Come with me now to the halcyon days of September 1981, when the Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera debuted as one of four new mid-sized cars on the General Motors A platform. The Cutlass Ciera, along with the Buick Century, Chevrolet Celebrity, and Pontiac 6000, quickly became good sellers by virtue of being widely available, decently good-looking for the time (no, really, they were), and achieving fuel economy that wasn't too big a dropoff from much smaller, imported cars. This was especially true with the base engine, GM's 2.5 liter Tech IV motor, also known as the Iron Duke.
Even straight off the showroom floor that engine sounded like it was about to go kablooey and spray pistons and connecting rods all over God's green Earth. However -- and this is important -- it rarely ever broke down. That might be because its design dated back to 1962 so GM already had two decades of experience in building it. And if you didn't like it, there was a 2.8 liter V6 that only drank a little more gas.
The Ciera and its siblings were touted as all-new but obviously they weren't with a twenty-year-old base engine. The non-novelty went deeper than that, as all the A-body cars were just evolutions of the earlier compact X-body cars (the Chevrolet Citation, and several other variants not worth thinking about any more) that debuted in the spring of 1979 as 1980 models. The X-cars were notoriously bad, the result of being rushed to market before several serious problems could be resolved.
If, like me, you are a Gen Xer of lower-middle class heritage, you have been nodding along in agreement with these words, because you have owned one of these cars, either an A-body or an X-body. Maybe even both. I've owned an X-body and three A-bodies. In fact more than a few Millenials have driven them as well, because the Cutlass Ciera (and the Buick Century) stayed in production, with only a few mechanical and design changes, until 1996. The only redeeming factor is that both the 2.5 and 2.8 engines were replaced by (slightly) more contemporary designs.
A Ciera in 1982 was a stylish, contemporary middle-class aspirational status symbol. A Ciera in 1996 was a bland, plain, forgettable granny sled which continued to sell because the price was low, the roominess was high, the fuel economy was decent, and it didn't break down very often. It had a famously loyal customer base, one that didn't care that the Ciera was no longer plush or luxury-adjacent. John Rock, the one-time general manager of Oldsmobile, once said that their research indicated they weren't selling Cieras to the same kind of people who bought them in 1982 -- they were selling them to the very same people.
That's loyalty, and it's not a bad thing, until you realize how keeping the Ciera around harmed the brand as a whole. There were no new customers, and the existing customers weren't interested in newer, better Oldsmobiles because those cars were significantly more expensive. Things couldn't stay this way forever, though. After 1996 the Ciera died and was replaced by one of the most cynical cars of all time, a lightly-restyled Chevy Malibu that Olds called the Cutlass. The Century didn't die at the same time. Buick put some effort into its replacement, making a not-quite-brand-new Century that was conservatively styled and tepid in performance, not just a lesser car with a slick downloadable skin like the Cutlass. The Cutlass only lasted three model years. If you saw one on the road today you would think it was an old Malibu, because it is. The Century outlived the Cutlass by five years -- and the entire Oldsmobile brand by one year.
I don't think it's a stretch to say that the Ciera played a big part in killing Oldsmobile. There was nothing wrong with it per se but it was nothing to look at and even less exciting to drive. Its lengthy tenure meant that Olds was trying to sell what was essentially a 1982 model car in 1996, and its loyal customer base didn't want changes. The 1997 Cutlass was Oldsmobile's attempt to shake those customers off by giving them a smaller car that couldn't be distinguished from a less-expensive Chevy even at close range.
All those things were true of the Buick Century in 1996 too, but Buick offered its customers a better version of what they already loved. That, plus the fact that Buick is incredibly popular in China, is why the brand is still around in 2025. Oldsmobile wanted to be Acura or Audi. Buick was perfectly content being the American Volvo.
I don't know why I'm telling you all this, but it certainly has nothing to do with Iowa Hawkeyes football in 2025. Don't know where you might have gotten that idea.
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