1990 Pontiac Grand Prix STE | Retro Review
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 พ.ค. 2023
- Hmm, The Grand Prix STE or the Taurus SHO? I wish we had done a comparo test.
Show 950 | Original Airdate 08-22-1990
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Had this exact car as my first ever car. Got it after high school in 2012 for $500. Massive nostalgia.
Lol where did you find one these at for that price?
Nowhere nowadays
@@manfredmann2766 I found my 93 STE after about 16 years of looking. I had to go to California to bring it back home to the Midwest. I also paid $500 for it.
500$ !!! 😭 I had a 91 LE bought it for 400$ 3.1mpfi sedan needed a driver side wheel hub an fuel pump wire bypassed from rats/shorting probly from sitting..., it ran great
@@DS_IndustrieZ Wheel hub assembly was easy to do but that fuel pump have no choice but to drop the tank. But over all that was a good price for it. Bet that 3.1 had some pep in it too.
It is such a throwback to see all those buttons in an automobile.
BUTTONS!
Yeah Tesla is the future ❤
It was the end of the Cocaine era! People needed buttons to keep fidgety fingers occupied!
@@Kimbrough87 Yep, unfortunately 😕
@@jonathansmith1590 hey moveing forward and leaving the past behind is not a bad Thing.
I remember when these came out....back then they were a head of their time...and in styling. Very cool. I still remember my neighbor buying a green one brand new and complaining about car payments. LOL a simpler time!
I had a 1992 Grand Prix GTP and it had an interior pretty close to this, without a doubt my favorite car... seats were amazing.
Dramatically better looking car as well.
There is something about 90s GM that i just love
I miss all those Pontiacs. they were the best cars ever
If the 3800 supercharged engine was under the hood, it'd hit 60 in at least 7.5 seconds.
@@ericd1632 are you ever invited to one?
Quicker. MUCH. My heavier 2002 GTP does 0-60 in mid to upper 6 secs.
3:47 John: THERE’S NO DISAGREEMENT ABOUT THE INSTRUMENTS, HOWEVER! LOL
Only cause they arent electronic
Thank you for another GM video. Thank you that you have kept them coming. I remember when this replaced the Pontiac 6000 STE They could have easily called this sedan 6000 STE, but it was a Grand Prix sedan. This car did have some unique features as well. Driving Grand Prix... get in your Pontiac and drive! Pontiac drive! This car and the Bonneville SSE were too close in features and size. They did share many features. Thank you again.
It’s great to see these throwback shows and seeing Pontiac again which is no longer around
As an Oldsmobile Intrigue owner whose car was built at the same GM Fairfax Assembly in Kansas City, I applaud and appreciate those of you (retired and active) who built these sedans over the years 😍
Pontiac of this era really loved buttons.
I miss my 91 Grand Prix almost over 20 years ago 🎉
I love how MotorWeek are bringing back these. Makes their channel funner to watch, thanks MW!!
I had 2 of those cars, they were quick for the time and very comfortable. Reliability was an issue as was typical for the era. The Achilles heel today for owning one is the unobtanium Powermaster III braking system master cylinder. Very hard to find outside of eBay and eBay is not a place a car owner wants to lean on.
Great comment! Thanks for sharing your experience with these rare classics!
I believe you can delete/convert it to a vacuum assist hydraulic master cylinder set up. You will no longer have abs but the car still can be used/ driven. My 86 6000ste i had issues sourcing parts for the junk teves pressurized brake unit. My system was removed and i put in a vacuum break booster hydraulic master cylinder from a chevy blazer. On top of that plumbed in a wilwood adjustable proportioning valve. 2 yrs later still good.
Didnt many cadillacs have the teves unit?
Look at that quality hood fitment in the beginning of the video🙄🙄🙄
Wouldn't pass the gumball test!
who needs an airbag when u got buttons!
I remember being amazed at that interior when I saw it at the car show in '89.
4:35 whenever he says "satellite radio controls" in these old reviews, I have to remind myself hes not talking about "satellite radio" 😅
I was thinking the same thing 😂
Yes. This was absolutely pre-Sirius/XM (although Sirius satellite radio was established in 1990) days.
@@patrickmichael3384 XM Satellite Radio was established in 1988.
