be done to remove it 😂😂
i miss my old 87 IROC and it's interior, functional, yet simple.. gauges were easy to read, Radio/AC easy to reach and use. and it felt like a huge upgrade over my 81 Camaro. and that dash always looked amazing shined up with a little ArmorAll! 🙂
That funky steering wheel reminds me of an old Zits comic. Jeremy’s father is teaching him how to drive. “Here’s where you place your hands on the wheel, at ten and two”. Jeremy asks, “Where do I put them at other times?”
IKNR?! They were everywhere! Pontiac was killing it in 1985... 20 years later after Roger Smith and Co. got through with GM it was Crickets. Olds and PMD made damn good cars, GM OTOH, well...
I used to have an old 1989 Isuzu Impulse (associated with GM back then) that had instrument bezel controls like that. The cluster wasn't digital it was standard analog, but all the usual controls were in the bezel. Nothing was on the column, even the blinkers were an up/down toggle switch mounted there. That was the most unique car I ever owned or drove, and it worked and it felt natural using that setup. Such a cool car.
I custom ordered a 85 Grand Am in February of 1985. It was the first new car we ever bought. It was an LE, black over dark grey with a light grey interior. I wanted the optional dash, but the dealer told me that every car he ordered with the optional dash got delayed because the digital dash was on back order at Pontiac. So i ordered the car without it. It was pretty much loaded otherwise including the 125 HP V6. Paid about 12,000 for it. We drove that car for 13 years and put 125,000 miles on it when it developed a rod knock due to the offset piston design. A great car. It was replaced as my wife's daily driver in 1995 by a 95 Olds Cutlass, then I drove it until 98 when it was replaced by a 95 Taurus.
Yea. I did enjoy this video. And thank you for taking the time to make it. I believe most people, including myself think of these cars similar to fly-over country. It’s nice to see them remembered.
I owned a 1984 Nissan 300ZX, with the digital gauges. It was an awesome car for its time. If you left the door open, the car would talk and say right door open or left door open, depending on which door was left open. It did not use the word ajar. It was a very fun car to drive. Mine happened to be a little faster than most 300ZX of that time. When I bought the car, it had been souped up. I bought it from Oklahoma Sooners college professor, it was his weekend, Hobby. I was only 16 years old and I fell in love with that car. I did not sell the car until I was in my late twenties. It was still a good mechanically sound car when I sold it.
My 1st car was an 87 Grand Am. Got it for the cost of the tow, on its way to the junk yard. It was a disasterpiece. Bent frame, leaked everything & all the pant peeled off. It magically passed inspection... probably cause I worked at a shop. It was you who told me, 88 was the 1st year the Iron Duke got a balance shaft. Best $25 I ever spent.
Those dash's were so modern! The 300 Z was like a space ship and so was the Pontiac 6000. I was amazed how they kept their resale value even with many, many miles on them.
I was working for the company (1984 thru 1995) that built all the wire harnesses inside all the GM Delco radios and the electronic dashes. We used to get samples of the new designs to show the employees.
That concept dash was neat to see. I owned a 1985 Grand Am V6 as my first car in 1997, it had the standard gauge cluster (non digital), the angled section was the speedometer, but then it had the driver info center at the bottom of the centre stack below the radio which would show a lighted indicator on a map of the car with scrolling digital style text if the door or trunk were open, the washer fluid, coolant, front and rear lamp. I'm in Canada so the speedometer read to 130 km/h (85 mph) with a small space the indicator bar would move into which I approximated to be 140 km/h. From a modern standpoint the car would be slow, but the engine torque was 150 lb-ft at 2500 rpm, it only weighed about 2500 lbs, so it would pull away from a stop quite haldily and could outplace most traffic of the time. The original owner had removed the cat and the EGR so that might have helped too. The gauge cluster novely wore off fast, it was changed it to a more standard round dial in 1988, so I swapped it out for a later model cluster with a tach and speedometer that read to 180 km/h. I drove it to about 250,000 KMs (155,000 miles) in 2003 before an encounter with a transit bus ended it.
I've never seen a Fiero interior like the one shown at 1:50 before - a turbo boost gauge (no factory turbo engine in the Fiero), two oil pressure gauges (one in each binnacle), and a subwoofer control (again, not a factory option). Where did you get this image?
Buddy had an 88 Bonneville SE in HS. That 1 had all kinds of gauges, lights buttons ( some mighty tiny) and steering wheel controls much like the 6000 did. I recall that the plastic buttons would pop off the steering wheel at random, and he had to use a pen tip if he wanted to use them after they fell off.
Thank you for the review. I had a 86 Camaro Berlinetta and it seems like Pontiac was trying to emulate the high tech cockpit in the Berlinetta and other GM models. Love your perspective on this era of auto history!
Gm had very nice interiors and dashes in the 80s. Some of the best. A bit of a shame though that they lost a bit too much flair in the transition from design exercise to production. Production grand am had one of their better ip setups, but the mockup you showed was even cooler still. If I could find a decent 85 or 86 grand am I would buy it. Definitely a favorite
The Grand Am pictured is identical to the one my parents bought new in 1985. Same maroon metallic paint, ribbed grey moldings, and same wheels (14" if I remember correctly). Theirs was equipped with the 3.0L V6 which had EFI, and an automatic trans. Something of note, theirs did have the little driver information center in the center stack above the console, which was similar to the one pictured at the beginning of the video. It was a quartz digital display that would show messages in text, and there was a birds eye view of the car with light up segments to alert the driver of any of the body closures being "ajar". Most of the time the text section said "Monitored Systems OK", but it would alert you to the aforementioned body closures ajar, washer fluid low, and myriad other monitored systems. The washer fluid warning drove my parents nuts because the washer reservoir was quite small for its time (I think it only held a quart, definitely less than a half gallon) so it would warn the driver regularly. When a monitored system needed attention, not only would it scroll the message across the driver information center, but it would also signal the chime module four times - BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. I forget how often it would do this, maybe every 5 minutes? I can't remember, but I do remember it would occur multiple times during one drive cycle. I remember one particular evening we took it to pick up a Christmas tree. It was low on washer solvent, the check engine light was on (which would trigger the DIC to say "Check Gages"), and on top of that the Christmas tree was hanging out of the trunk, so the whole ride home (which fortunately was only about three miles) was BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP - CHECK GAGES - Pause - BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP - WASHER FLUID LOW - Pause - BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP - TRUNK AJAR. And about halfway home it started all over again. Lol Another item of note, ours did not have the uplevel instrument cluster, so the speedometer WAS the 45 degree swept gage (to spell it like GM). It did not have a digital speed readout and it did not have a tachometer. For the most part it was a decent car while we owned it but, unfortunately, that car was plagued with rust issues. I remember when the car was only two or maybe three years old, they had the trunk lid repainted (under warranty) because rust bubbles were appearing around the trunk lock cylinder. A couple years after that, the rust bubbles started coming back and a few other areas had joined it (if I recall, it was starting to bubble near the ribbed moldings, the bottoms of the doors, and the leading edge of the hood). It met an untimely death in 1991 just short of 100,000 miles when the nylon timing gear came apart, at which time they traded it in for a two year old Buick Century, which turned out to be a stellar vehicle. Although that nylon gear's eventual replacement would have been imminent, I'm sure its demise was hastened due to my dad's 5,000-8,000 mile oil change intervals. He was NOT a stickler for vehicular maintenance. Lol
I had an 86 Z24 . I drove it from Detroit to Alaska and had to do a quickie lube in Saskatoon, SK along the way , the cluster amazed those techs they'd never seen anything like it.
