1 week with the Aurora, Oldsmobile's last Hurray and Beginning of the End

"Schaefft" (Schaefft) 09/19/2015 at 13:34 • Filed to: Oldsmobile, Aurora, Schaefft, Lincoln

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I had the car !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and as promised, I wanna keep Oppo updated on whats happening over here in the land of Fish&Chips and public surveillance, home of the Queen and my Aurora. Before I start writing semi regularly about my upcoming plans and experiences with the car, I would like to explain a bit of the history behind the Aurora and Oldsmobile at the time, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (more updates soon I hope...). This will help me putting the car into context and maybe help you understand why I just had to have one them.

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By now I had plenty of time to get familiar with my new Olds. While I still didn’t have a chance to actually start the engine and see how it runs, let alone drive it (I’d like to avoid that until I have drained the ancient fuel and changed the serpentine belts and pulleys), I believe you can still feel why the Aurora was such a special car for Oldsmobile when it was introduced over 20 years ago back in 1994, a time when many things which are pretty ordinary nowadays were still quite special for an American main stream car manufacturer. Things like build quality or competitive engineering. Urgh.

As many of you should know, Oldsmobile was down on their luck in the late Eighties and early Nineties. Sales numbers plummeted from about a million cars in the mid-80s to under 400.000 in 1992. The Aurora was supposed to finally change that: reverse the trend, increase sales numbers and rebuild Oldsmobile’s reputation for affordable, quality entry level luxury cars slotted between super-conservative Buick, and even more super-conservative, but upmarket (and therefore much more expensive) Cadillac.

To reach this goal, General Motors decided to build a new, euro-inspired sports luxury sedan to compete against other reputable cars like the Acura Legend, Lexus ES and Chrysler’s brand new LH sedans, with an extremely modern, sleek and highly distinctive aero design that was based on Oldsmobile’s 1989 Tube Car concept which would define Oldsmobile’s design language until the end.

After years of research and development, the car went on sale in January 1994. To symbolize the significance of the new Aurora and provide a clean break from the past, the car featured no badges or logos that would indicate that this is in fact an Oldsmobile, with the exception of small Oldsmobile lettering on the engine cover and radio.

GM decided to use Cadillac’s then brand new, state of the art Northstar V8 engine which, until then, was exclusively engineered for Cadillac’s new generation of luxury cars, however downsized from 4.6l in the Seville, Deville and Allante to 4.0l in the Aurora, just to make sure the company’s hierarchy of makes wouldn’t be disturbed too much by Oldsmobile’s new halo car. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , if not by the rest of the car that came with it. The all aluminium, DOHC 32 Valve V8 delivered a competitive 250hp and was, at least technologically, way ahead of the old Series I 3800 pushrod V6 (still an incredible engine) used in Oldsmobile’s other large cars. In fact, the Aurora’s V8 was as technologically advanced as it could get in the early Nineties, not only for an engine coming from an American manufacturer, but compared to anything from its German and Japanese rivals as well.

Not just the engine was prove that General Motors was genuinely trying to build a world class luxury sedan. Inside its driver centered interior, you could feel it as well. In the tactile quality of its switch gear for example, and the lack of it for the buttons on the radio, one of the few parts taken from GM’s parts bin. While controls for seats, lights and even the A/C controls right above the radio have a solid, damped feel to them, the radio buttons wobble like they were about to fall off, feeling as cheap as a Chinese Happy Meal Transformers toy rip-off. The contrast of quality between these otherwise very similar parts is astonishing. There are many other little details like the polished metal seat belt buckles (something you definitely won’t find in a 5-series or Lexus GS) or the soft closing (real) wood ash tray lids that show that Oldsmobile was serious about perceived quality, and wanted to prove that it too could build an excellent, quality vehicle in the competitive entry level luxury market.

As we all know, it wasn’t meant to be though. GM shut down Oldsmobile after disappointing sales numbers in 2004. The Aurora would get a slightly downsized second generation that was originally supposed the successor of the smaller Oldsmobile LSS and ended production in March 28th 2003 with the special edition Final 500 models.

For me personally, the first generation Aurora stands for Oldsmobile’s genuine attempt at changing their ways of developing and building a true world class car for the better, to change the public’s perception of Oldsmobile (Their slogan: Not your father’s Oldsmobile ) and save the company from its impending doom. And while things may not have worked out in the end (making the car only more significant in Oldsmobile and GM history), I still believe the Aurora is a remarkable car with beautiful and distinctive Nineties Aero styling and a future as a proper GM Classic.

!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! is the author of this blog post and founder of nothing. He’s currently living in the north east of the UK , owns an old Oldsmobile, Lincoln and BMW and believes that everything that is written on the internet is true, especially Tavarish’s articles on Jalopnik about how owning a cheap luxury car for the price of a potato is the only way of living. It took him way too long to write this article so you better read it to the end or else...

AfromanGTO > Schaefft 09/19/2015 at 13:44

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Make sure UPS doesn’t steal your headlights.

Schaefft > AfromanGTO 09/19/2015 at 13:52

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Ha yeah. They are using Alero headlights though. GM just gotta milk dem parts for all they are worth!

Tohru > Schaefft 09/19/2015 at 13:55

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When I was a kid, my parents owned a black 1995 Aurora. It was a really nice car. They sold it at around 140k miles to avoid doing some of the more obnoxious repairs it could have. For example, the starter is in the block valley under the intake. The battery is huge and under the back seat, along with a massive bank of relays. GM was starting out using Dexcool at the time, which likes eating aluminum and head gasket material when it gets more than 100k on it (on ours Dad flushed it and replaced it with conventional coolant immediately upon buying it).

