Junkyard Find: 1982 Cadillac Cimarron

[cawimmer430]

I absolutely, absolutely, totally adore and love... ... ... ... the color of this car.

That's it. 


Some interesting comments in the discussion (click the link).


Junkyard Find: 1982 Cadillac Cimarron

As part of the ongoing ?What Could GM Have Been Thinking?? series of Junkyard Finds this week, we?ll follow up the ?89 Oldsmobile Toronado Trofeo and the ?90 Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais International Series with a car that really makes you wonder what sort of weird Malaise Era drug The General?s marketing wizards must have been huffing, snorting, smoking, or maybe mainlining in order to stand up at a meeting, pound fist on table, and proclaim ?Cadillac must slap its badges on the J Platform!?

Cadillac?s image was already in decline by the early 1980s, thanks in large part to the hot-selling but brand-cheapening Nova-based Seville, but there was still plenty of brand-value capital banked from the era when Cadillac scared the shit out of rival manufacturers with its engineering, design, and build quality. Why not throw Cadillac emblems and a leather interior at the Cavalier? Cimarron!

Does a Cadillac come with an Opel-sourced engine? Sure, if it?s a Cimarron, or a Catera.

We really don?t need to beat this dead horse any longer, because Cadillac somehow recovered from the Seville/V8-6-4/Cimarron/Catera debacle and has returned to its pre-1970 business of selling cars to rich people under 80 years of age. For me, the Cimarron is special, because a Cimarron d?Oro was my very first Down On The Street car.









Wow, even this makes me LMAO and I am used to such "pussy engines". The way it is presented here is as if Cadillac is "proud" of the fact that their tarted up Cavalier has a 1.8-l engine!   

Is this the Iron Duke?






Link: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2011/12/junkyard-find-1982-cadillac-cimarron/

[93JC]

The "Iron Duke" was a 2.5 L engine released a few years before this, and was never used in the J-body GM cars. This 1.8 is somewhat similar to the 1.8 L engine Opel used at the time, but the North American version was modified to have pushrod-actuated valves instead of an overhead cam.

[Speed_Racer]

Mmmm...pumpkin-colored vinyl interior. So hawt

[Mustangfan2003]

whoever came up with the idea of this car needs to be sent to North Korea

[cawimmer430]

The "Iron Duke" was a 2.5 L engine released a few years before this, and was never used in the J-body GM cars. This 1.8 is somewhat similar to the 1.8 L engine Opel used at the time, but the North American version was modified to have pushrod-actuated valves instead of an overhead cam.

Ah, got it.

And I take it the performance wasn't even worth talking about, eh? 

[cawimmer430]

whoever came up with the idea of this car needs to be sent to North Korea

I'm sure Kim Jong Il would love the idea of a tarted-up mainstream car being converted into a luxury car for his personal use.

[93JC]

Ah, got it.

And I take it the performance wasn't even worth talking about, eh? 

In principle I don't like directing people to other internet forums but a guy over at The Car Lounge scanned the Road & Track review of the Cimarron when it came out.

Relevant quotes from the article:

"It is short on power and painfully slow. With a 0-60 time of 15.9 seconds, the Cimarron is slower than any gasoline-engine car we've tested recently except for its J2000 counterpart. The Cadillac's problem is its standard 85-bhp J-car engine, offering at best minimal acceleration even with the standard-equipment 4-speed manual transmission. Slip in the optional 3-speed automatic and turn on the standard air conditioning and you're bordering on diesel performance?or lack thereof. The company says that help?a 2.0-liter powerplant with Throttle Body Injection?is on the way. We feel that from a performance standpoint, this may not be enough (it's supposed to be like a BMW or Audi, remember?). But it should alleviate the engine's driveability [sic] problems that annoyed one and all. Sparing the rhetoric, here's what the staff had to say about the Cimarron's 4-banger: 'stalls constantly when cold and occasionally when hot,' 'doesn't rev easily,' 'engine idles very roughly with a/c on.'"


The performance is worth talking about in the same way we have war museums: to remind us to prevent atrocities like that from ever happening again.

[cawimmer430]

In principle I don't like directing people to other internet forums but a guy over at The Car Lounge scanned the Road & Track review of the Cimarron when it came out.

Relevant quotes from the article:

"It is short on power and painfully slow. With a 0-60 time of 15.9 seconds, the Cimarron is slower than any gasoline-engine car we've tested recently except for its J2000 counterpart. The Cadillac's problem is its standard 85-bhp J-car engine, offering at best minimal acceleration even with the standard-equipment 4-speed manual transmission. Slip in the optional 3-speed automatic and turn on the standard air conditioning and you're bordering on diesel performance?or lack thereof. The company says that help?a 2.0-liter powerplant with Throttle Body Injection?is on the way. We feel that from a performance standpoint, this may not be enough (it's supposed to be like a BMW or Audi, remember?). But it should alleviate the engine's driveability [sic] problems that annoyed one and all. Sparing the rhetoric, here's what the staff had to say about the Cimarron's 4-banger: 'stalls constantly when cold and occasionally when hot,' 'doesn't rev easily,' 'engine idles very roughly with a/c on.'"

I would assume though that for the time that 0-60 time of 16 seconds was "decent".

What isn't ok is the engine stalling or running roughly when the A/C is switched on. Reminds me of the Toyota Tamaraw I got to drive in the Philippines that had the same problem...

The performance is worth talking about in the same way we have war museums: to remind us to prevent atrocities like that from ever happening again.

[SVT666]

I would assume though that for the time that 0-60 time of 16 seconds was "decent".

Did you not read the quote?  It was the slowest car they had ever tested, so no, it wasn't decent.

