My brother is visiting and he drives a Dodge Charger RWD model. We went looking to test drive the Daytona model for fun at Dodge. Now here is what some of us observed, Dodge is the only mainstream manufacturer out of Hyundai/Ford/Toyota/Honda and GM that offers something totally unique and completely different that the rest. They offer large throwback types of vehicles, instead of copying everyone else in their quest to make the best, most modular, cross platform FWD sedans, Chrysler makes something totally unique.

So lets say, Dodge has the Challenger and Charger. Perhaps GM could start thinking about something totally unique to the markets such as a return of the Buick Roadmaster, maybe a return of the Delta 88...Something crazy and unique and very exclusive. Why chase Camry or Accord designs when you could have a segment of the market to yourself.

Was looking at the option sheet for a the Delta 88 from the mid 80s:
-20.8 cubic feet of trunk storage
-Wire rim covers
-cut pile carpeting wall-to-wall
-deluxe seat belts (whatever that means)
-75 series tires
-body side mouldings
-front end stand-up ornament
and not a cigarette lighter, but a freaking cigar lighter






Anyone support this wild idea?

If Ford and possibly GM are going to abandon the sedan segment, why not do something really stupid and fun as a last ditch effort before you go out.....

 

I would love to see a 98 Regency or Vista Cruiser wagon, but I get this feeling that GM buyers are older meaning they want value, dependability, and may not care about 600+ HP etc, and they don't seem to have a good dealer network. GM shut down a bunch during the recession, and what is the GMC/Buick facade, a piston, not sure but odd.

As far as the Dodge I think they are made in Brampton, I saw a bunch of Chargers (like 5 at a time) following one another. We happened to be in a Grand Cherokee SRT

 

butttttt... it's a dodge... i can't stand the bad visibility in the Chargers.. i've had a few as rentals..

 

But would you buy one? I can't see it these days. I had a '95 Mercury Grand Marquis drove it for 5 years til small things started to need fixing. I loved it but I traded it it on my first Lexus, a RX300. I have never looked back.

 

You just gave me an idea! I should get one in Detroit when I go there in June....even a 300 I have never tried. I didn't take it in Montréal because it had NY tags and was in a snowstorm and had all seasons...all the Québec rentals have 4 snows...

 

That's just it, I bought, not leased, a GM vehicle. If you out there on the web can learn from my mistake, great. Don't buy a GM. It's a nice gesture to buy American, completely made in MI or TX what have you, but it's your hard earned money, nobody says you have to waste it. Don't be a martyr.

 

Test it out.. 300 isn't a bad car, but I personally hated it also.

• Bad visibility
• The standard cheap American-car dash/gauges
• Lack of power
• Big for no reason

BUT!!! If I call an airport ride, I would mind sitting in the back.. It's roomy. I just don't want to drive it anymore.
I like the Ford Taurus better.
The Impala. I like the interior.. exterior is mehhhhh..

If I had to buy one out of 300/Taurus/Impala, I would choose the Taurus.

 

Chevy had the RWD Holden-based SS sedan, and Ford had the FWD Taurus SHO...neither one sold in significant numbers, though the SS was arguably much more of a potential competitor to the Daytona Charger than the Taurus SHO. A few SS models can still be found, brand-new, sitting on dealer lots, though it is now formally out of production and no longer on Chevy's web site.

You're a little late on the Delta 88...the Olds nameplate folded almost 15 years ago. I would like to see the Buick Electra nameplate return, though. I thought it was the most comfortable and plush car Buick ever built. The 1990s-vintage Roadmaster I test drove was almost as comfortable, but poorly-built, used ultra-cheap materials, and had frighteningly inadequate handling and excessive body roll, even for my conservative tastes.


Except to auto-conservatives like me and a very few others here on Car Chat, who like the upmarket/luxury sedans in that class (and our numbers are generally growing smaller), sedans like that simply aren't selling. Even the Camry and Accord themselves have taken somewhat of a sales-hit lately from the current craze with SUVs.

When you say "mid-80s", which version are you talking about? The Delta 88, like much of the rest (but not all) of the full-sized GM sedan lineup, was given a major downsizing in 1985, and shifted from RWD to FWD. To be frank, I thought that the (initial) mid-80s version of the FWD full-sized GM line-up s**ked, though I'm very pleased with today's Lacrosse.





Well, for one, because Mary Barra obviously doesn't think that way. She'd get my vote for a new Buick Electra, though.

 

Sounds like a gigantic waste of R&D, and production money. There's a reason these cars are becoming extinct. Yeah they're cool, but the market doesn't want them. Not just in the US, but in Australia the Falcon and Commodore are not what they once were. Even the next generation of Charger and 300 are in doubt. Rumor has it the 300 will drop RWD and become FWD assuming they don't drop sedans completely.

 

These cars, IMO, can perhaps can be better-described as being comfortable rather than "cool". A number of cars provide the coolness factor, but not the comfort.

That probably wouldn't make much sense, considering that the FWD 300M was replaced by the RWD/AWD 300, and resulted in much better sales.

 

It may not make much sense to you, but if you do a google search you'll find numerous articles saying the either it will make the drivetrain switch or be discontinued altogether.

 

Beyond 2019 is still up in the air, but, according to carsdirect, the RWD/AWD 300 will continue at least one or two more years.

https://www.carsdirect.com/2019/chrysler/300

 

I think the Chrysler 300/Dodge Charger/Dodge Challenger phenomenon was based mainly about looks. People loved the way these cars were styled, here were unabashedly big American sedans, GM abandoned this segment in 1996, right when the Impala SS was getting hot. Ford made some pretty IMO stodgy/outdated stuff with the Crown Vic/Grand Marquis/Town Car. Here was a modern, freshly styled big American sedan, people loved it.

Personally I think the looks sold these cars to about 3/4 or 4/5th's of the population. But for those few who wanted more, hell Chrysler provided more(5.7 Hemi), then A LOT more(6.1 Hemi), then ****ing insanity with the Hellcat(Hemi with a supercharger), then Satan's signature car with the Demon. All of that trickled down to better sales for the lesser model cars. Ford was offering a car from 1992, then discontinued it and had nothing in this space, GM offered a rather blandly styled, very poorly marketed, one trim only for 50k with the honking V8 Chevy SS, which never caught on. Before that they offered the same Australian car as a Pontiac, but that never caught on due to bankruptcy and GM canceling Pontiac and the G8

 

 

I owned the Omni's sister Horizon in the late 1970s. The then-novelty of FWD and good snow traction attracted me, but it was probably the second most poorly-built car I ever owned, next to the Chevy Citation. Big disappointment after the relatively bulletproof Slant Six Valiants and Darts the company had been building for almost two decades, though the Slant-Six Aspens and Volares were also poorly-built.

Speaking of handling, since you are comparing the Omni to an old Delta 88, Consumer Reports flunked the first-generation Omni/Horizon for unacceptable and unstable handling. The Olds, by today's standards, might have been slow and ponderous with its steering response, but it at least passed CR's test.