Pretty sure you know this already, but the Northstar needs 91 octane or better.

Not sure if you knew this, but the Northstar was where GM’s modern displacement-on-demand system started out. The engine was designed by GM to have a “loss of coolant” limp home mode where it would alternate which cylinders it fired on to keep the motor from getting too hot.

Jedidiah > Schaefft 09/19/2015 at 13:59

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The difference in quality between Oldsmobile specific parts and corporate parts goes way back.

It’s not quite as extreme, but you can notice it in my 72. It starts getting real noticable after 73 when they started incorporating a lot more corporate parts.

The GM brands managed to make good stuff when given free reign, unfortunately corporate big brass demanded cheapening out and standardization.

Schaefft > Tohru 09/19/2015 at 14:04

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Interesting fact about the coolant, I didn’t know that! Lets hope one of the previous owners replaced it at one point, I was definitely planning to do that anyway but still.

And yeah, Clarkson mentioned the cylinder shutoff to prevent overheating in the review I linked to. Pretty awesome if you think about it. People like to say why american engines suck so much compared to Japanese and European designs, yet many innovations and benefits of them are simply ignored.

Schaefft > Jedidiah 09/19/2015 at 14:08

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I can imagine that. The Aurora would be one of those rare glimpses into what could have been if bean counters didn’t have the last word in everything at GM back then.

Of course that doesn’t mean the Aurora was perfect in that area. There are still plenty of things that could have been improved with a higher budget or a little more R&D.

whoarder is tellurium > Schaefft 09/19/2015 at 14:13

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I’ll always have a soft spot for the Aurora and the Toronado Trofeo before it.

Urambo Tauro > Schaefft 09/19/2015 at 14:16

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Father of the 1993 Camaro; grandfather of the 1995 Cavalier.

Schaefft > whoarder is tellurium 09/19/2015 at 14:24

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Yes, the Toronado Trofeo! Another Oldsmobile I’d love to own, I need to experience the quirkiness of that CRT-touchscreen!

Schaefft > Urambo Tauro 09/19/2015 at 14:28

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The Tube Car was just one example of GM’s general design language back then. Park this car next to an ‘89 Caprice and you will see what a huge change these new cars were back then. People tend to forget that.

whoarder is tellurium > Schaefft 09/19/2015 at 15:12

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My father had one in the late 90s. The touchscreen was great for the era. I believe it also had a corvette-inspired monoleaf spring rear suspension too. Shame, the 3.8 was only putting out 160ish hp through a 4 speed slushbox.

Schaefft > whoarder is tellurium 09/19/2015 at 15:20

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A supercharged version of the 3800 would have been brilliant, it shouldn’t be too hard to source a junkyard supercharger and install it on the n/a engine.

Chariotoflove > whoarder is tellurium 09/19/2015 at 17:17

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My dad had a trofeo. Great car. Very much a luxury coupe to rival anything you could buy imo.

Chariotoflove > Schaefft 09/19/2015 at 17:23

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Thanks for taking the time for this project. I was never a big Aurora fan for reasons, but I'm looking forward to reading your blog about it nonetheless. Especially like your sense of humor.

Schaefft > Chariotoflove 09/19/2015 at 18:47

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I’m glad to see you enjoy reading them! These posts do take a bit of time for me to write, but people’s comment are always good motivation.

Chariotoflove > Schaefft 09/19/2015 at 20:29

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And good writing is worth motivating. I’m interested in learning how a decidedly American piece of machinery negotiates UK streets and perceptions.

ranwhenparked > Schaefft 09/19/2015 at 21:39

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The first generation Aurora was really the last glimmer of hope for Oldsmobile. Although GM continued to spend real money on new models for a while after (Intrigue, Alero, 2nd gen Aurora), they never made as concerted of an effort ever again.

Traditionally, Oldsmobile catered to the very middle of the middle class, priced between Pontiac on the lower end and Buick on the upper end, in what in the 1950s was referred to as the “medium price field”. By the ‘90s, that old rigid class system was dead (if it had ever even really worked as intended at all is debatable), so each middle market brand needed to have its own distinct image to justify continued existence.

Pontiac was the “excitement” brand, Buick was the “traditional” luxury brand, and Oldsmobile was supposed to move to more of an “import fighter” role, building German-style luxury sports sedans. Unfortunately, the Aurora was the only honest effort at that, everything else they launched was pretty half assed and had no real chance of swaying any Audi buyers.

As Saab got more and more integrated into the GM fold, management started looking to that brand to take on more of the heavy lifting in terms of going up against the Germans, and Oldsmobile was pretty much kicked to the curb. At the time it was thought that a European brand with an already established reputation for somewhat upscale, sporting cars would be an easier fit for that niche, but we can all see how that worked out.

At one point in the ‘00s, there was even talk of trying to move Saturn slightly upmarket into the space Oldsmobile once occupied, but of course, that kind of flopped as well. GM spent most of Saturn’s brief history trying to figure out what to do with it, which is something that should have been decided before they created it in the first place.

Schaefft > ranwhenparked 09/20/2015 at 07:25

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I guess that is one of the issues you get with multiple makes simply being too close to each other, and rivals closing in. VW does have the same problems with Seat (always had afaik), its just less obvious there since Audi’s, Skoda’s and VW’s own success cover up the more or less lackluster sales of its sister brand. On top of that, not unlike Saturn or Oldsmobile, Seat sales are pretty much concentrated in one single market, and everyone knows what the European car market has been looking like for a while now. Mercury is another good example, too close to other Ford models, in that case no proper role for their cars either. Even Lincoln is struggling.