If you ever find a 1986/7 Grand Am SE Coupe, PLEASE make a video on it! I bought one in 86 and it was stolen a year later. It has always been my favorite car that I've ever owned. I wish I could find another one but there do not appear to be any left...
The Subaru XT dash also moved the car graphic in the middle upwards when you activated the 4WD, as the car would physically raise itself thanks to the air suspension
My step dad always got grand ams and cavilers never did get it he still loves em before he came to the house he had pretty cool cars a firebird and when he first came a Monty Carlo beautiful 70s green inside and out next thing you know a 80s grand am was sitting there
I believe some of the early Astro / Safari minivans had some pretty funky 'graphical' instruments in the early years, that kind of fit in with GM's "high tech" theme.
That pic of the cluster from the brochure wasnt available . In late october 1984, my dad ordered an 85 Grand Am LE ,which for 85, was the top teir trim , color black and gold ,matching biege interior , and tried to get the dash as pictured in the brochure , it was not available due to a strike . The accending tach bar was actually the speedometer . There was no tach . My dad also ordered the drivers enthusiest package which had performance suspension high tech turbo wheels with a color called " chestnut" painted on the inside of all the slots in the wheels, eagle gt tires ,systems information readout cluster (which was located under the stereo in that pocket same readout as you see in the late 80s Trans Am with digital dash) leather wrapped steering wheel and a 5 speed stick. Was a cool little car , but it lacked the tach and there was a verticle fuel guage where the digital speedometer would have been. Im thinking that first pic you show of the production dash cluster with the 4 spoke wheel is the actual cluster because if you look closely , you see speed in MPH and yellow KPH on the accending guage where the tach would have been , the angle of the pic blocks out the verticle fuel guage in the center . It all looked awesome at night as it was all backlit in red .To my knowledge, that brochure pictured dash cluster, never was installed on any 85 Grand Ams , cant remember if it was 86 or 87 when they changed over to more traditional guages .
I had an 85, the owner's manual for showed the digital dash as an option, I can't say whether any cars had it, and I never saw a car at the wrecker with one in place. Agreed, that car in the photo had the speedometer. It was very sci-fi like at night with the red back lights and rectangular warning lights. They went to a more traditional round dial cluster in 1988. The speedometer and lack of tach annoyed me enough that I swapped mine out for a later model with round dials and a tach.
@@TorquilMcLeod yeah, I wasnt sure if any of those digital clusters actually made it or not, I never saw one that had it . I jusy know even though it wad an option, it wadnt available when my dad ordered . It was bothersome having a stick without a tach lol . I remember my dad checking off items on the order list one by one with the dealer . He didnt get the fog lights , and that was about the only thing he didnt want . Car came in at little under 12 grand the way he ordered it . Which I guess given the times that was a mid range price for a car .
@@ericpierce7311my mom had a 90 grand am se 2 door my dad got it for her it had the h.o quad 4 moonroof digital gauges. it had every option available that year. She had a fully optioned 87 6000 ste before that. my parents both liked Pontiac and gmc
Never seen a 90 with digital guages , they had regular guages by then . My mom ended up having a 91 at one point with the quad four . It was a 4 door LE ,It eventually puked its timing chain out through the oil pan . We put a new motor in it , it ran good through 1997 when she traded it in . The quad 4 was a peppy motor for the time . Wr love pontiacs , my moms 76 now and she still owns a 2000 Trans Am , it sits in my shop along with my 86 Corvette and my wifes 2010 Camaro SS , she no longer drives , but I drive it once in a while . But back in the day , especially in 85, those Grand Ams were pretty cool cars .
On my 1986 Grand AM, that rising bar gauge was the speedometer and it used a simple needle to indicate rather than LEDs. It was automatic and I don't remember if it had a tach.
Thanks, enjoyed the video, I sure miss some of those cars, that Grand Prix was something else... granted it had nothing but electrical problems, but a hoot to drive
I always thought the exterior of these cars were a little on the funky side, so having such a wild interior actually makes sense! A very cool piece of old school tech.
I used to have a 1986 Pontiac Grand Am just like the red one but mine was black. Also, my dash looked like that one only it had a digital odometer. I was 20 back then and had a lot of fun with that little car. wish I still had it. I kept it in perfect condition.
There used to be an abandoned grand am near a house I rented. All the gear had been stripped, yet digital clock had been left in the dashboard cavity. The clock still works more than 30 years later.
Thank you Adam. I recall the critics calling the speedometer the "hockey stick". They redesigned that cluster and it was replaced with analog gauges with circle gauges. The Grand Am eventually got some power with the Quad 4 and a turbo 2.0 that was used in the Sunbird GT. This car was a seller and carried the Pontiac brand for years. I do appreciate you sharing the design proposal as well. it was high tech looking. I thank you for sharing the Pontiac 6000 STE interior. That car was running close to a Bonneville SSE at the time in terms of features and more at the time. The 6000 STE never got a powerful engine until it became Grand Prix STE in the 1990's. The steering wheel started being used in 1983-1984 time frame. I know because Bonneville LE and Grand Prix LE used it too. I liked that four spoke design they used during that time. Out of the three N Bodies, Pontiac had a stronger styling theme and it sold. People thought the Calais was going to be the winner. It was not. It is interesting the Grand Am got rid of the ribbed cladding before the G6 arrived. The Grand Am had Oldsmobile Alero side cladding after they dropped the Alero.