@rodmunch69 and until Sirius and XM merged, they were based in 2 different cities; Sirius in New York and XM in Washington D.C.
@@patrickmichael3384 yep, I remember it well, I had XM very early on, until they merged. I still have SiriusXM today in the car, if you shop around you can get some very good deals on it.
If you were old enough to remember in the early 90s, you know exactly how Pontiac exhausts sounded. A friend had a 1992 Grand Prix sedan with the 3.1L (not turbo). It was so weirdly floaty and soft with a split bench seat and a column shifter, which made no sense to me considering this was supposed to be the sportiest version of this platform compared to the Regal, Lumina, and Cutlass Supreme. GM did a good job differentiating the 4 cars with styling, but a terrible job differentiating driving dynamics.
The Holy Grail of ALL Grand Prixs...................YES!!!!!!!!!!!
You've never drove a 1969 GP with a 428 in it?
Yeah a fwd v6 isnt the holy grail of all GPs 😂
I remember seeing one of these STE Turbos in a junkyard in 2009. Same color as this test car. I barely knew what it was. Grabbed the door badges and left because I was there to grab parts off an '86 6000 STE. The yard also had a non-turbo Grand Prix STE. Haven't seen a GP STE Turbo since.
That would make sense. Only 1,000 STE Turbo's were made for one year only...1990. Seven hundred in White and 300 in Maroon.
This is a nice car that came for a limited time with the option of a 5 speed manual when GM introduced the optional 3.4 liter 24 valve dual overhead cam V-6. Imagine, back in the nineties, prowling around the streets looking for a BMW 5 Series. With that engine to tranny combo, it's doable.
I do remember that set up as well. Always liked the 4 door with a 5 speed set up. There was a 1990 STE with a 5 speed on the used lot at a Nissan dealership in my hometown. Nobody wanted it and it sat for a long time. I should have bought it back then. It was a dark red with gray leather. Still think about it
These offerings looked great new. Yet we still see straight 6 bmw's everywhere, easily racking up 200-300k miles and more. GM products didn't age well, and so for many people this video is the first/last time they'll ever see one of these pontiacs
Interiors fell apart first then probably the head gasket. Even the later revised "3100" 3.1 had gasket issues. 3800 versions woud be best
@@philipbair4795Yeah, OK. Beemers are maintenance nightmares.
Just saw this. not from the time period we're talking about. I've got one with 345k.
The Grand Prix two-door of this era always caught my attention. I was always torn between this or the Cutlass Supreme International.
I always laugh when I see the steering wheels of the Grand Prix and Bonneville of the late 80s/early 90s loaded up with those buttons. But they are precursors to the loaded wheels available on most cars these days.
Its always strange how whats old is new again. Full width taillamps and light bars up front are all the rage these days.
One other thing is I can never understand why GM saved Buick and killed Pontiac. That could've been their total performance brand. Buick no longer had that differentiation of Wildcat, Type-T, GNX, etc. But Pontiac was importing outstanding Holden-built cars and could've been expanded(even the small Solstice with the 2.0T was a fun little car, as was the 2.0T G5s)from there.
I'm very lucky enough to own both an STE and Cutlass Supreme International coupe.
@hellkitty1014--heres why because Buick has always sold well here and in China
And was profitable while pontiac was only selling in the USA and had not turned a profit in years. GM was spread thin having so many brands. And at the time (2008, 2009 recession/ housing crisis)GM was taking a huge loan bailout from the government and GM was trying to not go out of business, and the government told GM to get rid of pontiac So they dragged pontiac behind the barn and killed it.
I would take a cutlass 3.4 twin cam anyday
These Turbo STE's were only available for one year...1990. From 91-96, the 3.4 TWIN CAM became available. I own a 93 TWIN CAM STE. I also own a 91 Cutlass TWIN CAM.
It's no wonder the SHO was the choice for American performance sedans in that era.
Even nowadays 220hp out of 3.0 liters aint bad. Yamaha did a great job i hear they could have pulled more power but ford didnt want to outshine the mustang gt 225hp 5.0L
@@CRAPO2011yes, test mules were north of 250hp, reliably. Ford also didn't want to pony up for the heavier-dutt clutch. Kinda like why they won't put the Tremec in all 5.0 Coyotes these days.
