PontiacBonnevilleClub.com

sweet. I own one haha

Nice! I will admit, I always thought the VR4 was a cool car with the 4WS and have been very surprised that it hasn't caught on anywhere else except really the Denalis for a couple years.

Haha, they mention the "X" motor on the Cutlass. If they only knew!

The reason 4WS hasn't caught on is two fold.

1) Cost. And in the case of trucks, you do lose some load capacity/towing capacity as you don't have a solid rear axle running the entire span.
2) It does take some getting used to if you're driving it.

96-99 do seem to have been forgotten, but so have Bonnevilles in general I feel like. Surprising considering there was a time where it was a household name, when it came up in conversation, either they had one or someone they knew did. The X motor was a good thing for the time, I definitely remember it. I still want my dad's 91 Cutlass coupe with the 3.4 DOHC motor. The 90s had some dullcars, but they made up for it with some really neat stuff.

I don't know why they killed off a lot of those models. The LeSabre was the best selling full size car for a long time, and I know they sold a ton of bonnies.

For GM, it was platform progression (Olds moved to the Intrigue to replace the Cutlass), poor sales, high service costs. The "X" motor was done away after 1996 because it was a service department nightmare. Both in terms of reliability, but then ease of service. It was replaced by... a 3800. The Bonneville was partially poor sales, but then divisional axing which affected both Pontiac and Olds. Buick had moved onto it's own tangent by then.

Techology and the competition move on... Then factor in ever increasing CAFE requirments and even the 3800's days were numbered.

fox news wrote:Oldsmobile got a convertible version of the W-body, and it was somewhat rare with only around 25,000 built. And while front-wheel-drive and its inherent understeer aren’t exactly the first choice of many enthusiastic drivers, the Cutlass Supreme convertible did come with a high-output version of GM’s Quad Four and double overhead cam 3.4-liter V-6, and it was available for two years with a very rare Getrag five-speed manual transmission. Inexpensive four-seater American convertibles with decent performance are thin on the ground at this price point. Around five grand for a good one; a bit more for one with a manual transmission.

One of those would be cool. I must find one!

fox news wrote:In theory, less than five grand buys a great one, although we have to confess, our cursory search revealed no decent examples.

They aren't kidding about that.
I spent 3 ~ 4 weeks looking for a replacement for the '93.
One of my choices was to get a clean 92-99 SSEI with < 100k
Three of them came up for sale within 200 miles of me with advertised prices between $3.5 and $5k.
All of them sold before I had a chance to look at them. One was posted on Autotrader on a Saturday and was sold by Wednesday.
Clean NA cars on the other hand are rather common.

Apparently there are quite a few nuts out there who still appreciate these cars.

Nice, this is a cool article. I love all of these cars on the list. Always thought those Cutlass convertibles were good looking cars

Still hard to believe an engine that managed 30mpg+ for 27 years was unable to meet CAFE. What's a 3.6 get? 26?

CAFE is about emissions standards IIRC, not necessarily fuel mileage.

CAFE stands for Corporate Average Fuel Economy though

I was put in my place a few weeks ago. Driving my daughter and father in law to dinner in my 98 Bonnie, I was explaining to FIL that the city we were in is very rich, and we were in possible the oldest vehicle car we will see in the city, when I pulled up to the restaurant and parked next to another Bonnie (99, good purple paint, nice leather). The owner was just coming out, late 40's guy, who stopped to admire my car. He is a doctor and lives in the town. He had just bought the Bonnie, and said he searched for almost a year for the specif color. He said if he knew the Bonnie came in my color, he would have looked for that, but I explained I had mine repainted.

There is still some love for the 92-99, beyond our group.

Zazou wrote:I was put in my place a few weeks ago. Driving my daughter and father in law to dinner in my 98 Bonnie, I was explaining to FIL that the city we were in is very rich, and we were in possible the oldest vehicle car we will see in the city, when I pulled up to the restaurant and parked next to another Bonnie (99, good purple paint, nice leather). The owner was just coming out, late 40's guy, who stopped to admire my car. He is a doctor and lives in the town. He had just bought the Bonnie, and said he searched for almost a year for the specif color. He said if he knew the Bonnie came in my color, he would have looked for that, but I explained I had mine repainted.

There is still some love for the 92-99, beyond our group.

92-99 Will forever be the iconic Bonneville

That pic of the Bonnie is what mine looked like when i bought it...with the chromed rims... didnt like them so i swapped my 5-spokes into it...i think it looks much better now...