Doggone car magazines kept insisting on 50s era tech with analog gages. I always preferred the hi tech digital look, including the 6000 and grand am hockey stick. Companies went back to boring analog to appease the duffers at the car mags. Ho hum.
@@howebrad4601 They did. They kept pushing that buy European car agenda too in the 80's and 90's. You see what that cost the industry. I know Bonneville never had digital gauges during its entire run 1957-2005. Grand Prix and Firebird and 6000 did. I like and prefer digital gauges. Both of my Oldsmobiles I own have them. The analog thing went too far. A lot of the new cars have digital gauges. They have finally embraced the high tech look and the screens. Thank you for your response.
Adam, Top notch, as always. A lot of these videos are right in my wheelhouse. As a mid eighties though to mid nineties GM mechanic, flat rate, these videos bring back a lot of memories. Good, bad and in some cases downright ugly. I still cringe sometimes looking back. Thanks for providing the nostalgia. Keep up the good work.
My dad had an '87 6000 STE. It was definitely futuristic on the inside. Also one of the few cars of that time to have ABS brakes. It was very expensive to fix when something went wrong though.
My aunt had a blue 85 or 86 Grand Am with a manual transmission, and I drove it on a few occasions when I had flown from out of town to visit. I still remember there was an (orange?) "Upshift" light that would always illuminate on the instrument cluster when the car wanted you to upshift. Kind of odd... and annoying at night.
The 85 you featured in the video looks nearly identical to my 1st car. Mine was an ‘86 with the 3.0L V6. Black with Carmine red interior. Drove the wheels off of it, rebuilt the engine and the transmission. Sold it 6 years later when my buddy’s Z24 became available. Last Carfax entry on the VIN (which I still have committed to memory) shows a title transfer in 2005 and nothing after that. It has likely rusted away unfortunately.
It was a sharp looking car at the time. It stood out in a small parking lot. The owner was an ultra calm dude who never beat his car and he drove it for almost his whole career.
I've been dealing and collecting Fiero's and their history for years, I've never seen the photo that you show with the 3 gauges and subwoofer power where Pontiac eventually placed he two gauges they call "GT Gauges". Can you share your picture source or have any more knowledge on it? Very interesting...
My Mom had a 1985 Grand Am. I can't recall what instrument cluster config was on it though. It was the red color one in the video. It was the first car I drove. My aunt had a blue one.
Still enjoying my 87 Fiero GT with the five speed. Would you believe everything still works. I must have got one of the good ones. The dashboard and gauges still have that great orange glow at night.
Had one growing up, I actually see two different ones driving around occasionally, just saw the one last week didn't look bad cosmetically, the other one has been 6mo or more a teen had that one and it looked pretty ruff so I suspect its no more as it didn't sound perfectly well either. Edit these are 6000
My first car was a 1994 Buick Century. One of the later A bodies. My dad also had a 1996 Olds Cutlass Ciera, the last year of the A body. Great cars for what they were.
@@wesleysalisbury8372 I had a 99 Century. May be the same 3.1 engine but not body style. Sold it to my mother's neighbor for $500 as a favor and his 1st car. He rear ended a cop while it was in my name lol
Yes all those radios were essentially identical internally, but Delco did spec very different speakers for each make/model. If I remember correctly there were IC amps for the left and right channels, instead of front and rear like on modern designs. And each IC could only dissipate so much heat so if you had 4 ohm 6x9s in the rear, you had to run 10ohm dash speakers or the IC would overheat and fail
I love Allen keys, I think it all started in Milton. I recall a competitor at the time was perfecting a perfectly smooth round key, seed money was raised but the company later shelved the idea claiming they had issues with the tool that would just spin in the bolt head. None of the investors😢 were reimbursed.
nice video. Funny about that Subaru cluster is somewhat replicated by the Hyundai Ioniq-5. it has the same horizon type. pretty cool all around with these old, "future displays"
Bonneville SSEI probably had even more buttons than the STE... also should have mentioned the Berlinetta, and in the firebird and camaro, the protruding shelf was to keep the instruments from reflecting on the sharply angled expansive glass
The Bonneville SSEi was an absolute sea of gray buttons that would illuminate the cockpit Halloween orange at night. Since we still hadn’t fully returned to powerful engines, someone at Pontiac must have convinced marketing that more buttons translated to “performance” in the eyes of the buyer. 🤣
@@Primus54 I had several of different generations, they were actually some of the best cars i ever owner, and the 3800 was more than adequate and still got amazing highway mileage... whenever people wanted to go anywhere, they always wanted to go in those cars...
I loved those cool lights in the Pontiacs back in the late 80's. The Grand Am steering wheel seemed lame though. Plus it's the first and one of few steering wheels that made me laugh when pulling the horn pad off and finding a huge weight hanging by rubber mounts to help quell torque steer. First time I saw one was when a customer came to the shop with one still under warranty that had a plopping type noise/feel when turning. Removed the horn pad and there the weight was with one of the small rubber mounts broken. We all got a good laugh out of that one in the shop.
Great post .i had 73 red pont lemans.w.white interior good old bench seats ( my fav kind) 4dr .till parked overnite got hit n wrapped round tree stump..i still hav guilt , 30 yrs later..,shuda saw stump n anticipate what to come ...
Chevy did kind of one up them though, the digital cluster in the ‘88-‘90 Beretta GT was pretty sweet. Vertical bar graphs with an information display you could change.
I had an 80's Grand Am. Unfortunately I can't remember what the interior looked like since it's been so long. I do remember that it was a fun little car to drive. And pretty good looking with the black paint and gray cloth interior
I had a new '86 Grand Am LE...the standard production IP did not have the hockey stick tachometer/digital speedo...the gray interior shot you are showing is the speedometer with the needle in the window...the optional cluster had the tach/digital speedo. Pontiac would change this arrangement in '87 to a round analog because of criticism from the motoring press being difficult to read.
What was really interesting was when they started to go bad and had their weird shorts with all kinds of blinking and gauge movement The 80s was a great time for auto tech
GM gauge clusters were terrible when it came to bad solder joints I disassembled many of them and touched up the connections in the back of the circuit board. Some of the component connections never got any solder at all on some!
@@audvidgeek If you'll recall from working on them, they were not produced by GM, but produced by Yzaki which turned out utter crap. Ford also used this brand in several models of their cars which too were of very low quality and not reliable.
I remember seeing a Lincoln MkVI with the digital dash and loved it. I have two now amongst many other digital dash cars. I think the Seville and Eldo had the first digital dash’ for GM. Aston Martin Lagonda also.
