Generalizations: the Five Best GM Cars Ever and the Five Worst

When we think of GM, it’s easy to simply focus on one of their brands: with a company as massive as this, and with such history, it’s natural. However, I think that does the company something of a disservice. In its 109 years of operation, GM has produced many sublime cars, and equally, many dreadful clunkers. When you’re talking about a company that’s been around for so long, focusing on one brand isn’t appropriate. The range of good and bad cars has been spread pretty evenly across all their marques, so let’s look at GM as a whole. Let’s examine the moments in their history we all love to remember, and the ones they’d rather forget.

Chevrolet Corvette

Oh come on, you knew this was going to be here, didn’t you? When we talk about muscle cars, the Corvette is one of the first models which spring (or rather sprint) to mind. Whether your favourite model is the original dinky two-seater that was the C1, the swept-back sexiness of the C2, or even the modern thrills of a C6 or C7, it doesn’t really matter. Most everyone who cares about cars will have lusted after a Corvette at some point, or have a story that involves one. It’s reached this level of market domination for good reasons.

When the Corvette came out originally, it was meant to compete with the Ford Thunderbird, imitating the European roadsters popular with returning GIs. Since then, the car has consistently changed with the times, and nails it time and time again. When the world wanted a more muscular car, the C2 was produced, and when the demand was more sporty, out came the C3. That’s why it’s so important. This car showcases the GM designers at their most creative, and when they’re in that mindset? They can’t be bested.

Cadillac Series 62

From one classic bit of Americana to another. The Cadillac Series 62 is the archetypal Cadillac. If you own one today, whether a well-preserved original or a restomod (as seen here), they are exceptionally evocative. The earlier models, particularly the first (1940-1941) and second (1942-1947) generations are stunning pieces of period work, but it’s in the late 1940s where the Series 62 comes into its own. The unique and beautiful design aesthetic of American caddys runs particularly deep in the fifth (1957-1958) and sixth (1959-1960) generations of the cars. The former boasts an almost ludicrous amount of chrome, while the latter boasts fins which would make the Batmobile feel inadequate.

The engines were solid (though characteristically inefficient, considering the time) and the cars they powered were beautiful. If you wanted a cruiser, a car which could get you from A to B in style and luxury, there was nothing like a Cadillac. In many ways, that’s still the case. You can talk about modern cruisers and GTs all you like, but the Caddy Series 62 is still one of Americana’s finest hours.

Pontiac Firebird (Second Generation)

The Pontiac Firebird is amazing. The first-generation was fine and dandy, but the second-generation was where the model really came into its own. The car boasts a ridiculously-flared front end, a stretched body, and a stunning range of engines. From a humble 231 Buick V6 all the way up to a stonking 455 Pontiac V8. Then there’s the real reason this car is so famous: the Trans Am.

It’s cliche to mention Smokey and the Bandit, but I’m still going to. Whenever it was that you saw Burt Reynolds driving this beast across America, it cemented the Trans Am in your mind as a dream car. The 1978 model had its compression boosted, with horsepower in turn increased to 220 horsepower. Cover this beautiful car in a black and gold paint scheme with a badass bird decal on the hood, and you’ve got a recipe for countless bedroom posters across the world.

Oldsmobile Toronado (First Generation)

Oldsmobile are a brand that don’t really get talked about all that often, but when they got it right, they knocked it clean out of the park. The Toronado is one such case. Powered by an innovative (for the time) front-wheel drive system, the tech didn’t stop there. The Toronado also featured Turbo-Hydramatic three-speed automatic transmission, a Quadrajet four-barrel carb, and a ventilation system which reduced wind noise dramatically. It was also the first subframe automobile GM produced, and was powered by a mighty 455 cubic inch Rocket V8. This let the 5000 pound car hit 60 in just 7.5 seconds. How’s about that?

The car was a beauty, but the beauty wasn’t only skin (or rather, panelling) deep. Step inside, and you’d find one of GM’s most unconventional interiors, with a slot machine speedo and stylized wheel. The cars are something of a collectible these days, and are well worth checking out. They’re strange, experimental monsters, that are still as fun to drive today as they were in the 1960s.

1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS

Lord help us, we’re back to Chevrolet. While the Corvette is undoubtedly the most famous Chevy ever created, the pinnacle of the muscle car hierarchy is occupied by the Chevelle SS. Powered by a rambunctious rocket of an engine, the LS6, this car gave you displacement by the bucketload. The engine was a 454 cubic inch big-block V8 which put out 450 horsepower and 500 lb-ft of torque. A quarter-mile drag race could be handled in around 13.2 seconds, and at 106 mph. To call this car powerful, especially for the time, would be an understatement.

If you wanted this LS6 power, it didn’t come cheap, but then, great things barely ever do. You had to stock up on mandatory ‘options’ to grab one, including accents, dual exhaust, and front disc brakes. All the options plus the engine cost around a grand, but by God it was worth it. It looked the part too, a mean, muscular machine with big wheel openings, just the right amount of chrome and a blacked out grille. At the time when it truly mattered, this was the king of muscle cars.