@@CRAPO2011 the 4 speed automatic that was designed for the SHO’s engine was still too weak for it as well as pretty much anything it was in.
@@briantorres7339 The auto only appeared with the 1992 redesign/ heavy refresh. Pre 1992s were manual only ( though I hear the Mazda derived 5MT wasn't all that robust if you liked doing hard launches)
Let's not forget the LQ1/5 speed combo starting in 91.
Rented a 92 Grand Prix on a trip in 92, it rode well and was comfortable.
The 90 SHO was a better value for the money back then
you guys should have retro marathons on a loop, i love those marathons you do.
A daily driver for the stay at home types, Pontiac knew how to transform Euro styling into American performance, nice combination.
Friend bought one new in 90 with the six. He kept it for about ten years sold it with about 150 grand on it. Very well maintained detailed it yearly. Have not seen one in a very long time.
RIP Pontiac!
Those buttons on the steering wheel are so weird looking but interesting. I like the '98 model, it was like from the future and so sporty.
Hate to break it to you John, but the hood vents aren't for air induction, they're heat extractors
That steering wheel. 🥴
During the late 1980s to 2000s, Accords and Camrys were the vehicles my parents bought and used as our “family car”. Though whenever a car rental was needed, it’d usually be a Pontiac, which I thought looked waaaay cooler than the Accord and Camry, inside and out!!!
Love that steering wheel
Never had one of these (unicorn 3.1 turbo) but had a 89 6000 STE AWD and a 98 Bonneville SSEi supercharged. Both were far from new when I got them yet were both great cars.
This car shouldn’t have been slower than the comparable coupe.
They said it was 20 degrees cooler in the previous test. Maybe the intercooler was too small on this model.
@@sjhudon386 - you’re right. I totally overlooked that the first time.
Bought a '92 back in 2004 for $1100 that was loaded and definitely ahead of its time
SHO > STE. The Taurus SHO was 2+ seconds faster 0-60 and 1/4 mile, stopped shorter and handled the slalom better. The comparison at the end with it seems forced to find negatives because in the actual MW test of the 1989 SHO John said "Torque steer is not a problem" yet here it had "significant torque steer" ??
I prefer the STE Turbo sedan over the Turbo Coupe. This would make a great family car during the week and a performance car for the weekend.
My cousin Cole had one of these, I don't believe it was an STE, might have been an SE.
I remember it when I was about 10 years old or, so, I'm 30 next year, and that was 20 years ago.
R I P cousin Cole, miss you.
My parents had an Olds with a Quad 4. Biggest pos ever made. It went through 3 head gaskets in about 80k miles.
Olds shoulda just put a turbo on the iron duke
God, those things sounded awful... like the engine was being damaged just by running.
@@danmccarthy4700 haha they kinda sounded like a broken diesel, agricultural. I hear they can run forever though
We had an '89 base model in black.
Great car, especially when the dash lit up at night.
We had to have it replaced, as it was under a recall at that time.
205 hp and 220 lb ft of torque to get a 9.0 sec 0-60? That's impressively terrible. I thought the steering wheel buttons were incredibly cool as a kid, though. Just make sure you lock your doors when you're driving - it might be the only thing that stops the door from opening in a crash and tossing you into the road with those door-mounted seat belts.
Probably the auto tranny that was awful, I have no doubt thinking it would be low 8 or high 7 to 60 with a proper 5 speed manual
locking your doors would not prevent your doors from "popping open" in a crash if they were going to.
That's the whole purpose of the double latch.
It is very unlikely to happen even in the most severe crashes
Thise 3.1 Turbo were junk. Everyone goes nuts over them because they were rare. Well they were rare because they were shit. they are hardly faster than the base V6.
A turd boat.
It weighed about 3600 lbs so this was porky back in the day. Combined with the 4 speed auto and the vast power variances of that primitive forced induction system I would say it is fairly accurate.
I can’t look at this car without seeing rust. Saw so many of them totally wrecked.
My 93 STE came from California. It's pristine underneath!
These cars had so much character!
Lackluster quality and substandard fit and finish was the name of the game for GM then. But, these GPs were quiet and very comfortable.
That interior is 🤝🥫😭❤️😀💯!!, My 91 LE had dark cloth bench seats and a column shift, delco am FM cassette, an power windows n locks..... 😀😭
Them big buttons on a pontiacs were so cool.