Had an 87 grand am with 3.0L. That engine took so much abuse from us teens at the time, eventually the oil pump went out at 350,000 miles. The transmission was ran dry countless times from various issues and kept going somehow. Muncie trans was bulletproof.
I liked the dashboards of the original Ford Taurus and the Merckur Scorpio the best from that era. The GM dashboards were flashier but the European style Ford dashboards usually had more logical layouts, with fewer buttons and unnecessary small controls.
I always thought of the grandam through the 80s and into the 90s was a very good looking car. Some reason I really liked those lower body panels with all the ribs in them… No clue why, but it always looked sharp to me. The digital panels, if you were to go just a couple years past the 80s… I had a 92 S-10 blazer with a digital instrument panel. It had some really cool turn signals that looked like exploding turn indicators. Way way better than the standard IP in the 10.
I bought new a 1987 Cavalier Z-24 that had the full digital instrumentation. When the digital dash failed under warranty, the RPMs was the only thing displayed. The first trip to the dealer an electronic part was replaced but the RPMs at 60 mph was not the same as before. The second trip to the dealership I was told the electronic part was mistakenly installed for the four-cylinder not the 2.8 L V6. After that the digital instrumentation worked fine. After the factory warranty expired, other electronic gremlins stalled the car multiple times, needing a tow to the repair shop. GM growing into the computer age, sometimes causing pains. 🤷♂️
one feature that I thought made no sense was on the Gran Prix and maybe Bonneville. there was a series of buttons and lights on the center console lid. every time the lid was opened a large bundle of wires was getting crimped. after a while all the wires would break and everything connected to them quit working.
The most unique Pontiac digital dash of the 1980s is the one that came on the 1987-88 Trans Am GTA. If you watch episodes of ‘The Office’, Dwight Schrute’s Trans Am GTA has the digital dash in it.
I miss Pontiac
i have a very nice 1997 grand prix L36 (3800 normally aspirated) and a 2003 bonneville SSEi (supercharged 3800) and i refuse to drive them in the winter. both get driven from march until October. they are a dying breed for sure, so i try to preserve the 2 that i have that are still in decent shape. the grand prix only has 56K on it.
Me too! Poor decision to cancel Pontiac.
Me too
@@andrewdonohue1853Take good care of them, my friend. I’ve worked on the 3800 a couple times and it’s a mighty fine engine.
With Pontiac power, not rebadged Chevys.
My first car was a 1991 Pontiac Grand Am with a manual transmission and I loved that car!!!
It was bulletproof
You mentioned the digital instruments in the '84 Nissan 300ZX Turbo and the operation of the tachometer. It moved left to right for RPMs and expanded up and down to indicate turbo boost. The dual motion was really quite fun to watch while driving. Especially at night!
I had a 1988 Pontiac 6000 STE with the 2.8 litre engine and (the quite rare) 5 speed Getrag transmission. It was also equipped with the fully electronic instrument cluster (which I, at the time, called the "Tokyo by Night" cluster) and the full meal deal steering wheel controls for stereo, etc.
It was pretty damn cool ride back then. Kind of wish, now, that I'd held on to it. Oh well.
I remember the annoying exhaust sound these had. Guess a wanna be GM flowmaster setup, lol.
My 1986 Celica GT had a digital dash where a red RPM gauge wrapped around an oval green digital speedo...The contrast was amazing, especially at night. Definitely the coolest implementation of the technology in the 80's, though my bias is obvious..LOL 😂
Loved my 89 Grand Am with Quad 4. I had a sales job that required a lot of driving. Comfortable interior, great power and fuel economy. Car ended up with 169,000 miles. Key was catching the head gasket leaking early, usually around 100k.
Head gaskets eventually gave the otherwise great engine a bad reputation. It's a shame GM didn't catch it in time.
We had a calais s with the quad 4 and loved it 2, but lost a headgasket at 89 K and then motor at 145k but on a long trip it achieved 32 mpg. Pontiac dash cluster was the only that had it right with a standard temp guage so you could see when it got hot and shut it down, standard olds and buick instrument panels had warning lights and by that point once lights illuminated, head and valves were washed up and contaminated as it had over heated. I think they added a temp guage in the final 2 yrs of production but the 94 and up had better head designs and full guages. This was when Pontiac like Oldsmobile[although Olds was a test mule for Cadillac but some Pontiac ideas did go in refined form on the Cadillac] was also an innovator and created excitement cars and trends and competed mainly against the performance dodge turbo coupes and sedans and some foreign competitors. The 87 up Bonneville SSEI was a full size car that was great in the snow had BMW 7 series designs themes and a reliable engine and Oldsmobile jumped into the market with the 98 touring Sedan , which was great car too. Pontiac almost lost this heritage when the firebird and 2 dr Grand Prix was dropped and they started to get it back with the G6 and G5 GT models which were great fun to drive cars but the buyout was the end of the era.
I had two Grand Ams, a ‘92 and a 2002. Both had head gasket failures. GM paid for the repair on the ‘02, though I had to pay for the oil change. Go figure.
Head gasket twice. Dying totally at 203,000....
@@thegoldendog7991 friend had 92 grand am after last payment, it also lost a head gasket and engine at 110 k. They put a used low mileage engine in and resealed it but used the Cadillac Northstar sealant in the cooling system. It gave another 3 years before a car wreck.
I would love to find an 85 or 86 Pontiac 6000. Always loved the Pontiacs use of the orange backlights on the dash. Great video as always.
I didn’t have one of these gee-whiz models, but my ‘87 Sunbird had all red lights on the dash. I did a lot of night driving at the time, and that really helped with eye strain.
Our 1986 Pontiac Bonneville had fake allen key recesses implying that sections of the instruments could be removed, yet the dash was one piece of woodgrain coloured plastic.
Those faux fasteners were supposed to give a tech/sport quality but actually just reeked of cheap.
My 1982 Cavalier had what Car & Driver said were fake allen head screws, but they were actually real Torx screws. I know this because I removed them once to replace a light bulb. I don't know about your Bonneville, though, they could very well have been fake. I owned 1992 and 2000 Bonnevilles but GM had apparently gotten over that exposed screw head theme by then, there were none in sight.
