Photo courtesy General Motors.
The decade didn’t see a carburetor on a new car from the factory. It ushered in new alliances among auto manufacturers and swept other manufacturers away. It brought performance back—in more than just looks—and to unexpected places. And next year, when the classic car show season starts up again, the Nineties will for the first time have the opportunity to appear on an AACA show field.
Thanks to its rolling 25-year acceptance rule, the Antique Automobile Club of America tends to serve as a bellwether of the collector car hobby, accepting cars for display that many in the hobby don’t—or, at least, wouldn’t otherwise—consider as anything more than simply used cars. Take, for instance, the 2010 Hershey show, which marked the first appearance of a Mopar minivan: John LaBar’s 1984 Plymouth Voyager, which technically was eligible to show the year before. It brought about cries of the end of the world approaching, but the last time we checked, the hobby has continued motoring along these last four years, likely with a few new participants.
So, if we do the math right, that means that next year’s AACA show season, which begins in March, will be the first to accept cars from the 1990s, the decade of grunge music, the end of the Cold War, and the coming of the Internet.
Front-wheel drive and aerodynamic designs continued to dominate the automotive market during those years, but the renewed attention to horsepower during the latter years of the 1980s produced some exciting new performance vehicles at the start of the 1990s that took advantage of both proven and cutting-edge technologies.
Given the ground that foreign carmakers—particularly the Japanese—made in the American car market during the 1980s, it’s no surprise that they continued to solidify their position here during the 1990s. That upheaval in the market led American carmakers to address their dwindling market share head-on during the 1990s with captive imports, marketing and manufacturing partnerships with foreign carmakers, and new approaches to designing, building and selling their vehicles.
Focusing specifically on the 1990 model year, we’ve identified a number of significant cars and trucks that were available on the U.S. market and that that are soon to be eligible for AACA shows. That doesn’t guarantee that any will actually show up, nor does our list comprehensively cover the various cars and trucks offered by the nearly 50 carmakers that operated in the United States at the time, but the dozen and a half vehicles we’ve rounded up offer a rough snapshot of what the car scene looked like 25 years ago.
Buick Regal Gran Sport (top)
Just a couple of years after redesigning the Regal as a front-wheel-drive sedan/coupe pair, Buick restyled it for 1990 with a more flush, aerodynamic look—a major contrast to the Estate Wagon, which dated back to the late 1970s but remained in the Buick lineup. While the Gran Sport appearance package carried over from the year before, the big news for Buick in 1990 was the mid-year introduction of the 170-hp 3800 V-6 with tuned-port fuel injection, a development of the 3.8-liter (and before that, the 231-cu.in. V-6) that would go on to power nearly every vehicle in GM’s lineup and earn a place on Ward’s 10 Best Engines of the 20th Century list.
Image via lov2xlr8.no.
Eagle Talon
Along with the Plymouth Laser and Mistubishi Eclipse, the Talon resulted from the Chrysler-Mitsubishi hookup known as Diamond Star Motors, and represented the first Eagle-brand model that didn’t come as a result of the baggage Chrysler inherited when it bought AMC from Renault. True to its brand’s heritage, the front-wheel-drive Talon could be had with all-wheel drive, though this time around it featured the drive configuration not for off-roading or poor-weather conditions, but for outright performance, as evidenced by the turbocharged DOHC 2.0-liter four-cylinder that powered the AWD version. Though hampered by poor sales throughout its run, the Talon would last through 1998, longer than its Laser sibling.
Photo courtesy Toyota.
Toyota Celica
Like the DSM triplets, the Toyota Celica could be had in naturally aspirated, front-wheel drive form or turbocharged, all-wheel-drive form. However, the Celica had a 20-year history as both a front-wheel and rear-wheel-drive sports coupe behind it, along with a plethora of Japanese market-only variants and solid chops on the rally circuit. Introduced for the 1990 model year, the T180 fifth-generation Celica would last through the 1993 model year.
