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Junkyard Gem: 1991 Pontiac Grand Am LE with Quad 4 Engine

GM introduced the N-Body compact platform with the Oldsmobile Calais and Pontiac Grand Am for the 1985 model year and continued building N-based cars through 1998. Most of these cars weren't interesting from an enthusiast standpoint, but a handful rolled off the assembly line with raucous DOHC Oldsmobile Quad 4 engines and manual transmissions, and those cars were plenty of fun. Here's a 1991 Grand Am with that rare setup, photographed in a self-service yard in California's Central Valley. The base engine in the 1991 Grand Am was the 110-horsepower, 2.5-liter pushrod Iron Duke, an engine that might have been fine on a Romanian tractor in 1953 but had no place on an American street car as the 21st century approached. Fortunately, GM started bolting the modern 2.3-liter DOHC Quad 4 engine into 1988 cars, and this was a proper four-cylinder. The Quad 4 ran a little rough and uncivilized, and it had its share of reliability problems, but you could rev the piss out of it and it made good power. In 1991, this engine was rated at 180 hp. That made this 2,592-pound sedan pretty quick. Unfortunately, the slushboxization of America had progressed with depressing rapidity during the 1980s, and by 1991 most Grand Am buyers — even the ones who opted for the Quad 4 — chose the automatic transmission. That didn't happen with this car, though — it boasts a rugged Getrag 5-speed instead of the happiness-amputating three-speed automatic. Yes, that's the kind of odometer reading you'd expect to see on an Accord or Maxima from this era. Someone loved this car and took care of it. Here we see an interesting mix of 1980s and 1990s car-radio technology. CD players in cars were still costly luxury items in 1991, seldom seen in affordable cars like the Grand Am, while 1980s-style slider-style EQ controls were on the way out. This Delco unit straddles both decades nicely. I seek out Quad 4-equipped cars during my junkyard travels, and I have photographed quite a few: this '89 Cutlass Calais, this '90 Cutlass Calais, this '90 Grand Am, this '91 Quad 442, this '93 Achieva SCX, and this '98 Cavalier Z24. It's a shame that Buick never put the Quad 4 in the Reatta, which was a fine car ruined by a somnolent and obsolete V6. The music in this ad is even more early-1990s than Crystal Pepsi. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Junkyard Gem: 1968 Pontiac Catalina sedan

During the late 1960s, General Motors ruled the American car landscape, growing so dominant that the federal government considered antitrust action to break up the company. The General offered sporty Corvettes and muscular GTOs and rugged pickups and opulent Fleetwoods, sure, but the fat part of the sales numbers came from the bread-and-butter full-sized sedans and coupes, which boasted superior engineering and modern-looking styling; in 1967 alone, the Chevrolet Division moved 972,600 full-sized cars, and that's not even counting the 155,100 full-sized Chevy station wagons that year. Pontiac, Buick and Oldsmobile sold the same big cars with division-specific engines and bodywork, and they flew off the showroom floors. For 1968, the entry-level full-sized car from Pontiac was the Catalina, and I've found an example of the most affordable version of the most affordable big Pontiac for 1968, discarded in a northeastern Colorado wrecking yard about 50 miles south of Cheyenne, Wyoming. A '68 GM full-sized coupe, convertible, or even a four-door hardtop might be worth the cost and effort of a restoration, but a no-options base-trim-level post sedan with rust and plenty of body filler just won't get many takers these days. Like so many vehicles that sit outside for decades on the High Plains, this one is full of rodent nests. I wouldn't want to work on the interior of this car without a respirator and a lot of work with a shop-vac, because hantavirus is a significant danger in these parts. Alfred Sloan's plan to offer a stepladder of prestige for GM buyers, in which your first new car was a Chevrolet and you moved up through Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Buick until you became sufficiently prosperous for Cadillac ownership, worked brilliantly for decades. In 1968, the Catalina was a notch above its Impala sibling on the Snob-O-Meter, with the sedan starting at $3,004 (about $22,600 in 2019 dollars). In fact, the V8-equipped 1968 Chevrolet Impala sedan listed at $3,033, and the Oldsmobile Delmont 88 went for $3,146, so the lines were beginning to blur between the relative positions of the lower-end GM divisions by this time. The base engine in the 1968 Catalina was a 400-cubic-inch (6.5 liter) V8 rated at 265 horsepower and enough torque to tow an aircraft carrier.

GM Recalling Another 2.7 Million Vehicles In Five Separate Campaigns

The recalls keep rolling in from General Motors, evidently keen to avoid repeating the mistakes of the ignition-switch debacle and clean house. This time they're all coming at once, with five separate recalls announced together covering approximately 2.7 million vehicles. The largest of the five actions involves over 2.4 million units of the previous-generation Chevrolet Malibu and Malibu Maxx, Pontiac G6 and Saturn Aura in order to fix brake light wiring harness, which have been found to be susceptible to corrosion. The recall is separate from the 56k Aura sedans which GM recently recalled over faulty shift cables, not to mention the previous massive recall of 1.3 million vehicles – some of them the same models – but appears to have resulted from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigation that started with the G6 almost a year ago. The second-largest campaign involves the 2014 Chevy Malibu, specifically those fitted with GM's 2.5-liter engine and stop/start system, approximately 140,000 examples of which has been found to have problematic brakes. The issue does not appear to be connected to the recall of 8k Malibu and Buick LaCrosse sedans (also involving brake woes) which we reported upon last week. Four crashes have been reported in such models, but GM admits it's not yet clear if the problem was a contributing factor in the accidents. A further 112k Corvette models from the 2005-2007 model years are being called in for problems with their low-beam headlamps resulting from a flexing relay control circuit wire that's not meant to bend. GM says it is "aware of several hundred complaints" about this issue, but notes that there have been no reports of related accidents. In addition, over 19k examples of Cadillac CTS from the 2013 and 2014 model years are being recalled over windshield wipers that might not work after a jump start. Finally, GM is also bringing in 477 examples of its 2014 Chevy Silverado, Tahoe and GMC Sierra (though not the Yukon) to fix a problem with a tie rod in its steering rack. As ever, all recall repairs will be performed free of charge, and GM is now estimating that recall-related actions this quarter will result in an estimated $200-million charge against its second-quarter earnings. Read the full announcement from GM below for further details.