And Now, the Bad

Chevrolet Citation

The Chevrolet Citation is an interesting beast. When it was first released in 1979, it received huge amounts of plaudits, including the Motor Trend Car of the Year. Then the problems started. Let’s not even talk about the car’s lack of power; that’s fair, it was a compact, but it was startlingly unsafe and horribly made. The car’s front suspension and drive train were mounted with very soft rubber, leading to a feeling of the car being made of two different parts. The suspension hoses leaked and started fires. The V6’s two-barrel carb was expensive, and complicated. The interior trim had a habit of detatching with a louche ease more akin to Lego than an American car.

The Citation, along with several other GM cars of the period, were affected by a serious brake defect. It’s not for nothing that the Citation is one of the most recalled cars of all time. A deeply sad episode in GM’s history, the Citation is a car not to be trusted, driven, or used under any circumstances.

Cadillac Cimarron

Where to begin with the Cadillac Cimarron? Well, the name seems a decent place. Cimarron honestly sounds like the name of some kind of medication the vet would give you to deworm your dog. If only that was its biggest sin. This Caddy was an attempt to compete with European prestige cars that were becoming fashionable at the time, such as Mercs and BMWs. It lacked just about everything they had. It was just a J-Body sedan, like the Chevy Cavalier, it was not a Caddy in any way. The car was loaded up with a grim, gaudy interior, with fabrics so tacky that if Michael Jackson had bought them on a shopping spree, you’d think he’d finally lost it.

Even worse than the misleading choice of name was the price. The car cost $12,000 new, or around $31,000 today. For a Chevrolet Cavalier with an ostensibly-upgraded interior. According to insider accounts of the time, engineers hated working on the car, and salespeople were told not to refer to the car specifically as a Cadillac. This was a car which almost killed Cadillac’s reputation stone dead, and a testament to GM’s astonishing arrogance during this period.

Chevrolet SSR

Let’s talk about this stupid thing. Have you ever heard of the Plymouth Prowler? It was Chrysler’s attempt to market a modern hotrod, but they stuck a terrible engine under the hood, making it more tepid than hot. Then GM did exactly the same thing a few years later in the shape fo the Chevrolet SSR. Far beyond it looking atrociously unpleasant, like the back alley baby of an alcoholic VW Beetle and a Chevrolet Advance Design, it had the chassis of just about every other SUV GM were putting out at the time, and if you don’t have bad memories of most early 00s SUVs, then I’m concerned.

The result of this chassis choice was a heavy car. Instead of putting a powerful engine in, GM instead decided to give it a lackluster and lazy LM4 V8. Then they priced it at $42,000. Sales, as you might expect, were pitiful, with 9000 being sold in its first year. This was despite a heavy marketing campaign which even saw this travesty being used as the pace car for the 2003 Indy 500. Ugly, uninspiring, and plain unforgiveable.

Cadillac Fleetwood V8-6-4

This is a strange beast. Variable displacement was in its infancy at the time this car launched in 1981, and it’s safe to say that GM didn’t quite have it down when they produced this car. Fuel efficiency was the watchword of cars in this period, with no one wanting to pay the price that muscle cars had to in the 1970s. As such, an engine which deactivates cylinders as necessary, observed by the watchful eye of a computer (gee whiz!) seemed like a great idea. The 368 cubic inch L62 engine fitted in the Fleetwood V8-6-4, as you might have guessed from the name, was to have solenoids keeping valves closed on up to four of the eight cylinders. There was only one problem. It didn’t work.

Instead of increased fuel efficiency, with no noticeable performance impact, drivers got problem after problem. For a start, the computer wasn’t powerful enough to react quickly, and the engine would overfuel whenever a pair of cylinders were deactivated. When engines were reactivated, there wasn’t enough fuel to go around. The result was a system which bucked around and kept you distinctly unsatisfied. Combine this with the Cimarron, and it’s frankly a wonder that Cadillac got through the 80s.

Chevrolet Corvair

Oh dear. What a blue note for us to conclude on. The Corvair was an attempt to compete with the VW Beetle: air-cooled, and with a flat-six in the back, it could have been very interesting indeed. And, in certain lights, it is. It’s one of the most famously unsafe cars ever made. Ralph Nader’s book Unsafe at Any Speed begins with a harsh criticism of the Corvair for a number of reasons. Most dramatically, the steering column had a tendency to impale crash victims, but it went far deeper than that.

If you inflated the tires to an equal pressure, the Corvair would oversteer dramatically. This was often left unsaid to customers, thanks to salespeople not being too informed on the topic themselves. The suspension was also prone to numerous problems. Essentially, the Corvair is more well-remembered now for its public crucifixion as the epitome of bad engineering than anything else, and if that doesn’t warrant a place on this list, I don’t know what does.