The General’s Cadillac Division strike its all-time gross sales record all through the 1973 product calendar year, with 304,839 automobiles marketed. Then the OPEC oil embargo in the slide of that yr caused oil price ranges to triple, though simultaneously accelerating a number of damaging traits in the American economy. In the aftermath, sales of imported luxurious automobiles surged, the President resigned, the communists conquered South Vietnam, and Cadillac released a compact car dependent on the proletariat Chevrolet Nova. Revenue of those people Sevilles — which expense improved than triple the selling price of their Nova siblings — proved solid, and so it seemed to make feeling to develop a Cadillac-ized edition of the Nova’s alternative: the entrance-wheel-push Chevrolet Cavalier, which debuted for the 1982 model calendar year. So was the Cadillac Cimarron born, and that is what we’ve obtained for present-day Junkyard Gem.
The Cimarron stayed in production for the 1982 by way of 1988 product many years, but sales were strongest for the 1st handful of decades and so the 1982-83 cars and trucks make up the bulk of my Cimarron junkyard finds. This extremely thoroughly clean ’87 in a Denver-area property is a uncommon late-production automobile.
Despite the fact that the Cimarron was by considerably the swankiest GM J-Entire body ever made, its Cavalier ancestry was unmistakable. Even though the Nova-dependent Seville brought on some grumbling over the cheapening of the Cadillac manufacturer, the Cimarron influenced popular anger and loathing amid those who love cars and trucks.
Even with a leather interior and nice audio system, the Cimarron still prompted pain to its proprietors who saw cheapo Cavaliers (and Pontiac J2000s and Olds Firenzas) wanting nearly equivalent at a look nevertheless costing significantly less. In 1987, the record cost on a new Cimarron started off at $15,032 (about $35,550 in 2021 pounds). The lowest priced Cavalier listed at $7,255 that 12 months, nevertheless the loaded Cavalier RS sedan with V6 motor begun at $9,159.
For 1982 by means of 1986, the foundation powertrain in the Cimarron consisted of a 1.8-liter or 2.-liter four-cylinder — indeed, the exact same double-digit-horsepower engines that went into Cavaliers — paired with a 4- or 5-velocity handbook transmission. The 2.8-liter V6, rated at 125 horses, was an selection in those automobiles and turned standard machines in the 1987 and 1988 Cimarrons.
The five-speed handbook arrived as standard tools in the ’87 Cimarron, and buyers could get a $75 credit history by having the four-velocity guide instead (if a four-on-the-floor appears to be laughably outdated for 1987, retain in brain that Toyota bought US-industry Tercels with that set up all the way by way of 1996).This automobile has the optional 3-pace computerized, which price tag $390 additional. Incredibly number of Cimarron consumers picked the three-pedal rig, while I have witnessed a couple in junkyards above the a long time.
Unusual? Indeed. Valuable? Not at all.
Pushbutton air. Tilt wheel. Cruise. Electric power just about all the things.