Not everyone is happy when certain vaunted car names are revived on vehicles that they deem less than worthy. Few K5 fans or former owners of Mitsubishi’s cool Diamond-Star coupes were happy with the new Chevy Blazer or EclipseCross models. Even the frumpy old slant six Dodge Dart resonated with buyers far better than the short-lived front drive sedan from a few years back. However, for today’s Pontiac Pthursday we’re going to revisit what might be the worst resurrection of a great name with a rather subpar subcompact; one that should have easily been a winner.
Let’s go back to the famous Pontiac TV spot. If you’re a millennial or younger you’ll probably cringe at this television ad from the late eighties, but you have to admit that the sight of manual shifters feverishly grabbing gears and oversteering black Firebird GTAs or Fieros going nearly airborne (what? No “do not attempt”?) makes you want to go out and find a surviving example RIGHT now and RIIIDE.
As you watch the commercial numerous times, you start to notice one car that’s a bit of an interloper. No, it’s not the Grand Am or the Sunbird Turbo; that fun J-car had a 165 horsepower turbocharged motor that could let anyone know what the meaning of “torque steer” was. No, the car I’m talking about is that little hatchback you see in small snippets. Right before it appears, a “Le Mans” badge scrolls across the screen. Are you telling me that hallowed nameplate was put onto a lowly econobox? Yes, and it’s worse than you think.
We Never Got A Pontiac Pickup Though
You wouldn’t darken the door of a Sushi restaurant expecting to get decent fajitas, would you? A store that specializes in skis likely won’t be a go-to for mountain climbing gear, right? That seems like basic logic that car companies should have followed as well. Poor sales of cars like the Mazda 929 luxury sedan and Subaru SVX GT car proved that some segments of the car market are pretty much out of reach for certain automotive nameplates. However, this common sense didn’t apply to a lot of car brands in years past. At one point, General Motors had four key car brands, and even though Chevy, Pontiac, Olds, and Buick were each aimed at very different markets, they all just had to have something to sell for everyone. Pontiac was a sports coupe and mid-sized car juggernaut, but their dealers demanded an entry-level econobox to fight the similar products from, among others, competing GM brands. And you wonder how it took them so long to go bankrupt?
In Pontiac’s case, the little cars it received were clones of the ill-fated Chevrolet Vega and Monza, but later Pontiac did finally get their own version of the ‘Vette. Sadly, it was the Chevette that graced Pontiac showrooms as a model called the T-1000 starting in 1981. Beyond the badges and grille up front, it was every bit identical and as miserable as the Chevrolet edition of the Shove-It; a car seemingly ten years behind the times when it was introduced in 1976.
When the Chevette finally bit the dust after 1987, Chevrolet found far better replacements with Isuzu and Suzuki-made subcompacts that were legitimate competitors to Mazdas and Nissans. Pontiac took a different path for 1988; one that might have looked good on paper but in reality barely cleared the very low bar set by the T-1000.
The Renault Alliance Was Car Of The Year, Too
Automotive awards are occasionally accused of being hogwash, but it is worth noting that the European Car of the Year was supposedly decided by a group of pesky automotive journalists. For 1985, the winner was a General Motors vehicle: the new Opel Kadett, also sold in the UK as the Vauxhall Astra.
One of the most aerodynamic subcompacts of the day, the new Kadett was a surprisingly true-to-the-concept production version of the stunning 1981 Opel Tech 1 show car:
Unlike the often-lambasted Motor Trend Car of the Year, the European title is decided by a team of sixty international journalists and won in times past by things like the Porsche 928 and NSU Ro80. You have to figure that if the little Opel took the title, it couldn’t have been that bad. Vauxhall’s version was well received, according to AROnline:
The initial verdict was promising, if not euphoric. Motor, in its pre-launch August 1984 twin test between the 1300L and VW’s (Golf)1.3GL, praised the Vauxhall’s extra cabin and boot space, smoother ride and impressive refinement at speed. ‘Almost two inches more front legroom than the Golf, a bigger boot and markedly better refinement…’ the magazine reported, while noting that the Astra’s lighter steering was less precise when pushed. In practical terms, it was ahead – in driver feel, the VW still had the edge.