Nissan 300ZX
A complete redesign for Nissan’s long-running Z car in 1990 brought the tech: Not only did the new Z32 300ZX get a completely overhauled version of the VG30 V-6—now featuring dual overhead camshafts, variable valve timing and distributorless ignition and a twin-turbocharged version—it also benefited from anti-lock brakes and used a four-wheel steering system. Little surprise that it took Motor Trend‘s Import Car of the Year award for 1990.
Image via lov2xlr8.no.
Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1
Tech wasn’t limited to the imports in 1990, either. Witness the ZR-1, the ultimate version of the fourth-generation Corvette, which hit the scene in 1990 with the LT5, a small-block V-8 developed by Lotus and built by Mercury Marine with 32 valves, dual overhead camshafts and tuned-port fuel injection good for 375 horsepower, an astounding figure for a buying public not used to seeing V-8s produce much more than 200 horsepower for the previous 15 years. The ZR-1 would last through 1995, eventually cranking out 405 horsepower.
Photo via Auctions America.
Mercedes-Benz 300SL and 500SL
Technology did far more than merely make cars faster in the 1990s; it also helped make them safer, as we can see from the R129 300SL and 500SL, which featured an automatic rollbar that popped up in 0.3 seconds in the event of a rollover, which Mercedes-Benz used to keep the clean lines of its SL-series convertibles while at the same time add an element of safety. And lest we forget, each flavor of SL used overhead-camshaft engines with variable valve timing, and the six-cylinder 300SL also used a five-speed automatic transmission.
Image via OldCarBrochures.
Chevrolet 454 SS
While high technology went into plenty of new performance cars for 1990, truck buyers at the time still wanted simple, proven, no-replacement-for-displacement performance, and Chevrolet—at a time when pickups evaded most of the regulatory attention heaped on cars—obliged with the 454SS version of its C1500 half-ton pickup, fitted with an updated and throttle-body fuel-injected 230-hp version of the 454 big-block engine, previously available only in Chevrolet’s one-ton vans and Suburbans. Available only in black with a red interior, the 454SS also got a handling package, bucket seats with a console and heavy-duty driveline, drawing comparisons to the 20-year-gone muscle cars.
Image via OldCarBrochures.
Lincoln Town Car
Full frames and rear-wheel-drive platforms weren’t entirely relegated to pickups and pony cars in the early 1990s. As mentioned above, the Buick Estate Wagon (along with its GM full-size counterparts) survived the Eighties unibody/downsizing craze, and so did the Lincoln Town Car, restyled for the new decade with softer lines that would carry it through 1997. Though still riding the 11-year-old Panther platform and not much changed under the skin, the 5.0L-powered Town Car still sold in impressive numbers and went on to win Motor Trend‘s 1990 Car of the Year award.
Image via OldCarBrochures.
Chrysler Imperial
Once again, Chrysler trotted out its Imperial nameplate, this time for an upscale version of the Fifth Avenue, itself a stretched and more luxurious version of the front-wheel-drive New Yorker. Along with the 3.3-liter V-6, the Imperial came loaded with plenty of luxury items—leather, memory power seats, four-wheel anti-lock discs—but little more than slightly different front sheetmetal separated it from the Fifth Avenue. It only sold in tepid numbers until the beginning of the 1993 model year.
Chrysler Town & Country
Nowadays, it’s unimaginable for a luxury carmaker to not also offer a truck line. Until 1990, however, it was unimaginable for a luxury carmaker to offer a truck line, but Chrysler changed all that when it re-introduced another old nameplate, the Town & Country, on an upscale version of the Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager, both dating back to 1984. Early versions used a Mitsubishi 3.0L V-6, while later model-year versions used Chrysler’s 3.3L V-6, and production only totaled 5,000-some units that year, but its impact would reverberate throughout the 1990s and up to today.
Honda Accord
One of, if not the best-selling car in the United States, the fourth-generation CB Honda Accord debuted in 1990 with larger dimensions, new styling (foregoing the flip-up headlamps of the previous generation) and a 16-valve, aluminum 2.2-liter four-cylinder engine. While not overtly flashy or full of gee-whiz technology, the new Accord simply refined what worked in previous iterations and discarded what didn’t. And it seemed to be effective: While we don’t have sales figured for 1990, Honda sold almost 400,000 Accords the next year.