[ifcar]

Did you not read the quote?  It was the slowest car they had ever recently tested, so no, it wasn't decent.

There have been plenty of reallllllly slow cars over the years, and Road and Track has been around long enough to have driven them.

[SVT666]

There have been plenty of reallllllly slow cars over the years, and Road and Track has been around long enough to have driven them.

If a 16 second 0-60 mph time was decent, they wouldn't have complained about it as being painfully slow.

[ifcar]

If a 16 second 0-60 mph time was decent, they wouldn't have complained about it as being painfully slow.

I didn't say it was decent. I corrected "ever" to "recently" as per their actual wording. 16 seconds is indeed miserable for the 1980s, but not unheard of in, say, the 1970s. (Much less the 1940s when the magazine started.)

[93JC]

I would assume though that for the time that 0-60 time of 16 seconds was "decent".

No, it was laughably poor.

There is a table in the article comparing the Cimarron to the BMW 320i and Honda Accord. The BMW's tested time was 11.1 seconds; the Accord's, 13.4. Of the three cars the Cimarron was the slowest off the line, had the poorest brakes, was the slowest through their slalom course and to top it off also consumed the most fuel, with an average fuel economy of 22 mpg.

[hotrodalex]

The "Iron Duke" was a 2.5 L engine released a few years before this, and was never used in the J-body GM cars. This 1.8 is somewhat similar to the 1.8 L engine Opel used at the time, but the North American version was modified to have pushrod-actuated valves instead of an overhead cam.

Why in the world would they change an OHC engine to OHV? I like classic pushrod V8s, but OHC seems like a much better option for small 4 cylinder engines. GM retardation at its finest.

[Gotta-Qik-C7]

I spent many a day in a white Cimarron with red interior!

[Eye of the Tiger]

Why in the world would they change an OHC engine to OHV? I like classic pushrod V8s, but OHC seems like a much better option for small 4 cylinder engines. GM retardation at its finest.

That has got to be a shit-ton of de-engineering work. I would love to see the reasoning for such silliness.

[Laconian]

Cadillac was selling the Cimarron as a import-fighting luxury sedan. It failed *miserably* at that. That kind of shit is humiliating for our country, so the Cimarron deserves to be hated.

[cawimmer430]

Did you not read the quote?  It was the slowest car they had ever tested, so no, it wasn't decent.

I did.

And to me that looks like a normal time for an underpowered and overweight American car of the period. I'm sure an emission-emaciated 100-hp 7.2-l V8 1978 2.8-ton Chrysler New Yorker couldn't do it any quicker...

[Laconian]

Yes, but that shit sandwich is coming from the Standard of the World. It defiles its H&H!

[ifcar]

I did.

And to me that looks like a normal time for an underpowered and overweight American car of the period.

To the people who track-tested cars from that period, it wasn't. Why are you suggesting that you're right and they're not?

[cawimmer430]

Why are you suggesting that you're right and they're not?

Wimmer is always right!

Says so here!

[2o6]

I did.

And to me that looks like a normal time for an underpowered and overweight American car of the period. I'm sure an emission-emaciated 100-hp 7.2-l V8 1978 2.8-ton Chrysler New Yorker couldn't do it any quicker...

And it was not 1978. That's like me saying my Focus is faster than a 1995 Toyota Corolla.




I swear, you're so backwards.

[cawimmer430]

I swear, you're so backwards.

You calling me a Redneck? 

[Rupert]

... No.

[93JC]

Why in the world would they change an OHC engine to OHV? I like classic pushrod V8s, but OHC seems like a much better option for small 4 cylinder engines. GM retardation at its finest.

When they went OHC with the Vega's engine in 1970 they produced one of the crappiest engines of all time. By comparison the OHV "Iron Duke", which replaced the Vega engine, didn't run particularly smoothly and was not very powerful but it didn't fall apart. At least, not nearly as quickly as the Vega engine did.

Pushrods were 'conventional' at the time. The idea of an overhead cam engine was still (in the minds of GM product developers) somewhat 'exotic'. I'm pretty sure they didn't actually take an OHC engine and make it OHV, they just started with a similar block and diverged in design. The GMNA people said "Well, this thing should be OHV because that's what our customers are used to," while the GM Europe people said "Well, everybody else is going OHC: we damned well better too."

to me that looks like a normal time for an underpowered and overweight American car of the period.

What part of "the Cimarron is slower than any gasoline-engine car we've tested recently" do you not understand? This was not 'normal': this was THE WORST car they'd tested at the time.

[Mustangfan2003]

You would've thought they would've learned that by just putting a badge on an already bad car was a bad idea, but they didn't learn.

[Vinsanity]

why is Wimmer even bothering to defend this atrocity? besides being a piece of crap, it's a slap in the face to H&H. it's like Daimler rebadging the Smart car as a Maybach, and then trying to defend it

[280Z Turbo]

why is Wimmer even bothering to defend this atrocity? besides being a piece of crap, it's a slap in the face to H&H. it's like Daimler rebadging the Smart car as a Maybach, and then trying to defend it

Or Aston Martin selling a Toyota iQ

[Mustangfan2003]

Or Aston Martin selling a Toyota iQ

That's what I was about to say.  As far as quality goes small GM cars from this period were only slightly better than those from Eastern Europe. 

[cawimmer430]

What part of "the Cimarron is slower than any gasoline-engine car we've tested recently" do you not understand? This was not 'normal': this was THE WORST car they'd tested at the time.

I understood the article perfectly. I read the review, to.

My point is, all cars during that era were slow from what I gather. I'm sure the average American sedan did 0-60 in 11-12 seconds in those days due to woefully detuned engines, gearing, weight etc.