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A close look at the 1985 downsized Buick Electra/Park Avenue (Chad)

11K views 36 replies 18 participants last post by  86PA 
#1 ·
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#4 ·
Didn't pay much attention to these cars back in the day, I had a Cadillac as rental one time and remember the inside of the thing seemed mammoth .... after the Jag XJ and Audi 5000S Avant I was driving at the time. Big Volvos were the popular car among the upper middle class in L.A. at the time and to a lesser degree Audi 5000s. The GM cars, as well as the Ford products and totally obsolete Chrysler "full sized" cars (New Yorker 5th Aves) delivered the interiors so loved by the inhabitants between the coasts.

I did have a neighbor and good friend who traded his 1975 Buick Electra 225 for the an '86 version of the same thing. I don't remember him ever mentioning whether he liked his new car or not!
 
#6 ·
My most vivid memory of the Olds 98 of that car was the fit and tightness of the doors and seals. It was the first car that I ever sold that I could put the door against the striker and then just push shut to latch. Would do that during demo's of them all the time. They were also extremely quiet inside them on a test drive.
None of that would seem surprising by today's standards, but in 1985, coming out of a GM plant it was a big deal.
A year after that IIRC followed the Toronado and it displayed the same properties, they were actually (for their day) great cars.
I loved them as Buicks and Oldsmobiles, hated them as Cadillacs.
Mostly out of spite, and the feeling that something great had been lost from a make known for making grand and ostentatious automotive art.
I now can appreciate them for the decent cars they were.
In spite of the great loss!:smilewide:
 
#8 ·
A year after that IIRC followed the Toronado and it displayed the same properties, they were actually (for their day) great cars.
I concur. All of the E body cars (later renamed the k body for everyones beloved 4th gen Seville/Edo) were probably the highest quality products GM was building compared to quite a few years both before and after it's '86 debut. A very strong, durable, and decent performing chassis accompanied by bodies of similar quality. Unfortunately, the overall quality never continued to the bodies/interiors of their k-body successors.
 
#9 ·
Nice to see this gen of Park Avenue get some recognition. I've owned several C/H bodys and wrenched on many more. Imo their vastly superior to the rwd dinosaurs except in trunk space and ride, which is a ok trade off since with a few mods they can corner. Imo i think its hard if not impossible to find better cheap wheels that last than these cars. Honestly i miss my '85 more than my Trans Am.
 
#13 ·
The Cadillacs of that era (mid to late 80s) cost too much for what you got. You can get away with dependably competent averageness if you aren't charging as much, and I'm not sure many of the Cadillacs of that era were very dependable or competent compared to some of the competition.
 
#11 ·
BigCadMan_1 said:
unbelievable hypocrisy in this thread. I have read on this very forum how so much $hit is heaped on the Cadillac's of the same generation & the fact is they are the ones that set the standards of what FWD is to this day!
What hypocrisy? The cadillacs had bad styling (especially the short C pillar) the first few years and had a dog of a motor that was horribly unreliable (HT4100)
The buicks and olds had better styling and the C pillar looked better on them. They were also more reliable.
 
#15 ·
Great article Jesda, thanks for posting!

I really like my '91 LeSabre. It's a perfect late '80s sedan design. It's squared off, but still smooth and aerodynamic and makes great usage of it's 196" length. The trunk is huge, with a flat floor and squared off walls. The cabin is very roomy and airy, with huge amounts of glass and awesome visibility that's practically unmatched by anything on the market nowadays. I also love how the hood opens forward....very unusual for a Buick and never repeated after the '91 LeSabre.

The interior has all the faux wood trim I like and I think they're trying to emanate a burl walnut. It uses more faux wood trim than a comparable Cadillac and it has the same solid feeling that my '92 DeVille had. Even after 22 years, it's still built very well with very few squeaks and rattles...a bezel is loose around the radio and I'm getting some thunking from the front end in extreme cold. The doors shut tightly and easily and the car is quiet at speed....no annoying wind whisting or whining.

And like was mentioned in the article, my front power windows do not work.

The 3800 gives good power and is a smooth, reliable V6. It's not as powerful as the 4.9, but I think it would give a 4.5 (atleast the 1988-89 TBI version) a good run for it's money and it's hands down more powerful than the HT4100.

My LeSabre rides better than my Cadillac did....it's a bit floatier and softer. It's got a great turning radius and because it's a V6 versus a V8, it's got less weight over the front end and thereby handles a bit better as well.

I like my LeSabre, but would really like to have a better equipped, more luxurious 88-90 Park Avenue. I prefer both to the slightly stodgier Oldsmobile models. I prefer both the Olds & Buick models to the 1985-88 Cadillacs....those didn't look right. They were far too short for a Cadillac and didn't look proper until they lengthened them in '89. I like the Bonneville SSE as well.

Considering a lot of the unreliable, rusty shit that was coming out of GM's factories in the late '80s, the full size, front wheel driven cars from Buick, Olds, Cadillac and Pontiac were excellent, which is why you'll still see a lot of them.
 
#16 ·
Those late 80s Olds cars are VERY common out here. I see quite a few of them.