@@cdstoc Zoom into this closeup
photos.classiccars.com/cc-temp/listing/151/6481/27709631-1986-pontiac-grand-prix-thumb.jpg
Those interiors drove mechanics mad back in the day because while some of the allen screws were real and most weren't so you'd be screwing around all day trying to turn every bolt to figure out what needed to be done to remove it 😂😂
My Z28 had that I kept wanting to check them all to see if they were all fake 😂
i miss my old 87 IROC and it's interior, functional, yet simple.. gauges were easy to read, Radio/AC easy to reach and use. and it felt like a huge upgrade over my 81 Camaro. and that dash always looked amazing shined up with a little ArmorAll! 🙂
Yes but the 81 bodystyle was a lot more attractive, that aero style suked
That funky steering wheel reminds me of an old Zits comic. Jeremy’s father is teaching him how to drive. “Here’s where you place your hands on the wheel, at ten and two”. Jeremy asks, “Where do I put them at other times?”
😂.. very much remember that one! Thanks for reminding me of it!
Grand Ams were everywhere and look better than any raised wagon that are everywhere today.
Man, those cars used to be EVERYWHERE. That dash proposal reminds me a lot of the mid to late '80s S-10 analog dash.
IKNR?! They were everywhere! Pontiac was killing it in 1985... 20 years later after Roger Smith and Co. got through with GM it was Crickets. Olds and PMD made damn good cars, GM OTOH, well...
Just think about how many of those Grand Ams were on the road thirty years ago. Now, try to remember the last time you saw one...
They were EVERWHERE at the time!
The Grand Am was the best selling of this platform by far. GM unfortunately didn't appreciate that, or Pontiac.
We’ve got one k car driving around close to me. Good shape too.
@@volktales7005No really?
@@waynejohnstone3685Western car for sure
Hi Adam, you're the most reliable source of automotive history. Thank you,
My grandfather bought a new Pontiac Bonneville every two or three years. I miss the Pontiac division!! 🙄
I used to have an old 1989 Isuzu Impulse (associated with GM back then) that had instrument bezel controls like that. The cluster wasn't digital it was standard analog, but all the usual controls were in the bezel. Nothing was on the column, even the blinkers were an up/down toggle switch mounted there. That was the most unique car I ever owned or drove, and it worked and it felt natural using that setup. Such a cool car.
I custom ordered a 85 Grand Am in February of 1985. It was the first new car we ever bought. It was an LE, black over dark grey with a light grey interior. I wanted the optional dash, but the dealer told me that every car he ordered with the optional dash got delayed because the digital dash was on back order at Pontiac. So i ordered the car without it. It was pretty much loaded otherwise including the 125 HP V6. Paid about 12,000 for it. We drove that car for 13 years and put 125,000 miles on it when it developed a rod knock due to the offset piston design. A great car. It was replaced as my wife's daily driver in 1995 by a 95 Olds Cutlass, then I drove it until 98 when it was replaced by a 95 Taurus.
This was a great video. Brought back a lot of memories and even learned a few things.
I had a 1986 ZX, loved that dashboard.
Yea. I did enjoy this video. And thank you for taking the time to make it. I believe most people, including myself think of these cars similar to fly-over country. It’s nice to see them remembered.
I owned a 1984 Nissan 300ZX, with the digital gauges. It was an awesome car for its time. If you left the door open, the car would talk and say right door open or left door open, depending on which door was left open. It did not use the word ajar. It was a very fun car to drive. Mine happened to be a little faster than most 300ZX of that time. When I bought the car, it had been souped up. I bought it from Oklahoma Sooners college professor, it was his weekend, Hobby. I was only 16 years old and I fell in love with that car. I did not sell the car until I was in my late twenties. It was still a good mechanically sound car when I sold it.
My 1st car was an 87 Grand Am. Got it for the cost of the tow, on its way to the junk yard. It was a disasterpiece. Bent frame, leaked everything & all the pant peeled off. It magically passed inspection... probably cause I worked at a shop. It was you who told me, 88 was the 1st year the Iron Duke got a balance shaft. Best $25 I ever spent.
Those dash's were so modern! The 300 Z was like a space ship and so was the Pontiac 6000. I was amazed how they kept their resale value even with many, many miles on them.
I was working for the company (1984 thru 1995) that built all the wire harnesses inside all the GM Delco radios and the electronic dashes. We used to get samples of the new designs to show the employees.
That concept dash was neat to see. I owned a 1985 Grand Am V6 as my first car in 1997, it had the standard gauge cluster (non digital), the angled section was the speedometer, but then it had the driver info center at the bottom of the centre stack below the radio which would show a lighted indicator on a map of the car with scrolling digital style text if the door or trunk were open, the washer fluid, coolant, front and rear lamp. I'm in Canada so the speedometer read to 130 km/h (85 mph) with a small space the indicator bar would move into which I approximated to be 140 km/h. From a modern standpoint the car would be slow, but the engine torque was 150 lb-ft at 2500 rpm, it only weighed about 2500 lbs, so it would pull away from a stop quite haldily and could outplace most traffic of the time. The original owner had removed the cat and the EGR so that might have helped too. The gauge cluster novely wore off fast, it was changed it to a more standard round dial in 1988, so I swapped it out for a later model cluster with a tach and speedometer that read to 180 km/h. I drove it to about 250,000 KMs (155,000 miles) in 2003 before an encounter with a transit bus ended it.
I've never seen a Fiero interior like the one shown at 1:50 before - a turbo boost gauge (no factory turbo engine in the Fiero), two oil pressure gauges (one in each binnacle), and a subwoofer control (again, not a factory option). Where did you get this image?
5:16 What a lovely 1985 Citroen DS steering wheel and dashboard on display here 😅
American cars had amazing exterior body lines, interior I guess was inspired by sci fi movies and their control panels.
Buddy had an 88 Bonneville SE in HS. That 1 had all kinds of gauges, lights buttons ( some mighty tiny) and steering wheel controls much like the 6000 did. I recall that the plastic buttons would pop off the steering wheel at random, and he had to use a pen tip if he wanted to use them after they fell off.
I have never seen that iteration of the Fire dash.....very cool and as always a great video!
Thank you for the review. I had a 86 Camaro Berlinetta and it seems like Pontiac was trying to emulate the high tech cockpit in the Berlinetta and other GM models. Love your perspective on this era of auto history!
