A 1988 Pontiac Grand Am, heh? I remember the Grand Am’s introduction in ’73; it was to be another premium variation on GM’s famous A-body platform. It was even supposed to house the vaunted SD 455 CI engine, but that, unfortunately, never came to pass. So, by ’88, this citizen of New London, Minnesota, was what was now occupying the Grand Am slot – the one that Pontiac proclaimed in 1973 to have “The feel of the Grand Prix…the response of a GTO… the qualities you’ve admired in the desirable imports.” Hmmm… this one seems quite a bit removed from the original design, and maybe the intention too, of what the new Grand Am was supposed to be. But let’s be fair and see what this N-body front-wheel-driver brought to GM’s “Excitement” division. You’ll find this recently repainted Poncho listed here on Facebook Marketplace for $4,200, OBO. I have to thank Lothar…of the Hill People for bagging this scalp!
We don’t review many 38-year-old cars here on BF. And there’s a reason for that, as true barn finds are usually a much older breed. Also, some might argue that the late eighties are elusive of more memorable models – maybe a time more infused with forgettable marques and models. I’m not going to take sides – every generation has some items worthy of consideration. Pontiac, one of America’s most venerable brands, is defunct, and 38 years of age isn’t exactly the province of late-model cars and trucks. Anyway, what’s in a name? What does Grand Am really mean? Search me fish, every time I tried to define the name’s origin, I kept getting responses that alluded to simply a Pontiac model. Grand – Great? Am – America? That’s the best I can come up with. Anyway, this ’88 Grand Am hails from the third-gen (’85-’91) and is one of 235K produced that year – pretty popular! Body styles were two or four-door sedans with trim levels of standard, LE (our subject), and SE.
This one was originally silver, but the seller states, “Original paint was peeling on the hood, roof, and trunk, so I sanded it down and gave it a fresh coat of white paint.” What I can’t tell from the images is whether this Tin Indian is now wearing a roller job, a Maaco-quality application, or if this fella really knows his stuff. From what can be seen, it appears to be a thorough job, with full coverage (including the door lock cylinders). The seller adds, “98% rust-free.”
Sittin’ sideways up front is a 98 net HP, 2.5 liter, in-line four-cylinder engine known as the “Iron Duke.” A lot has been said about this Pontiac powerplant, i.e., “an agrarian implement”, “sounds and runs like a pea thrasher”, but maybe most importantly, “it’s reliable.” The seller claims that this 68K-mile example “Runs, drives, and looks like new. Everything works …” A three-speed automatic transaxle spins the front wheels.
The interior is GM all the way and could have come out of any other car they assembled 38 years ago. It has typical gray fabric upholstery, and it appears to be in fine shape. The instrument panel layout is simple but functional in a minimalist way. I really can’t detect any wear, and as a minor note, it looks like someone’s Starbucks got away from them and doused the passenger-side footwell – it’s really minor. The seller mentions “Ice cold A/C.”
Pontiac at one time proclaimed, “We build Excitement!“? Yeah, but maybe not in this case; this one’s basically a benign, sporty compact that appears to be in good shape. And that leads to my next thought: who would be the most likely target market for this 1988 Pontiac Grand Am LE?
I can remember seeing these all over the place during the mid to late ’80s and they all seemed to be the same shade of maroon or even puce,…Sommerset Regels were common then too and also in one color, a kind of seamist blue. A buddy picked up a Grand Am of this vintage years ago to resell and it was on of the few that I’ve ever seen with a manual. Iron Duke notwithstanding I have to admit that it wasn’t a bad driver with the manual and I found myself toying with the idea of picking it up and grafting a few bolt on mods to the 2.5 just to see what I could make the little Pontiac do. Alas my friend sold the car to an out of town owner and I heard that it eventually had the trunk removed to haul bales, manure, and whanot on a farm,….