Tests of the Opel version yielded similar opinions, and ultimately the Kadett became the second-best-selling car in Germany, right below that venerable Golf.
Imported to North America, you’d assume that the Kadett would have been a worthy competitor for other subcompacts but German labor costs and an unfavorable dollar-to-Deutschmark exchange rate put paid to that idea. No, GM would import the Korean-built Daewoo clone of the Kadett to the Brand of Excitement and plaster on the name of legendary Pontiac: the LeMans. Such blasphemy.
Sold Its Seoul
It’s hard to imagine with the likes of Genesis today, but in the late Eighties, the quality of Korean-made imports was probably better than that of a Yugoslavian car, but still more than a bit lacking. Even if you gave a Korean factory a car to build that was crowned “Car of the Year” when assembled elsewhere, the product emerging at the end of the line had a good chance of being less than stellar (Hyundai Stellar pun not intended). For the Pontiac LeMans, that’s exactly what happened.
The German styling was still rather fetching for a subcompact even three years after the world had first seen the LeMans, but while it looked good from afar, it was far from all good. The structure was anything but VW-tight, and fit and finish wasn’t up to Japanese levels. You can see that the overall design isn’t that bad at all, but cheap, brittle plastics dominated the interior. That upholstery and a lack of color choice added to the depressing environment that could have easily been elevated for not much extra spend.
In this Motorweek test, you can see that any of the “Car of the Year” worthy handling somehow got lost on the trip to Korea and back to America, particularly the slow steering.
Look at how it almost spins out in the slalom test!
The motor isn’t faulted much in this test by Our Hero John Davis, but it’s worth noting that this early test car boasted an Opel mill; later Korean-built engines might not have lived up to the promise of the German four.
While the Opel and Vauxhall versions came in a wide variety of body styles, like wagons and even a convertible, Pontiac only sold the three-door hatchback and four-door sedan.
The sedan, according to the ads, offered more trunk space than any other Pontiac. Even the Caprice-based Parisienne? Really? If so, that’s impressive.
General Motors did offer a LeMans in the Kadett’s hotter “GSE” trim level, which included Recaro-like seats, body-colored fittings, a spoiler, 14-inch wheels, and a 95-horsepower Australian-built two-liter engine similar to what was used in that year’s Sunbird. This thing’s specs promised it to be a GTI fighter with an aero body, but with the lack of refinement and poor execution, the ingredients didn’t add up. Also, at around $11,000, the GSE ended up with a sticker price that was more than the larger Sunbird or, unbelievably, a Honda Civic Si. Now, nobody paid sticker price for any of these cars; the LeMans was likely heavily discounted from the start, and nobody got out of a 1980s Honda dealer without getting gouged for thousands (and trust me, it was worth it). But it was obvious that the GSE wasn’t competitive.
Regardless of these reservations, the styling and spaciousness of the LeMans won over 100,000 buyers in 1988, but it wouldn’t last. The car’s tendency to fall apart became apparent early on, and American GM executives were supposedly at odds with Daewoo’s seeming inability to resolve these quality issues. By 1990, sales had dropped below 40,000 units, and the GSE was discontinued. Pontiac and especially Pontiac’s dealers had all but given up on the car, as only around 19,000 found homes in 1992 and a mere 8,000 in the next and final year of the Daewoo-built LeMans.
If you’d like to buy one today, I’m not sure why. My guess is that if you left one on the street with the keys in it, you’d come back to another one parked next to it. In doing image searches for this LeMans, the images I saw were either from a brochure or of a derelict example sitting in a junk yard; my usual prompt of “car for sale” yielded little. To be fair, most examples of econoboxes of this era have been used up and thrown out by now, where a several-hundred-dollar repair rendered them as write-offs. Still, these early Korean imports seemed to end up as doorstops much earlier.
Replace The “A” With An “O” And You Have It
You can’t fault Pontiac for trying; if sixty European journalists select something as the best new car of the year, you’d think it couldn’t miss. Sadly, the little LeMans just closed out two decades of subcompact Pontiac stinkers.
Ah, but if you’d given up on tiny Pontiacs, you’d be in for a surprise a few years later. The 2002 Vibe showed that GM’s excitement division could make a hell of a little car, with a lot of help from Toyota.