A guy I worked with had a starship enterprise as we called it. The old 6000. 😊
6,000's were everywhere in the NY/NJ area back in the day plus they lasted on average 20 years
Gm had very nice interiors and dashes in the 80s. Some of the best. A bit of a shame though that they lost a bit too much flair in the transition from design exercise to production. Production grand am had one of their better ip setups, but the mockup you showed was even cooler still. If I could find a decent 85 or 86 grand am I would buy it. Definitely a favorite
The Grand Am pictured is identical to the one my parents bought new in 1985. Same maroon metallic paint, ribbed grey moldings, and same wheels (14" if I remember correctly). Theirs was equipped with the 3.0L V6 which had EFI, and an automatic trans. Something of note, theirs did have the little driver information center in the center stack above the console, which was similar to the one pictured at the beginning of the video. It was a quartz digital display that would show messages in text, and there was a birds eye view of the car with light up segments to alert the driver of any of the body closures being "ajar". Most of the time the text section said "Monitored Systems OK", but it would alert you to the aforementioned body closures ajar, washer fluid low, and myriad other monitored systems. The washer fluid warning drove my parents nuts because the washer reservoir was quite small for its time (I think it only held a quart, definitely less than a half gallon) so it would warn the driver regularly. When a monitored system needed attention, not only would it scroll the message across the driver information center, but it would also signal the chime module four times - BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. I forget how often it would do this, maybe every 5 minutes? I can't remember, but I do remember it would occur multiple times during one drive cycle. I remember one particular evening we took it to pick up a Christmas tree. It was low on washer solvent, the check engine light was on (which would trigger the DIC to say "Check Gages"), and on top of that the Christmas tree was hanging out of the trunk, so the whole ride home (which fortunately was only about three miles) was BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP - CHECK GAGES - Pause - BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP - WASHER FLUID LOW - Pause - BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP - TRUNK AJAR. And about halfway home it started all over again. Lol
Another item of note, ours did not have the uplevel instrument cluster, so the speedometer WAS the 45 degree swept gage (to spell it like GM). It did not have a digital speed readout and it did not have a tachometer.
For the most part it was a decent car while we owned it but, unfortunately, that car was plagued with rust issues. I remember when the car was only two or maybe three years old, they had the trunk lid repainted (under warranty) because rust bubbles were appearing around the trunk lock cylinder. A couple years after that, the rust bubbles started coming back and a few other areas had joined it (if I recall, it was starting to bubble near the ribbed moldings, the bottoms of the doors, and the leading edge of the hood). It met an untimely death in 1991 just short of 100,000 miles when the nylon timing gear came apart, at which time they traded it in for a two year old Buick Century, which turned out to be a stellar vehicle. Although that nylon gear's eventual replacement would have been imminent, I'm sure its demise was hastened due to my dad's 5,000-8,000 mile oil change intervals. He was NOT a stickler for vehicular maintenance. Lol
That nylon timing gear came apart on mine at about 190,000 miles.
Pontiac were the tech kings division for sure but that Riviera touch screen was a tech masterpiece.
That was in Oldsmobile Toronado too. Eldorado had its trip computer as well
I had an 86 Z24 . I drove it from Detroit to Alaska and had to do a quickie lube in Saskatoon, SK along the way , the cluster amazed those techs they'd never seen anything like it.
If you ever find a 1986/7 Grand Am SE Coupe, PLEASE make a video on it! I bought one in 86 and it was stolen a year later. It has always been my favorite car that I've ever owned. I wish I could find another one but there do not appear to be any left...
The Subaru XT dash also moved the car graphic in the middle upwards when you activated the 4WD, as the car would physically raise itself thanks to the air suspension
If so equipped with 4wd and the digital cluster. The turbo gage was cool too.
My step dad always got grand ams and cavilers never did get it he still loves em before he came to the house he had pretty cool cars a firebird and when he first came a Monty Carlo beautiful 70s green inside and out next thing you know a 80s grand am was sitting there
We had an 86 Toyota Cressida growing up. Dad bought it with 13000 miles on it. Beautiful digital dash! Great car. Dad drove it till the late 90s.
The 6000 STE and Bonneville SSE were the epitome of buttons in the steering wheel and digital graphics on the dashboard.
I believe some of the early Astro / Safari minivans had some pretty funky 'graphical' instruments in the early years, that kind of fit in with GM's "high tech" theme.
That pic of the cluster from the brochure wasnt available . In late october 1984, my dad ordered an 85 Grand Am LE ,which for 85, was the top teir trim , color black and gold ,matching biege interior , and tried to get the dash as pictured in the brochure , it was not available due to a strike . The accending tach bar was actually the speedometer . There was no tach . My dad also ordered the drivers enthusiest package which had performance suspension high tech turbo wheels with a color called " chestnut" painted on the inside of all the slots in the wheels, eagle gt tires ,systems information readout cluster (which was located under the stereo in that pocket same readout as you see in the late 80s Trans Am with digital dash) leather wrapped steering wheel and a 5 speed stick. Was a cool little car , but it lacked the tach and there was a verticle fuel guage where the digital speedometer would have been. Im thinking that first pic you show of the production dash cluster with the 4 spoke wheel is the actual cluster because if you look closely , you see speed in MPH and yellow KPH on the accending guage where the tach would have been , the angle of the pic blocks out the verticle fuel guage in the center . It all looked awesome at night as it was all backlit in red .To my knowledge, that brochure pictured dash cluster, never was installed on any 85 Grand Ams , cant remember if it was 86 or 87 when they changed over to more traditional guages .
I had an 85, the owner's manual for showed the digital dash as an option, I can't say whether any cars had it, and I never saw a car at the wrecker with one in place. Agreed, that car in the photo had the speedometer. It was very sci-fi like at night with the red back lights and rectangular warning lights. They went to a more traditional round dial cluster in 1988. The speedometer and lack of tach annoyed me enough that I swapped mine out for a later model with round dials and a tach.
@@TorquilMcLeod yeah, I wasnt sure if any of those digital clusters actually made it or not, I never saw one that had it . I jusy know even though it wad an option, it wadnt available when my dad ordered . It was bothersome having a stick without a tach lol . I remember my dad checking off items on the order list one by one with the dealer . He didnt get the fog lights , and that was about the only thing he didnt want . Car came in at little under 12 grand the way he ordered it . Which I guess given the times that was a mid range price for a car .
@@ericpierce7311my mom had a 90 grand am se 2 door my dad got it for her it had the h.o quad 4 moonroof digital gauges. it had every option available that year. She had a fully optioned 87 6000 ste before that. my parents both liked Pontiac and gmc
Never seen a 90 with digital guages , they had regular guages by then . My mom ended up having a 91 at one point with the quad four . It was a 4 door LE ,It eventually puked its timing chain out through the oil pan . We put a new motor in it , it ran good through 1997 when she traded it in . The quad 4 was a peppy motor for the time . Wr love pontiacs , my moms 76 now and she still owns a 2000 Trans Am , it sits in my shop along with my 86 Corvette and my wifes 2010 Camaro SS , she no longer drives , but I drive it once in a while . But back in the day , especially in 85, those Grand Ams were pretty cool cars .
