The United States and the United Kingdom. Two best friends separated by an ocean of water and a common language. Despite our landscape being peppered with buildings older than your entire country, I’ve always thought the UK felt much closer to the US than it does to mainland Europe less than thirty miles away. Probably not surprising, seeing as about eighty years ago all your available young men flew over and squired all our available young women. Latterly, you’ve given us regular-season NFL games and in return we’ve given you James Corden. No, keep him, you’re welcome.
It’s easy enough for any one of us to buy a ticket, jump on a flying death tube, and about ten hours later emerge frazzled and possibly intoxicated in each other’s country. I’ve been to the US a dozen times over the last quarter of a decade, and I always felt much more at home there (here? I’m confusing myself now) than I do in my own country. I’m not sure what this says about me, but the ease at which this can be accomplished says a lot about how the broad strokes of business and pop culture are exchanged between us.
For cars, it’s a bit harder – literally and metaphorically – to make the same leap. In the fifties and sixties, you fell in love with our windswept two-seater sports cars, and certain strata of American high society took to swanning about in a rickety upscale SUV named after a fashion magazine. But because the American market is concerned with such trifles as value for money and build quality, British cars in the US have remained an acquired taste. We’re a nation of classist snobs, so American cars in the UK have always been considered a bit downtown: gaudy fingertip-steered barges for people who think it’s acceptable to be seen in public wearing a bolo tie (although in the interests of full disclosure, I should point out my regular footwear rotation contains a pair of black suede cowboy boots).
The majority of American cars that wash up on UK shores are the usual clichés: Mustangs, Camaros, Firebirds, Corvettes, and the like. Every so often though, something pops up that just beggars the question: what in the name of eight-dollar-a-gallon gas is THAT thing doing here?
It Cost $7 Billion Dollars
Such car had me spitting out my breakfast beer in disbelief this morning. As I doomscrolled and steeled myself to face the horrors of another day, what appeared in my feed was one of the greatest examples of General Motors mediocrity as has ever graced England’s green and pleasant land: a 1989 Pontiac Grand Prix. My understanding had been these cars limped out of the factory with a pre-grunged interior and faded plastics mounted on the skewwhiff, yet here shining out from my phone screen was a mint-condition example available for ten thousand of English pounds. Even more shocking, it’s the ASC/McLaren turbo version. If I didn’t already have a temperamental red 2+2 coupe (yes, it’s broken down again stop sniggering) I’d be all over this like a $99 dollar tuxedo. Strap in, this is going to get a little button-y.
The sixth generation Pontiac Grand Prix was one of the first cars to use the ill-fated GM W-body, an all-things-to-all-GM-brands attempt to build the majority of their volume sellers on a single FWD platform. With a staggering 7 billion with a B dollars devoted to the project – in mid-eighties money, mind you – the idea was to try and wean customers out of bulky, old-fashioned rear-wheel drive cars and into modern, fuel-efficient front wheel drive cars. GM factories would stamp out W-body variants by the hundreds of thousands, the various divisions having their versions differentiated by a simple nose and tail job – badge engineering at its worst. The problem was the market was rapidly changing, and CEO Roger Smith’s technology-led reforms were going down within GM like last week’s leftover burrito. When the W-bodies stumbled into showrooms in 1987 with the Grand Prix, Buick Regal, and Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, the new machines were allegedly losing $2,000 per car sold. Bloody hell.
But It’s A McLaren You Can Afford
What we have here is an ASC/McLaren Grand Prix from 1989. This wasn’t another long-distance transatlantic production line like that other Roger Smith folly, the Cadillac Allante. McLaren in this case referred not to the Woking-based company whose primary business back then was churning out F1 winners, but instead a US-based offshoot of McLaren that only shared a name with the racecar constructor. In partnership with the American Sunroof Company, a small but credible coachbuilder, this McLaren already had some experience juicing up Fox-body era Capris and Mustangs. With the future of the rear wheel drive performance car looking a tad uncertain in the late eighties (the Probe was originally going to be the new Mustang, remember) it probably seemed logical to turn their attention to the latest front wheel drive tire devourer.
