Some people love superlative cars like the Bugatti Tourbillon and Ferrari Purosangue, but my taste in cars has always been more on the obtuse side. I’m more fond of the motoring misfits, the ones that ended up on the wrong side of history like the Edsels and Suzuki X-90s of the world. So imagine my delight when I stumbled upon this remarkably brown lump of ‘80s American automotive mediocrity while out for a walk over the weekend!
This lovely later-model Cadillac Cimarron is either a 1987 or 1988 model year, since this front fascia design only ran for those two years. California ran badass license plates with a sun graphic on them from 1982 to 1987, so if this Cimarron’s front plate is the original, then it might be an ‘88 model year car, which makes it quite rare. There were just over 14,500 Cimarrons produced in 1987, and just under 6,500 in 1988, the car’s final production year. The 2.8-liter V6 in this car produced 125 horsepower and 160 pound-feet of torque when it was new, and it was the only engine offered in the Cimarron for ‘87 and ‘88.
The Cimarron was Cadillac’s gussied up version of the Chevrolet Cavalier, and GM produced it to go head-to-head with compact luxury imports from Volvo, Saab, BMW, Audi and even Honda. The Cimmy faced harsh criticism for being too similar to its plebeian platform mates from Chevy, Pontiac, Buick and Oldsmobile, but over its lifetime it slowly distanced itself from them and grew more refined.
This Cimmy is painted in the oh-so-eighties color scheme of a two-tone tan-and-gray body with a black landau roof and brown interior. Everything about it from its gold badges to its lumpy landau roof to its glistening egg-crate grille scream ‘80s, and I love it. I described it as cute on Slack and received criticism from my team, but what say you? Do you find this little Cimmy as cute as I do or have I fully lost the plot?