Image via ProductionCars.com.
Subaru Legacy
At what point did Subaru switch from selling scratch-your-head cars to something more Honda-like? We’d argue that point came in 1990, with the introduction of the Legacy, a larger compact available in bog-standard four-door and station wagon bodystyles that was actually assembled (in part) in Lafayette, Indiana. Then again, while the Legacy looked fairly typical on the outside, it still used a 130-hp, 2.2-liter, dual overhead camshaft flat-four engine and could be had with full-time all-wheel drive, both hallmarks of Subaru equipage to this day.
Image via OldCarBrochures.
Chevrolet Lumina
Based on the same W-body platform as the above-mentioned Buick Regal Gran Sport and intended as a replacement for the discontinued-after-1988 rear-wheel-drive Chevrolet Monte Carlo, the front-wheel-drive Lumina added yet another nameplate to the already sprawling Chevrolet lineup. It also threw a Eurosport trim atop both its coupe and sedan versions that included a 3.1-liter V-6, and in 1991 Chevrolet would also add a Z34 performance version. Production of the Lumina would span the decade, though in its latter years, it would split off its coupe version to become (yet another nameplate) the resurrected Monte Carlo.
Saturn SC
Intended as GM’s direct competition to the Japanese trio of Honda, Toyota and Nissan, the Saturn brand spent most of the 1980s mired in Roger Smith’s General Motors to finally debut in the late summer of 1990 as 1991 models (the Infiniti and Lexus brands, too, debuted in mid-1990 as 1991 models). Plastic body panels promised dent- and rust-resistance, probably the brand’s biggest selling point, particularly among middle Americans, but Saturn also got a sporty-ish little coupe, the dual overhead-camshaft, 124-hp, 1.9-liter four-cylinder-powered SC, to go along with its SL series of sedans. The SC lasted the span of the S-series cars, and Saturn itself folded in 2009.
Images via Alden Jewell, Old Car Brochures.
Dustbuster Gang (Chevrolet Lumina APV, Oldsmobile Silhouette, Pontiac Trans Sport)
While Chevrolet and GMC had the rear-wheel-drive Astro and Safari twins to compete against the front-wheel-drive Mopar minivans, they were really just a stand-in until GM could develop a series of front-wheel-drive people movers. The latter wouldn’t appear until half a decade later, however, when the Chevrolet Lumina APV, Oldsmobile Silhouette and Pontiac Trans Sport debuted for 1990, and none of them escaped the comparisons to the As-Seen-On-TV Dustbuster handheld vacuum. Like the Saturn, the U-platform vans used a space frame and plastic body panels derived, in part, from the Fiero‘s architecture, and got their power from a 3.1L V-6. The Silhouette, intended to compete against the Town & Country, lasted until the demise of Oldsmobile 14 years later; the Lumina APV eventually became the Venture in 1997; and the Trans Sport, which took its name from the concept van that inspired the whole lot, became the Montana in 1997, as well.
Photo by Magnus Manske.
Geo Metro
Captive imports had largely died out by the mid-1980s among American automakers in favor of other approaches to boosting market share. GM, for instance, created joint ventures with Suzuki (CAMI) and Toyota (NUMMI) to produce smaller, import-derived vehicles for its Geo brand, launched in 1989. However, the Metro, which had evolved from the Chevrolet Sprint of the mid-1980s, remained, essentially, a Suzuki rebadged as a Geo—a point underscored by the fact that Suzuki sold the Swift in the United States at the same time. Yet, while the Swift gained a reputation as a hot hatch, especially in GTi/GT form, the Metro became known as a fuel miser, able to regularly achieve 50 miles per gallon or better, thanks to its 55-hp, 1.0L three-cylinder engine and 1,500 pounds. One of the few Geo vehicles to outlive the Geo brand, the Metro again became a Chevrolet in 1997 and remained there through 2001.