The 1989 Grand Prix had received a few upgrades from the launch 1987 version. Chief among these was swapping out the 2.8-liter V6 boat anchor for a bigger 3.1-liter version, giving a whopping 10 bhp increase, for a total of wait for it, 140 bhp. Wow. Control of all this American firepower fell to a four-speed sludgematic, and the ‘89s came equipped with ABS to make your inevitable understeering trip into a ditch a bit slower. Needless to say, there was room for improvement which is where ASC/McLaren got the spanners out. The de rigeur method to increase engine power in the eighties was to bolt on a turbo, so that’s exactly what they did. On the outside, the ASC team looked at the controversial plastic cladding and perhaps thought it needed more of that – so they fattened up the fender flares and redid the front and rear fascias. Then, having decided that wasn’t enough plastic, they added cooling louvres to the hood. Lower and stiffer suspension pieces were added to sharpen up the handling and fill out the bodywork better as well. So unlike a lot of factory hot rods, the upgraded ASC/McLaren Grand Prix (try saying it after ten Busch Lights) wasn’t all hat and no cattle: Power went up to a respectable 205 bhp, zero to sixty went down to around seven seconds, and the top speed was 128 mph.
Why. Why Is This Here?
The original list price for the standard 1989 Grand Prix SE was around $25k, and according to Car and Driver the ASC/McLaren conversion cost $5k extra on top of that – equivalent to $72k in 2024 greenbacks. Now, a lot of American cars end up in the UK thanks to the large contingent of US armed forces still based here (we’re all irresistible to Americans, what can I say?), but it’s hard to believe any of them were daft enough to pay the thick end of $30k for a fucking Pontiac Grand Prix. What I’m wondering then is which British subject, having a post-pub flash of inspiration mind back in 1990, looked around at all the UK market offerings, thought “hmmm it’s all a bit too tasteful and sophisticated for me.” And then placed a long-distance phone call to Billy Bob’s Pontiac, Swamp Boat, and Bullshit Emporium in Sweat Bowl, Florida to get a Walmart BMW put on the next boat to the UK?. Let me walk you through some of the alternatives that were available at that time, ripped straight from the back pages of the March 1990 issue of Car magazine:
Audi Quattro, £32,995
BMW 325i, £17,975
Ford Sierra RS Cosworth, £21,300
Lancia Delta Integrale, £20,350
Lotus Elan SE, £19,950
Mazda RX7 Turbo, £21,999
Nissan 200SX, £16,997
Toyota Celica GT4, £22,380
In 1990, the exchange rate was much more favorable than it is these days. Back then, you would have got $1.70 for each of your £1 sterling, giving our Pontiac a UK price equivalent of about £18k. But on top of that you would have had to pay to ship it, then import duties, and finally Value Added Tax on the lot at 15%. You would have been going blind in paperwork for a month getting the blessed thing registered and made road legal, making the entire endeavor more expensive than all the above cars bar the Audi. And a lot more hassle. So why? The only possible explanation is the original owner had a thing for tactile controls, namely buttons. Because on a button-per-dollar metric, this Grand Prix is outstanding value.
How Many Buttons? All Of Them
I’ve mentioned before how the GM interior design team liked using two buttons when one would do but look at this thing: haptic fetishism taken to its illogical extreme. I found a historical listing from four years ago for a similar car on BaT, and the owner reckons it has 137 of them. One hundred thirty seven. I’m glad they counted them because I wasn’t going to. Hell, there are eleven on the steering wheel alone. Punch the horn in anger and you’ll end up tuning the radio to static and blasting the speaker cones out the doors. And in what interior design manual does it suggest putting the fader on the steering wheel is a banner idea? It’s bonkers. Good job there’s no airbag here, because in an accident you’d be getting a full spread of low-grade GM plastic shuriken embedded in your face.
That’s not the end of the electronic eccentricity either. There’s a heads-up display to make you feel like a fighter pilot and nestled in the center console of some kind of digital compass-cum-trip-computer thing, but it doesn’t contain enough digits for everything it’s trying to display. Both the driver and the passenger can get comfy in the every-which-way power-adjustable seats, but only one of them at a time, because both seats share controls. The pod-mounted wiper and lighting controls on either side of the instrument panel are more perplexing than Evangelion fanfiction: I watched Mr. Regular try to figure them out multiple times and I’m still confused. There’s a five-band graphic equalizer with the bands adjusted by rocker switches. Aren’t these supposed to have a minimum of six or seven bands? Perversely the instrument cluster itself is ANALOG. Was there only one small baggie of LEDs and seven-segment displays per car, and once they were all used up, that was it? And what’s that cylinder of numbered reels in front of the passenger for? A combination lock for the glove compartment? This truly is an interior of dreams and madness my friends. This feature overload was meant to present modernity in the face of increased European and Japanese competition but all it’s serving is ergonomic bewilderment. BMW would have been laughing their asses off at this thing.
