The APV/dustbuster vans also could be fitted with some of the Euro styling cues, though I don’t remember if they got the actual Euro badge. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. “In it’s last Gen 1 year, 1994, sedan sales were down to a mere 76k. After spending peanuts on the Fox-body aero-bird, Ford grossly overspent on its replacement, and struggled with its profitability. 14. Unfortunately, they continued the whole questionable “Euro” badging from the Celebrity onto the Lumina, but I thought the Euro Luminas were better looking than the standard ones. We have 11 listings for Chevrolet Lumina Euro, from $4,397 Clean CARFAX. I once lusted after the a white Z34 coupe. Buick was on a roll in the 90s with a lot of longtime GM owners buying Buicks. Oil is good too. I am no great friend of the modern UAW, but we must acknowledge that they were building some pretty high quality cars (high initial quality, at least) for Ford and Chrysler in those years, two companies that were picking up market share as GM was shedding it. Content submitted by Users is not endorsed by CarGurus, does not express the opinions of CarGurus, and should not be considered reviewed, screened, or approved by CarGurus. Unfortunately, the Lumina wasn’t anywhere near as hardy. Report Follow Asked by jeralynlogan Jul 29, 2015 … I’m not sure if the low mileage was due to being frequently out of service for repairs, or simply avoidance of the Lumina in favor of other cars in the fleet. Most of the biggest GM programs, Vega, Citation, J cars, W cars, Epsilon, were huge bets. All the Japanese consumer electronics companies are suffering now because of the rise of the Koreans. The coastal people, especially California, like to be different, non conformist, and feel like they operate on higher level thinking (even if they don’t) and well buying a bread and butter car that is popular with the masses in Middle America isn’t going to cut it. For me the problem with the Lumina is that the 3 boxes do not look as if they belong together. Personally, I do not care for the look of the Luminas. GM rightly recognize the value in upgrading their data processing systems, and just simply went out and bought EDS for $2.4 billion with less than desired results. The 4 cyl Malibu drive train, it least the one in my car, had no redeeming qualities. GM had some very loyal customers. It’s ironic that the W-Body has ended up being the most enduring of GM’s platforms, given its painful birth. The LQ1 ended up having a short six-year lifespan; 1997 was its last year. Not that there aren’t exceptions elsewhere (eg Volt, Cruze). Any chance you could tell me if I can get into the car through the trunk? Forgettable. Both front wheels. 3. BMW 3 Series 6,956.00 listings starting at $6,200.00 Chevrolet Camaro 5,554.00 Another ambitious, expensive GM effort that fell short in the long run. In 1995, as college was winding down for me, I test drove a new Monte Carlo Z34 and a MN12 Thunderbird. I wonder how long those plastic idler pulleys last…. The Dashboard had a narrow slit for the gauges. I remember a Pontiac J-body from this period that had switchgear that looked and felt like Tupperware lids. I inherited a 1989 Pontiac Grand Prix LE when grandma stopped driving. Even routine maintenance, like timing belts and spark plug changes were quite expensive. By the mid 1990s, all the historic buyers of GMs divisions who KNEW what their cars were supposed to be were lost. And on and on. GM got spoiled by its loyal customers, and because there were so many of them, it of course did not make sense to alienate any of them. There was no keyless entry. Overall, though, any learned person and student of history (even thoughs that don’t care for cars) would probably agree that US domination of any large industry was probably going to come to and end sooner or later. 2 Answers I've been having idle problems for awhile but the car ran pretty good. If you got impatient, the belt would lock up halfway out, and you had to reel it back in and start over. No lunch time burrito for me. I eagerly awaited the z34 and bought a black one off the showroom floor as soon as they first came out. Even the Toyota store where I normally worked sold more pickups and FourRunners than cars. This was borne out during the recall events of the last severals years (and I am not going to comment on the recall itself just the management behavior) when the problem went from being a relatively small problem to a crisis that started to look like the Audi thing in the late 1980s. But since the 80s, GM’s share has plummeted far in excess of the losses experienced by their domestic rivals. when you only see short glimpses of the plug wires, and no signs at all of the actual plugs themselves, not to mention where the plug wires originate, you know it’s going to be a ! Same with BMWs kidney bean grille (although I think its largely been Bangledized now…) and of course Volvo’s diagonal bar across the grille. We used to call the 3.1 “the cackler” and didn’t mean it as a compliment. I have a 1991 Chevy Lumina Euro 3.1L mfi 6 cyl.the car was running fine, bit of rough idle, but would start , run was fine. Eventually, though, a few here and a few there starts to add up, and someone in their circle of acquaintances shows up in an Avalon or in an Acura TL, and they start to wonder. All while the UAW was hand picking which American company to target next for their latest grievance. full tank. The dash/steering layout was very unique, it gave the feel of an extremely low cowl, and notice how far the steering column juts out from the dash? Instead of the inertia reel used by GM and Ford, the Chrysler system sensed the belt pulling out too fast and locked it. Being the largest automaker in the US historically GM was always looked upon for acceptance of larger trends. I wonder what would happen if Mercedes designed a 4 door sedan WITHOUT a fixed quarter window in the rear door? I really doubt Roger Smith got involved in trivia such as exterior door handle design, so what is the internal history of that bizarre and dysfunctional mechanism? Even if the Lumina had been as good as the Taurus, I really doubt Chevy could have sold them in CA in the early 90’s. The chassis was a drastic improvement over their predecessors and peers. And that was with 53K miles. Because it was the Euro model it had the 3.1 std and the optional Cheap, I can understand. The coupes were released first because the RWD G-body platform was the oldest and GM had committed to go FWD as soon as possible. Then. Hindsight confirms that the risk of alienating the old Newport buyer was well worth it (and very necessary). But, by 1990’s no one cared about silly gimmicks as they did in the 1950’s. It was simple, durable, and cheap to obtain replacement parts. The one way that the Lumina