R.I.P. Pontiac.
These came out when I was a kid and it was straight up my dream car. I loved the full width headlight treatment. Also Im curious about the hod vents. He mentions they are there to add additional ventilation for the engine, however, when they pop the hood, the insulation looks completely solid without any cut outs for the said vents. So are they truly functional?
I think so. If you look on the right when the hood goes up it appears you can see light through the louvers.
Always wanted one if these ,just like a Bonneville SSE♥️♥️♥️♥️
I wanted one of these when I was a kid 😂
My parents had a 90 Grand Prix Se 2 door with the 3.1. Was a great car
Same chunk o sheeite as cutlass supreme.
Good seats though. World class seats.
To give everyone here a frame of reference, this Pontiac Grand Prix STE had an MSRP that was comparable to the Toyota Celica All-Trac that was also brand new for that model year. To compare the Celica to this Grand Prix in automotive performance and long-term quality is about as clearcut as comparing the military strength of NATO versus the island fortifications of Crete.
Not many of those celicas left unfortunately. Probably just as rare as the pontias
I had the 3.1 v6 in my 92 lumina. Great engine
The 3.1 v6 is pretty much trash, this was the turbo, which dramatically increased performance over the very slow and rough base 3.1
@@rodmunch69 family members had a lumina and corsica with the 3.1. For the time they were punchy and smooth engines and the transmission shifted great
@@jeremyb4493 I test drove a 3.1 back in the day, and having come from owning a bunch of V8's, I was really unimpressed. So I think it just depends on your expectations. Even a mid-80s V8 starved of power by government regulations still had a lot of toque and smoothness - so going from that to driving one of these, it was quite the drop off. However, if it's all you knew, or you were coming from earlier 1980s 6-cylinders, or heaven forbid 4-cycyliners, then yeah, this might seem quite nice and peppy compared to them. However, the difference between this and the turbo is huge.
Sedan With Stamina
Boat with lag
I had a 1993 one ,white with burgundy interior,but the transmission is on steering wheel column as I preferred better !
They are bringing back the “full width light bar” , it’s on the new Ford Escape and VW Atlas 😂
I'm guessing this car shares it's body frame or most of it with the VN/VP Commodores in Australia.
In the 90s Pontiac was the 'fun' domestic brand albeit a little trailer park. Was always a click over Chevrolet, especially the 80s Grand Am coupe. Olds & Buick had good vibes, too, but Honda gave more for less money.
Pontiac was always better than Ford and Dodge, tho
The engine that replaced the 3.1 was the 3.8 bulletproof engine.
Why are 1980 and early 90s usa passenger cars so freaking rare now?
Quality. The US was just as bad as the British auto industry on quality. Plus the failed Cash for Clunkers program definitely didn't help. A lot of cars from this era met their end there.
Head gasket repairs were more $$$ than the book value.
Rust and quality
Having a hard time seeing this car as progress, even in an early-1990s context. GM and other US automakers threw billions into their front-wheel-drive "downsizing" projects, converting most of their fleet away from larger cars and rear-wheel-drive. This is the best they could do? Those video clips of the slalom look scary. And this is only a couple of years after the demise of the Buick Grand National, whose turbo 3.8-liter V6 nearly brought the house down. In the late 1980s, Pontiac had a successful stab at the so-called Euro Sport Sedan market with the better-than-average 6000 STE, which came in front- and all-wheel-drive. But the lackluster W-body cars were a minivan full of "meh", even by that day's standards. DEspite Mr. Davis' optimistic narration, the visuals tell the real story.
4:35 I was confused when he said satellite radio for a second until I realized he was referring to the radio controls on the wheel.
I never knew the STE 4dr could be equipped with the Turbo
I had an '02 gt and wish i still had it. Sold it in 2014.
the ford SHO cam with a Yamaha built v6 with no rev limiter which made them go boom.i replace 2 in 1 sho
Man that SHO was the car to have
Put in a cold air intake on top of the 3.1L turbocharged intercooler and it'll add 15 more HP with a total of 225, up there with the Ford Taurus SHO. I'll take it along with the outgoing 1990 Pontiac 6000 STE with that same engine layout and AWD. Pontiac went hard on this one back then.