I Need It.
Nevertheless, the person who imported this 1989 (registered in 1990) example must have loved it, because they kept it for 33 years. According to the advert it’s never been out in the rain (it must never have been out in that case because it rains here whenever the day ends with the letter Y) and everything still works. This is important because although the old saying goes a GM car will run worse for longer than most cars will run at all, it’s always the electronic parts that age out. The mileage is listed as a tick under 50k, but slightly worryingly the DVLA (the UK equivalent of the DMV) website lists it as not having had an MOT since 2015, although a new one is part of the purchase price.
Despite the Radwood stink pervading out of every gap in the interior trim I absolutely adore this car. Considering its rarity (the advert says only 749 were made – I could find no evidence to counter or support this figure) I can even forgive it the color. The US and European markets are so much more homogenized now – we even get the Mustang over here in right-hand drive – so the time when American cars were forbidden exotics only found in warm photographs nestled in the pages of Car and Driver are long gone. Compared to a BMW or a Sierra Cosworth this Pontiac makes no sense whatsoever, so whoever imported it all those years ago, I salute you. It’s a brash, trashy, low-rent, low-profile-shod contraption, a concentrated shot of the shiteosity that Roger Smith was infecting GM with at the time, and I cannot help but find that sort of earnest hopelessness endearing. And I do love American cars. Especially the magnificently crap ones.
David
Matt
Jason, can you DM me the company credit card details please?
All images courtesy of Fairmont Sports and Classics, Essex, United Kingdom.
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There is something very off with that air dam. It looks like it was repaired poorly.
Fits right in with the build quality of the whole car.
This is a separate issue from build quality. Look at pictures of other Grand Prix of this vintage.
I will always miss the combination lock glove box and dash mounted wiper and light controls on my 90 Grand Prix. That car was so delightfully strange.
It also looks cool as hell
Could be the worst example of ergonomic design ever. Except that it’s still better than a touch screen with buried controls for opening the glovebox.
The orange peel paint above the logo is magnificent. Of course it’s factory, right?
Glad I’m not the only one to notice that!
25 years before the end of the last century I used to do paint and bodywork for a living. I cannot help but notice bad paint and bodywork.
It’s a day of coincidences for me here at The Autopian. I read an article about the Qvale Mangusta just a few days after seeing one for only the second time ever at the local Cars & Coffee, and now I find an article about the W-body Grand Prix, an example of which was also present at the same C&C, although not quite of this pedigree.
It was just a run-of-the-mill SE Sedan, but it was a ’94 model and so it feaured the Mercury-style full front light bar. It also featured the version of those grid taillights where the entire grid section is the amber turn signal rather than tail/brake.
That’s right, at one point Pontiac made the conscious decision to switch the positions of the red and amber sections of the taillights pictured above. The thin amber turn signal at the bottom was changed to red and forced to handle taillight and brakelight duties, while the larger section was changed to amber and dedicated solely to signalling, except for the inboard 1/3 which became the reverse lamp.
If that sounds backwards and asinine, just wait: The swapped taillights were only applied to Grand Prix sedans, from 1994-’96. Coupes from those same years retain the red-over-amber taillight design seen in the article.
This selective change seems so mind-bogglingly pointless, that I can only imagine some strange supplier shenanigans must have been involved. Either that or GM stylists were just getting a little too into the mid-’80s zeitgeist in the form of nose candy.
Perhaps some Autopian has some insight into this phenomenon.
I can still remember seeing a Grand Prix sedan down the street as a kid with flipped brake/signal light setup, and how backwards and imbalanced it seemed. But maybe that says more about me as a child, noticing and thinking about that.
Not sure where you got the pricing info—it’s admittedly hard to find (I couldn’t get an exact number), but I think you’re off by nearly $10K ’80s bucks, which is to say, a lot.
Base MSRP for an ’89 SE coupe was $15,999. When Road & Track tested the ASC/McLaren Turbo in the April, 1989 issue, they estimated that its MSRP would be $21,000, which does track with the $5K upcharge.
18 year old me wanted one of these badly (even with the auto) the styling has held up well. I thought it was a fighter jet like cockpit
My mates and I got a dealer to let us sit in one and run the engine, I opened the glove box and there was an extra set of keys with a remote unlock dongle, of course it became a souvenir lol
I haven’t seen this many buttons to push since … last night’s debate.