was decidedly different from the Taurus was in offering a coupe body style. I believe that there are a lot of good, talented people who are in a system that gets in the way of doing what ought to be done. I bought a brand new Lumina Euro 3.1 in April 0f 1991 and I still have it today. And GM’s management was lacking in too many areas, including their endless efforts to be both progressive and conservative at the same time. Now, we owned a Saturn Aura (same car) with the 3.6L which we loved except for it’s gas mileage. As an early teenager my favorite thing about that car was parking it on the street (about as far as my dad would let me drive it) opening the trunk, blasting some hip-hop and playing basketball with my friends. In the trendy coupe segment, styling is dated after 2-3 years. Startups do well because they are small flexible and their original members have an edgy mindset. By the time I sold it, the AC compressor went, half the dash lights were out, the cigarette lighter stop working, the headliner was sagging, and only one power window was operational. Boy , that’s got to be a l-o-n-g list! For these people, they turned out to be relatively good cars, relative to their ability to repair them. (Truck/SUV loophole, which may very well have contributed to the rise of SUVs.). I liked, the Acclaim and was rooting for Plymouth, yet I had rented / loved a Dodge Spirit and It was peppy with the v6 engine. We know GM had Proving Ground testing—so what did the internal analyses and durability tests reveal? I do not think there is a corporation that exists in the world today that has the wherewithall to apporach a project of that magnitude. Don’t bother. All very different cars but each a complete statement of personality of their own. I tend to think that GM has been TOO radical in their designs probably because as the lead automaker for most of automotive’s history, they were always looked upon as the maker that had to do the big stuff. That one was still A-body in ’88 and didn’t go W until much later. (I may step into it a bit with this statement but understand the logic) One of the arguments that I used in supporting the bailout of GM and Chrysler a few years ago was the preservation of choice in the marketplace. The most interesting belt-in-door design has got to be the motorized ones where you were supposed to leave the seatbelt buckled and the motor drew the belt away so you could get in and out. The problem with that strategy is simply size control. I drive a W-body every day, and before this I owned a Taurus and a Tbird. If it weren’t due to the fact they were more expensive than I could afford at the time, we may have bought one instead of our beloved Acclaim. brought up a good point that during the late 70s, many in the government and in the auto industry looked to GM to make the trend for downsizing and the wholesale switch to FWD so that both the other automakers and the public would accept it. I had a 1996 Lumina as my first car. While real middies are called ‘full’ or ‘premium’ size. Seat belts have had an interesting history – I have a 93 Century wagon I use about the house for dirty jobs – that has that arrangement. Why the god-awful seat belt design—was it a case of “we must use whatever we invent”? In any case, it didn’t rely on pretense to badge and sell them, even in foreign-car besotted California. If anything, executive management of Toyota is ever more insular than GM ever was the executive ranks in Japan are still dominated by the family, only Ford (and to a much lesser extent), has any real influence from its original founders on the US side. I remember thinking LET Down from the CELEBRITY if that’s where they started. Cheap feeling fabrics, plastics, carpets and headliners, Cheap feeling and cheap looking switches and gauges. Even had an Entera Vipre. I have often read that GM’s problem was that as the 90s went on, it alienated traditional customers but did not appeal to new ones. You invariably got tangled in a jungle of webbing that made you unplug the seatbelt anyway. We went to several Chevy dealers and found one with a used 1989 T-Bird base model and a 1990 2 door Lumina Euro in silver with the optional alloys and 16″ tires. I dug the bell out of the dash so all I get now is the red light on the dash until I buckle up. The article was all over the fact that it made so much more power than the 3.1 but then they said that GM was not going to offer it in the police version. Stuck in a S-10 and they were quiet, at least the exhaust note. There is no greater example of this than the W program that we are talking about. Generator rear brace, on relatively smooth pavement. Was sitting 2 years befor I picked it up. The quicker 0-40 performance. GM, like AT&T in the phone world, and IBM in the electronics world, were behemoths like the world has never seen. We went to several Chevy dealers and found one with a used 1989 T-Bird base model and a 1990 2 door Lumina Euro in silver with the optional alloys and 16″ tires. That was still quite a bit less than the 1995 Lumina’s 242,000 but not much lower than the T-Bird’s 115,000. As pointed out, the Lumina just screams “rental car”. Big American manual trans sport coupes. VW did the same with the one trick pony Beetle and Rabbit/Golf and hit a low point in the early 1990s and almost died off in the US until the third generation Golf/Jettas came out. to crank long enough to get me to gas station. Every time I checked it while on the road it came out the same. The two main factors that I see that have been the primary factors into getting us here are A) Globalization – as stated above with the US not being the only major free market economy there is bound to be intrusion in the market – it has occured not just with automobiles but in virtually everything else where capital expenditures are a huge part of the budget. That bright color. I owned a used 2nd- gen Lumina for a year back in 2002, and I couldn’t agree more with your assessment of the interior. I have a 1991 Chevy Lumina Euro 3.1L mfi 6 cyl.the car was running fine, bit of rough idle, but would start , run was fine. The controls mounted to the steering stalk felt as though they wanted to snap off in your hand. FWIW, I’ve known several folks who have owned these over the years. Its since been replaced with a 3rd genration escort with the hubcaps spray painted blue. Chrysler undoubtedly alienated a lot of old time customers with the minivans. But still…. Carmine, one cannot argue about what our baby boomer generation (of which I am one) has wrought on this country. PLEASE. No wonder why most of the product that Honda and Toyota sells is made in the US. Mostly CTSs and Lacrosses. Not just because the had better cars, but because they were the only ones making cars. 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