We had a 6000STE with the digital dash and steering wheel controls. It was surprisingly effective.
My sister had the sedan V6 version. It cruised nicely but had the standard analog gages. We did a couple trips down to Ensenada! 🌮🍻✨
On my 1986 Grand AM, that rising bar gauge was the speedometer and it used a simple needle to indicate rather than LEDs. It was automatic and I don't remember if it had a tach.
Thanks, enjoyed the video, I sure miss some of those cars, that Grand Prix was something else... granted it had nothing but electrical problems, but a hoot to drive
The reason why it looks so funky it was designed by engineer to be used by an engineer.
The 1986 6000 luxury came with a trip computer, digital dash and full informational computer. Very nice car. 😊. My first love in driving
I always thought the exterior of these cars were a little on the funky side, so having such a wild interior actually makes sense! A very cool piece of old school tech.
That subaru was a wild car. My girlfriend at the time, had a brother who owned one.
I used to have a 1986 Pontiac Grand Am just like the red one but mine was black. Also, my dash looked like that one only it had a digital odometer. I was 20 back then and had a lot of fun with that little car. wish I still had it. I kept it in perfect condition.
There used to be an abandoned grand am near a house I rented. All the gear had been stripped, yet digital clock had been left in the dashboard cavity. The clock still works more than 30 years later.
Thank you Adam. I recall the critics calling the speedometer the "hockey stick". They redesigned that cluster and it was replaced with analog gauges with circle gauges. The Grand Am eventually got some power with the Quad 4 and a turbo 2.0 that was used in the Sunbird GT. This car was a seller and carried the Pontiac brand for years. I do appreciate you sharing the design proposal as well. it was high tech looking. I thank you for sharing the Pontiac 6000 STE interior. That car was running close to a Bonneville SSE at the time in terms of features and more at the time. The 6000 STE never got a powerful engine until it became Grand Prix STE in the 1990's. The steering wheel started being used in 1983-1984 time frame. I know because Bonneville LE and Grand Prix LE used it too. I liked that four spoke design they used during that time. Out of the three N Bodies, Pontiac had a stronger styling theme and it sold. People thought the Calais was going to be the winner. It was not. It is interesting the Grand Am got rid of the ribbed cladding before the G6 arrived. The Grand Am had Oldsmobile Alero side cladding after they dropped the Alero.
Doggone car magazines kept insisting on 50s era tech with analog gages. I always preferred the hi tech digital look, including the 6000 and grand am hockey stick. Companies went back to boring analog to appease the duffers at the car mags. Ho hum.
@@howebrad4601 They did. They kept pushing that buy European car agenda too in the 80's and 90's. You see what that cost the industry. I know Bonneville never had digital gauges during its entire run 1957-2005. Grand Prix and Firebird and 6000 did. I like and prefer digital gauges. Both of my Oldsmobiles I own have them. The analog thing went too far. A lot of the new cars have digital gauges. They have finally embraced the high tech look and the screens. Thank you for your response.
Adam, Top notch, as always. A lot of these videos are right in my wheelhouse. As a mid eighties though to mid nineties GM mechanic, flat rate, these videos bring back a lot of memories. Good, bad and in some cases downright ugly. I still cringe sometimes looking back. Thanks for providing the nostalgia. Keep up the good work.
Ha! I’m sure you had plenty of work.
My dad had an '87 6000 STE. It was definitely futuristic on the inside. Also one of the few cars of that time to have ABS brakes. It was very expensive to fix when something went wrong though.
That designed one they purposed... Looked JUST like the one in KITT on Knight Rider. That's cool.
About the switches near the steering wheel, look for pictures of Citroen GS, -CX, -BX...
They started it in the mid 70s.
And the BX Digit had an all digital dash as well.
My aunt had a blue 85 or 86 Grand Am with a manual transmission, and I drove it on a few occasions when I had flown from out of town to visit. I still remember there was an (orange?) "Upshift" light that would always illuminate on the instrument cluster when the car wanted you to upshift. Kind of odd... and annoying at night.
I loved that upshif light.
The 85 you featured in the video looks nearly identical to my 1st car. Mine was an ‘86 with the 3.0L V6. Black with Carmine red interior. Drove the wheels off of it, rebuilt the engine and the transmission. Sold it 6 years later when my buddy’s Z24 became available. Last Carfax entry on the VIN (which I still have committed to memory) shows a title transfer in 2005 and nothing after that. It has likely rusted away unfortunately.
It was a sharp looking car at the time. It stood out in a small parking lot. The owner was an ultra calm dude who never beat his car and he drove it for almost his whole career.
I've been dealing and collecting Fiero's and their history for years, I've never seen the photo that you show with the 3 gauges and subwoofer power where Pontiac eventually placed he two gauges they call "GT Gauges".
Can you share your picture source or have any more knowledge on it? Very interesting...
It was an original seating buck proposal from GM Design. Stay tuned for more.
@@RareClassicCars thank you for sharing! LOVE your videos and format! Many Thanks for your time!
Fun vlog Adam...I still think by 1984 Pontiac 6000 STE cockpit was like the control panel on the Starship Enterprise!
My Mom had a 1985 Grand Am. I can't recall what instrument cluster config was on it though. It was the red color one in the video. It was the first car I drove. My aunt had a blue one.
At 6:15, Why is there a picture of an old man with his arms crossed hidden in the carpet next to the passenger floor mat?
Still enjoying my 87 Fiero GT with the five speed. Would you believe everything still works. I must have got one of the good ones. The dashboard and gauges still have that great orange glow at night.
Anyone else remember Pontiac 6000, Chevy Celebrity or other A Body? Not sure I've seen one in 25 years.
My mom had a 6000! She loved it, but it had a regular dash.
@@kennethanway7979 Thank you. Really loved these cars. Were the working people's cars.
Had one growing up, I actually see two different ones driving around occasionally, just saw the one last week didn't look bad cosmetically, the other one has been 6mo or more a teen had that one and it looked pretty ruff so I suspect its no more as it didn't sound perfectly well either. Edit these are 6000
My first car was a 1994 Buick Century. One of the later A bodies. My dad also had a 1996 Olds Cutlass Ciera, the last year of the A body. Great cars for what they were.
@@wesleysalisbury8372 I had a 99 Century. May be the same 3.1 engine but not body style. Sold it to my mother's neighbor for $500 as a favor and his 1st car. He rear ended a cop while it was in my name lol
I find it interesting how those standard Delco ETR radios all looked similar but sounded different from one make to the other.