Topical humour, I like it.
Your writing is entertaining as always.
Mad Dog is not a breakfast beverage!
friends don’t let friends beer-goggle.
Well what is a breakfast beer then, Mr Hoity Toity?
You’ve said you enjoy Baileys and coffee as a nightcap, I’ve considered it an eye opener, then there’s nothing better than a pint of Guinness for some. I usually go right to the Jameson when debauchering at a seaside resort.
CALIBRAT
THRILLHO
“This will not stand. This will not stand, this aggression against ergonomics.” – George H.W. Bush, probably.
If this was the most premium version of the $7 billion W-body meh-diocrity released when Ford was putting wailing 7300 rpm Yamaha motors in its far more developed Taurus package, the die for the General’s floundering for the next 15 years was already cast. Did they blow the budget on the buttons and tacky useless electronics? Chrysler was going to release the modern designed LH-cars in the next four years developed for 1/4 of the cost.
Dark times.
Kyree can probably help out here, but I suspect that was the bill for retooling all the factories as well.
I had an 89 SE in all white. The 7 way adjustable seats were wonderful, but good luck finding a dash kit to fit a single din radio in there without cutting/ custom making it.
Crutchfield.com
ahhhh yes, everyone says they have one, but they don’t actually. The dash kit they have is standard for all the other chassis mates, but not the Grand Prix 2+2
This is why we can’t have nice things anymore…
Think mine was an SE. It served me well for yikes, 13 years!
My first car was an ’89 Grand Prix. Bought in 1996.
It’s everything you said, good and bad. I loved that car.
Edit: NA base model, no McLaren fanciness for me.
Going by memory of a former roommate’s Grand Prix of this vintage, one of the confusing things about the controls is that one of the controls – wipers, I think – was labeled on opposite day so it works different from what the sticker says.
Friend of mine had one of these- not Mclaren but I remember the combination of turbo lag and torque steer was fun, you would stomp the gas, wait figure nothing was going to happen then instantly the car turned right, there may have been screams of fright or enjoyment but the rattling of all the interior covered them up
Only the Mclaren had a turbo, all others were NA
Hmm thinking about it now I think it was a Sunfire
Only NA engines on those too
Pontiac used turbos on the Sunbirds until 1990 (then switched to the 3.1 v6)
after they used mostly the Quad 4 but also the 2.2 Chevy in the sunfire’s, I don’t think they used turbos in any car after this and the sunbirds until pontiac was shutdown
I love it! I’d gladly take all those glorious buttons over a huge infotainment screen where I have to navigate menus to open the glove box.
Officer: Do you know why I pulled you over? You were swerving all over the road.
Me: Sorry about that. I was trying to reach across to the passenger side door to turn on the Performance Sound for that speaker!
What a monstrosity of buttons. Anyone who drives a Tesla and saw these pictures is probably hyperventilating right now.
Stepping out of a Model Y to this brought back memories of these blatting their way down the streets. GM made the 60* V6’s sound awful. And they were everywhere.
I love that even in the face of the Swansonian design edict of “I worry what you heard was, ‘Give me a lot of buttons. ‘ What I said was, give me all the buttons you have'”, GM still used the corporate cruise control/turn signal stalk.
I would still take this buttonous interior over the capacitive nightmares they’re foisting on us these days.
Actually drove a couple of these a few times as part of my job when they were brand new. A lot of stereo issues, which were recurring despite repair or replacement of the system. So I had probably a few days and hundreds of miles in this particular model.
Actually it was a huge improvement over the base model, and pretty decent to drive, especially vs the other GM offerings then.
Bite me Crumpet Boy.
Quit whining, and just buy it. I would. “Your friend, King Charles.”
A hundred and thirty-seven buttons? This would’ve been a nightmare for a blind person to drive.
I see what you did there.
That interior is so ridiculously 80s it is great. Also if I am not mistaken that used that same steering wheel is certain optioned Firebirds in the 80s. My stock steering wheel in my bird looks exactly like that wheel but only has the horn buttons but I have switched to an older style wheel though with the bird on the center piece.
It was the default for most pontiacs of that era, my ’89 sunbird and ’93 Grand AM GT had it! (minus the buttons of coruse)
Yup, Bonneville had it too. Not a bad wheel honestly.
A LOUD BUTTON. This thing truly has all the buttons.
I have a similar button in the small of my back.