I worked in a Pontiac store when the Grand Ams came out in ’73. (Remember to squeezable front nose? I was high on the Grand AM then. Drove a few with a 4 speed also. Better handling and smoother ride than a GTO. I also worked at a Pontiac store when GM pulled the plug. (sad day) (Different dealership, different job, different area of the country) These Grand Ams I wasn’t too high on. (no fun)
Loved that body style, especially the 4 door. There were a few running around locally back then but one that really caught my eye was a 4 door in a dark sort of navy blue. The owner later got a set of TA snowflake rims color coded to the cars color and when they were mounted the Grand Am was simply gorgious.
Whoa. This one touched a nerve. I can say this, it’s holds up good in a wreck til it catches fire with you and your unconscious buddy in it. First, we were fine. He was in a coma for a few weeks but came out of it to become a preacher. Airborne 60 feet and bounced off the side of a bridge. Pulled him out to watch it explode. Made an 18 year old grow up quick. Okay, back to the car. Yeah, it burned good but dang that frame held up and saved both of our lives. End of public service announcement.
Painted-over keyslots and the fact the trunk and door emblems and the original wide rub strips haven’t been reinstalled doesn’t bode well for the paint job. I’m split on whether that’s a nit worth picking for the price since $4500 is close to both “any running and legal car” money and to being top dollar for one.
The 4-door didn’t have any real competition from Ford and the Mopar they most closely matched was the Dodge Lancer which came only as a 4-door liftback, and among imports the Acura Integra and VW Jetta matched them the closest but these 2-doors were competing against a lot of dedicated sporty coupes.
Yeah that paint job is a 20 footer at best. Paint over spray on the passenger rear tire, and about 8 inches from the bottom of the antenna
I learnec to drive in my mother’s 89 skylark cousin to this with the quad 4 engine, it had developed a bad stalling problem and dying at intersections and traffic lights. No more GM cars for me.
i had an iron duke in an olds Calais and can tell you for a fact i never saw 34 mpg. need to see the underside of this especially being from Minnesota. good looking hooptie be a good buy @ 3k or so.
Because of all the young people moving to a Columbus, OH in the late ’80s, a local radio station at the time dubbed the city the “Grand Am capital of the world” and even made a novelty song up about it. These N-bodies were a great first car for many newly minted college grads (including myself). I chose the Olds version because, well, I’m an Olds guy and the quality of the interior was head and shoulders above the plasticky Pontiac.
The name Grand Am was originally just a mashup of two other Pontiac models, meant to suggest a combination of Grand Prix luxury with Trans Am performance, or perhaps more realistically just something in between those two models.
Pontiac was on a Grand name-bender for a while there, about as profligate as Olds later got with Cutlass, in 1975 offering a Grand Prix, Grand Am, Grand LeMans, and Grand Ville (itself a mashup of Grand Prix and Bonneville).
Fun fact: My uncle who was chief of the Pontiac exterior design studio that developed the Trans Sport minivan once told me he drew up the first concept sketches for that model on his own initiative and presented them to execs as the Grand Van.
He had no part in designing the Aztek, I hope! :-)
In the words of the late great Oliver Hardy, “I certainly hope not! Harumph!”
I agree, butt ugly.
One has been for sale at an independent dealer not far from me for about 2 months. Bright yellow. Ewww!
Not a bad looking Grand AM, but living & being from Mn. the underside and doors bear an inspection.
Hah! Nope, by that time he was nearing retirement and, to cap off his GM career, assigned to finalize design of the production Hummer H2 — which, whatever you think of it conceptually (he didn’t conceive it, just styled it), IMO turned out handsomely well-styled with a credible family resemblance to the military HMMWV/”Humvee”/H1 that was never conceived to have any “brand identity” in the first place.
The Pontiac studio he’d helmed for most of his career did however design the exterior of every midsize and large Pontiac model from the early ’70s up through the late ’90s under his direction, including these Grand Ams. A second exterior studio did Pontiac’s compact and sports models, and a third studio did all their interiors.