This car nor most american cars couldnt rival the Hondas,Toyotas, Nissans & Mazdas for fuel economy & stylish & interior quality.
I had no idea a turbo 3.1 existed. This motor should have gone into the Beretta
I do not miss my 3 speed.
The first 4 dr Grand Prix , which was only the beginning 1997-08 were definitely the best., don't care for the GXPV8 though.
Lovely nails ma'am.
So many buttons wow lol 😂 in the interior
the 3800 in the grand sport coupe was the best of this mix and id take that over a 3.1 turbo
Interesting performance numbers, 2 years later my 1992 Acura Vigor with a 2.5 5 cylinder did the exact same times at a track in AZ. That's with 0.6 less liters and no turbo.
These are mush faster than these times. This was a brand new engine on a flat footed launch. Bring the rpm up against the brakes and use a drag strip launch and you'd lop a second or more off like they did with the coupe they tested earlier.
Where is the Z24 Cavalier? GM used the 3.1 in a lot of cars at that time
What's sad is that a few years later you would have GM's 3800 series 2 V6 which matches the power of this complex turbocharged 3.1. and we're not just talking horsepower hear the 3800 makes the same 225 in torque
The 3100 is Not really a complex motor though. Just a pushrod v6 with a turbo 😂
Wouldn’t you LOVE to see this cars history? This exact car!
Who ended up owning it? What kind of life did it have. How long did it last? When was its final mile? What happened to it?
Is it still around perhaps?
Wouldn’t you love to know?
Only GM could put a turbo on a V6 and still only get 200hp and 9 second 0-60 lol
They picked up 60 hp over the NA version. The twin turbo 300zx that year had 300 hp with DOHC and two turbos. Seems pretty reasonable amount of power for the time.
Wonder if they didn't put an intercooler on the turbo system.
You must be a foreign car fanboy Millenial. You conveniently left out the fact the testers got a full second quicker times in a prior test when it was 20 degrees cooler temps.
@@bmstylee Yes.
@@AlphanumericCharactersthat same nissan engine made more power than the 3.1 turbo without a turbo and intercooler :)
It was replaced with a 3.8 supercharged that was faster then a 2.3 i4 in the grand am instead of slower… so it definitely made it better
In 1992 a Mustang 5.0 5speed LX was around $14 grand on the showroom floor, WTH
Pontiac, the official GM brand of plastic cladding.
....i missed the "sharp handling" part of the video.
:)
If I won the lottery this is the car I'd search out to get.
Sweet
The Pontiac looks like it was designed at the gulags in Siberia. And the front was inspired by the Mercury Sable.
It doesn’t even come close to the Ford Taurus in looks.
The Taurus alone was in production from 1986-2019.
The Pontiac division went belly up in 2010.
LOL... do you even know what a Russian car looks like bruh??
I can see being a 2001 baby i didnt miss much.
So many 90s cars look so awful.
Few aged well.
But my 4Runner did! Older than me at 24 years old.
Wonder if anyone has done an LS4 fwd v8 swap or 3800 s/c into one these
$24,000 in 1990 is equivalent to $57k adjusted for inflation in 2024. Wow!
It was the Saturn SL
"Reliable 3.1 V6" 😂😂😂
My old girlfriend had the 3.1 in her Chevy Corisca. She had 240k miles on it before it died. So I say not too bad. Lol.
Wow! Of all the ignorant comments you see on TH-cam this is a noteworthy one. The 3100 was one of the best engines ever made.
Just as good as the 3800…
Wonderbread styling. Blaaah
What the hell where they thinking putting the seat belt mounts ON THE DOOR??
You get hit hard enough in the drivers door that belt is gonna go slack on you when you need it to be strapped to you tight. It does make it interesting to get in the car and not hafta put the belt on.
But not trustworthy in door impact crashes. The steering wheel buttons where kind of ahead of the time. I remember messing with them working at a pontiac dealer.
They were a good looking car in the day but the buttons and knobs tended to break or fall off. The performance though, pretty sure a prius or mini van could be it now.
Was never really a fan of Pontiac but this is a pretty cool little car its performance times should have been a little bit faster maybe it was the transmission or something who knows
Or tires
They said in the review the coupe with the same engine was a second faster, then said the 'very tight engine' a second later, in other words they're saying something wasn't right with it.