For what kind of engines Cadillac was using at the time, yes, they weren't all that great. Fortunately Cadillac steadily improved till the mid 90s, when they had great cars and great engines, but those engines like to eat HGs :duck: That being said, I love 'em :D
 
#18 ·
It's funny, these LeSabres/Electras/Ninety Eights/Eighty Eights/Bonnevilles were full sized when new, but are the size of a four cylinder midsize today.

 
#19 ·
Cadillac didn't get their FWD Deville right until 1989 with the redesigned body and 4.9 v8. For what you paid for the 85-87, you got IMO an uglier car than the Buick or Olds, and an unreliable turd of a v8. The interiors on the top spec Electra and 98 Regency were comparable to what Cadillac was selling on their Deville for a lot less $$$$. Personally I like the less stodgy Buicks over the Olds with their forward hinged hoods the best. Also, I thought the LeSabre T-type coupe was kind of a neat oddity, closest thing you could buy that looked like a Winston Cup car in the late 80's. Did Olds make a 2 door version of the 88 or 98?


 
#20 · (Edited)
Olds did make a 2 door Ninety Eight from 1985-87 and an Eighty Eight coupe was made up until 1991.

Buick had so many neat variants of their E bodies. The LeSabre & Electra both got a sporty, driver-oriented T-Type. The LeSabre was only offered in coupe form, but the Electra's T-Type was a sedan. Both had full instrumentation with a center console, bucket seats and floor shift. A little bit tighter suspension as well as bigger wheels too. The Park Avenue Ultra was arguably the most luxurious thing made by GM, aside from a Cadillac Sixty Special. The Ultra offered super soft leather interior that was exclusive to the Ultra, along with 20 WAY power seats.


The Ninety Eight and Eighty Eight were as well built overall as the Buicks, but weren't as flashy or as unique as them.
 
G
#21 · (Edited)
I took my road test to get my drivers license in my Grandmothers, I think it was one of the last years that New Jersey required a vehicle to be used with no center console and bench seat so that the instructor could have access to the brake and gas pedal during the test.
A few months later it was my first car.

Within a year the Headliner fell down on me while driving down the Jersey Turnpike.
Followed by the 2 front windows dropping down inside of the doors due to the power window frames that lift and lower the glass completely falling apart
a few months after that lol

I did get better gas mileage with it compared to my CTS though
 
#24 ·
People look down on them nowadays, but I really like a lot of the late '80's offerings from Caddy, Buick, Olds, GMC and to a lesser extent, Chev and Pontiac.
 
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#25 ·
hey everyone, I just purchased a Buick 1990 Park Avenue 'Ultra'- it seems loaded with security system, astroroof, Bose stereo, memory seats, remote control locks/trunk, digiral dash

the only options that appear to be missing is the power trunk pull down and the automatic lock feature when you put the car in drive (also missing the original rims)

Land vehicle Vehicle Car Luxury vehicle Family car
Land vehicle Vehicle Car Car seat cover Car seat
Vehicle Car Magenta Family car
Land vehicle Vehicle Car Full-size car Luxury vehicle
 
#27 ·
yup it is lol- it holds cassettes, the seat controls are a bit flaky at times- power head rest works on passenger side but not drivers side

I assume it would be considered a bucket seat like the 1989-1993 cadillac sixty special 22 way power seats.

once the weather warms up I will redye the interior and try fix it up.....don't know what to do about the tar on the seat controls
 
#28 · (Edited)
Nothing really wrong with the late eighties GM cars, but they certainly didn't get my blood running either. In a lot of ways they were the epitome of the American car makers philosophy "Let Them Eat Cake!" Decorated with plush velour and tons of plastic wood .... GM thought that the surface frosting would make up for the "plain Jane " styling and the lack of engine power.

I left the American car fold in the late seventies (Jaguar, VW, Audi and Alfa Romeo) and never returned till the new century. American cars may have been "OK," but America had turned a corner economically. Not only did Americans start demand real fibers in their clothing, even the middle class started liking wine instead of the cat piss that was American beer. For those Americans that could afford cars that had a different take on quality and luxury, they left American cars for the masses and defected to European and even, later in the decade, Japanese executive cars.

No GM's offering in the eighties weren't bad cars, just as American cars had offered affordable transportation with a dash of style to the American middle class in the previous decades, the American cars of the eighties were frosted mediocrities offered at a prices most Americans could afford.

Perhaps the offerings from Cadillac were the most obvious of the lot in their offering of frosting over (even that fell far short) quality to the so-called luxury car buyer. And Cadillac suffered mass defection to European brands by buyers on either coast and urban areas in between. At best you could call the FWD Cadillac of the eighties a pleasant appliance and leave it at that.
 
#30 ·
Cadillac's C-bodies were competent in '89 bit really hit their stride in '91. If you ask me, the '91 Deville is how the C-body Cadillac should have been from '85 onward.

Of the mid-eighties GM "luxury" cars, I'd have taken Buick or Olds. Cadillac had gone full "Roger Smith" in the '80s while the Buick-Olds-Pontiac group was a bit bland but at least had a solid motor.
 
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