Yes all those radios were essentially identical internally, but Delco did spec very different speakers for each make/model. If I remember correctly there were IC amps for the left and right channels, instead of front and rear like on modern designs. And each IC could only dissipate so much heat so if you had 4 ohm 6x9s in the rear, you had to run 10ohm dash speakers or the IC would overheat and fail
My buddy had a gta trans am with the digital dash and i had an 89 s10 blazer with the digital dash. They were awesome it felt like the future
I'm so glad we're going back to digital gauges, I preferred them from the start.
I love Allen keys, I think it all started in Milton. I recall a competitor at the time was perfecting a perfectly smooth round key, seed money was raised but the company later shelved the idea claiming they had issues with the tool that would just spin in the bolt head. None of the investors😢 were reimbursed.
nice video. Funny about that Subaru cluster is somewhat replicated by the Hyundai Ioniq-5. it has the same horizon type. pretty cool all around with these old, "future displays"
Bonneville SSEI probably had even more buttons than the STE... also should have mentioned the Berlinetta, and in the firebird and camaro, the protruding shelf was to keep the instruments from reflecting on the sharply angled expansive glass
The Bonneville SSEi was an absolute sea of gray buttons that would illuminate the cockpit Halloween orange at night. Since we still hadn’t fully returned to powerful engines, someone at Pontiac must have convinced marketing that more buttons translated to “performance” in the eyes of the buyer. 🤣
@@Primus54 I had several of different generations, they were actually some of the best cars i ever owner, and the 3800 was more than adequate and still got amazing highway mileage... whenever people wanted to go anywhere, they always wanted to go in those cars...
Another fascinating video enjoying these interesting facts.
I loved those cool lights in the Pontiacs back in the late 80's. The Grand Am steering wheel seemed lame though. Plus it's the first and one of few steering wheels that made me laugh when pulling the horn pad off and finding a huge weight hanging by rubber mounts to help quell torque steer. First time I saw one was when a customer came to the shop with one still under warranty that had a plopping type noise/feel when turning. Removed the horn pad and there the weight was with one of the small rubber mounts broken. We all got a good laugh out of that one in the shop.
Great post .i had 73 red pont lemans.w.white interior good old bench seats ( my fav kind) 4dr .till parked overnite got hit n wrapped round tree stump..i still hav guilt , 30 yrs later..,shuda saw stump n anticipate what to come ...
Chevy did kind of one up them though, the digital cluster in the ‘88-‘90 Beretta GT was pretty sweet. Vertical bar graphs with an information display you could change.
I had an 80's Grand Am. Unfortunately I can't remember what the interior looked like since it's been so long. I do remember that it was a fun little car to drive. And pretty good looking with the black paint and gray cloth interior
I had a new '86 Grand Am LE...the standard production IP did not have the hockey stick tachometer/digital speedo...the gray interior shot you are showing is the speedometer with the needle in the window...the optional cluster had the tach/digital speedo. Pontiac would change this arrangement in '87 to a round analog because of criticism from the motoring press being difficult to read.
My 86 Grand Am SE had the same gauges without a tach. I have no memory of a tach option in those early Grand Ams but i did find a promotional photo.
What was really interesting was when they started to go bad and had their weird shorts with all kinds of blinking and gauge movement
The 80s was a great time for auto tech
GM gauge clusters were terrible when it came to bad solder joints I disassembled many of them and touched up the connections in the back of the circuit board. Some of the component connections never got any solder at all on some!
@@audvidgeek If you'll recall from working on them, they were not produced by GM, but produced by Yzaki which turned out utter crap. Ford also used this brand in several models of their cars which too were of very low quality and not reliable.
Pontiac should not have been discontinued. They were great cars.
Pontiac was my favorite GM brand.
I remember seeing a Lincoln MkVI with the digital dash and loved it. I have two now amongst many other digital dash cars. I think the Seville and Eldo had the first digital dash’ for GM. Aston Martin Lagonda also.
You should check out the VK Holden Calais digital dashboard. Rather nuts.
Had an 87 grand am with 3.0L. That engine took so much abuse from us teens at the time, eventually the oil pump went out at 350,000 miles. The transmission was ran dry countless times from various issues and kept going somehow. Muncie trans was bulletproof.
My aunt had an 83 Supra that I drove to college back in like 04 had a digital dash similar to the 300ZX one.
I had a 92/93 regal that had a high tech gauges plus it was powered by 3800!
What is funny about 10 and 2 is when you see a clock or wristwatch for sale in a catalog. The hands are always at 10 and 2. Fun trivia for the day.
I liked the dashboards of the original Ford Taurus and the Merckur Scorpio the best from that era. The GM dashboards were flashier but the European style Ford dashboards usually had more logical layouts, with fewer buttons and unnecessary small controls.
The absolute madness of an 8k tachometer in a car with an Iron Duke, lol. First time you saw all those LEDs light up would also be the last!
I always thought of the grandam through the 80s and into the 90s was a very good looking car. Some reason I really liked those lower body panels with all the ribs in them… No clue why, but it always looked sharp to me.
The digital panels, if you were to go just a couple years past the 80s… I had a 92 S-10 blazer with a digital instrument panel. It had some really cool turn signals that looked like exploding turn indicators. Way way better than the standard IP in the 10.
I can see why the touch screen was a good idea. All those buttons on the 6000...insane.
I miss then the unintegrated radio Era a little. When it was simple to put a good radio in the car.
I bought new a 1987 Cavalier Z-24 that had the full digital instrumentation.
When the digital dash failed under warranty, the RPMs was the only thing displayed.
The first trip to the dealer an electronic part was replaced but the RPMs at 60 mph was not the same as before.
The second trip to the dealership I was told the electronic part was mistakenly installed for the four-cylinder not the 2.8 L V6.
After that the digital instrumentation worked fine. After the factory warranty expired, other electronic gremlins stalled the car multiple times, needing a tow to the repair shop. GM growing into the computer age, sometimes causing pains. 🤷♂️
one feature that I thought made no sense was on the Gran Prix and maybe Bonneville. there was a series of buttons and lights on the center console lid. every time the lid was opened a large bundle of wires was getting crimped. after a while all the wires would break and everything connected to them quit working.
The most unique Pontiac digital dash of the 1980s is the one that came on the 1987-88 Trans Am GTA. If you watch episodes of ‘The Office’, Dwight Schrute’s Trans Am GTA has the digital dash in it.
It's tough to beat the 80s C4 digital dash for 80s quirkiness. It's extremely dated today but back then it was very futuristic looking.
1986 crt screen in Buick Riviera was insane