Speaking of, another fun fact: once on a family visit he gave us a slideshow including some full-size profile illustrations from late in these Grand Ams’ development, where it still had a much more arched middle roofline and greenhouse that squared-off at the tail end into the formal rear roofline — imagine something halfway between the later ’96-04 B5 Passat and the production Grand Am.
We also saw how the facelifted ’87 6000 STE nose was meant to have a full-width lightbar, until Ford beat them to it with the Mercury Sable; they didn’t want to seem like copycats and shelved the idea, tho’ it eventually turned up later in the ’94 facelift of the W-body Grand Prix.
I had heard these cars were made for the car rental market. I don’t know if that is true or not. My wife and I had a 96 and a 97 grand am. We got over 300,000 on each car. They were some of the best cars we ever had. Low maintenance and good gas mileage. For two people they worked well for us.
Many landed in rental service but not designed to be as such. The cars you may be thinking of are the Corsica and Baretta which were introduced thru rental agencies as a unique demo drive program. Never quite shook the stigma.
Don’t forget the Olds Achiva. It’s the car Oldsmobile “dumped” into the rental fleets. Dealers that were located next to major airports like ours were unindated with these in the service departments. I was a service manager at an Oldsmobile, Volvo, BMW store with a major airport practically next door. I got a warranty audit for excessive warranty repairs. My rep and I had a good relationship and he knew I wouldn’t do anything “hinky” so he gave me the VINs of the repairs that triggered the audit. (normally his job, but they had him running 6 different directions and the audit was holding up GM paying for warranty repairs. I found out something interesting after reviewing claims that GM was looking at and other claims for like cars. It took me a better part of 3 weeks. And we weren’t a very big dealership. When an owner has a check engine light on OR the car starts to drive/act strange they bring it right in. On a rental car, the driver just drives it until it doesn’t drive anymore. Causing considerable more damage/repair costs. Once I found that out, I called my rep. He came in to survey my records and notes and agreed with my findings. I then asked about a another dealership
that I knew that was close to a MAJOR airport and he verified that dealer was on an audit also. So I called the service manager at that dealership and relayed my findings to just look at the Achiva claims for rental cars. A week later I received a $100 Visa gift card with a big thank you note attached.
@Wayne, I seem to recall people calling them the under-achiva. In retrospect one can see all the ways GM failed. They just never believed it would happen. My brother worked for GM in the 60s and 70s, dad retired from Olds in the 90s. I was at proving ground in the late 80s. Sitting with my brother while he was in the hospital we watched Wagoner in front of congress and said to each other, how could this be happening?
Had an 88′ with the quad 4 and 5 speed manual. Use to blow mustangs off the line. Engine threw a rod out the block with 24,000 miles on it. Covered under warranty. Sold it 2 months later. Other than that, it was a good car.
I had the same setup in my ’88 Cutlass Calais. I don’t remember blowing away 5.0 Mustangs off the line, but I do remember lots of torque steer and tire spin on aggressive starts.
Interesting that you dredged up the original to begin this story. I believe that Pontiac marketing was looking to resonate with the more mature enthusiast. Part Grand Prix, part Trans Am and part Grand Turismo Omlogoto. It didn’t happen. Maybe with the SD-455, but no. Ironically it didn’t happen the second time either, even with a 4-speed. The third generation Grand Am found a sweet spot in the market. A stylish and affordable car that was recognizeable in a crowd. This isn’t a bad looking daily driver. Are you going to restore it? Doubtful. If being first away from the light isn’t important this may be your car.
I had the Oldsmobile variant (in ’86 it was the Cutlass Calais). Mine was a 4-door with the V6 engine – it had pep and would burn rubber! I bought it because I was getting married and wanted a “sensible” car. The marriage didn’t happen, but I kept the car. Very few issues with it, and I sported it up with Enkei 92 rims and Goodyear Radial GT tires. Ultimately, my sense for speed got to me and I traded it in for an Acura Integra GS-R. It was a decent car, but it was a wise decision!
“Sounds and runs like a pea thrasher. ” Can’t say I’ve heard that one before, but I like it. I always said that it growled like a coffee grinder.