Pontiac Points: 25 out of 100
Verdict: No
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I think people hating too hard on this car might not have a clear understanding of what else was available. This abomination was the previous generation. Unless you are only capable of liking something ironically, the little hatchback is unavoidably the better car by a few orders of magnitude. The last of GM’s RWD mid-sizes were truly horrendous products on every conceivable level.
When I was 16, my parents got this modern LeMans as a loaner, and it was better in every way than any one of the numerous late-model A-body GM products that were the default for every parent that sent kids to my high school. I owned a Chevette, and the LeMans was a spaceship by comparison. I don’t doubt that the Chevette was a much more robust and reliable option, but it was reliable in the same way a piece of pig iron is reliable.
The 1993 model actually got a facelift restyling, despite being the final model year. This is a fact I never knew until one showed up on IMCDb (it was destroyed in an episode of Third Watch).
I just had a flashback when you mentioned the refresh. I likely hadn’t seen or even thought about the refresh for at least 25 years, but I could picture it immediately. In Light Teal Metallic, of course.
The Pontiac Terminator T-1000; Thanks for your cooperation.
I had a coworker with one of these LeMans in the late 80’s. He packed the rear with bazookas and then bolted the hatch down to reduce all the rattling. It’s the only one I ever recall seeing, but that may be because they are so forgettable they’ve been flushed down the memory hole.
These were more Pancho than Poncho. Oh Cisco!
Back in the summer of 1988, my 1980 Audi 4000s decided that the engine needed a vent hole added, so I was on the search for a new car.
I was a poor college student and needed a NEW, reliable, affordable car.
Test drove an Escort (meh), LeMans (OMFG levels of terrible), VW Fox (loved it and it even looked like my beloved 4000 but ~$500 more than the 323) and a Mazda 323 DX.
Got the 323. 4 speed manual, A/C and pinstripes. I was in (poor teen’s) car heaven.
But this is about the LeMans. What a terrible car. Slow. Coarse engine that did not want to rev. Noisy (even for the low rent sector of the market), Rubbery gearbox, kind of like shifting through thick oatmeal, terrible fit and finish and it handled really poorly. GM phoned that crap in.
A coworker bought a new LeMans and she was glad that the Pontiac dealer was next to work as it spent so much time in the shop.
Anyone got an old VW Fox for sale? Preferable the wagon version???
The 323 was the right choice. I had a number of friends, including my now partner, who had one, and they were all well-loved. I would also love an old Fox wagon. If I stumble on one and it isn’t the right time for me, I will try to remember to give you the contact.
The 323 was a great car.
Had it until 91 when some idiot was welding a sign above my car and a bunch of slag pitted the glass and ruined the paint.
After getting it fixed, I traded for a 91 CRX DX. What a car that was!!!!
Reminds of a car I actually forgot I once had… Around 2000, I got a dark blue 1988 VW Fox 4 door sedan with fender damage at an auction for $200. No one was bidding because it had a trouble light. A friend said it was probably simple. We swapped out a $10 sensor and it was fixed and running fantastic before leaving the lot.
Before buying it, I wasn’t even really aware of the Fox existing. I just needed a cheap commuter car. I ended up really liking that little car in our short time together.
I had an Ice Blue 1988 Hatchback that really wasn’t good at anything but I do remember it being pretty loud inside.Halloween night 1991 a bunch of kids in a Stepside Chevy pulled out in front of me at an intersection and I T-Boned it completely destroying the LeMans.I can still see them jumping out of the box after the accident.That was before the seat belt days and I was picking glass out of my forehead for months afterwards.The shifter was bent pretty badly,I broke the steering column and back of the seat.I even bent the steering wheel but had no broken bones and was sore for a few weeks.I was only 19 YO and pretty built at the time.If that happened now I would be in Traction for a year.
That said, I did like my ’88 Chevy Nova, no matter how far-removed it was from the ’60s legend. Then again, it was my first car bought with my own money. And also an E80 Corolla. Not a Korean Opel. That said, I still see these occasionally. Very occasionally.
The sporty versions of those Toyota Novas/Geos were great cars. Though prone to rust.
At the 1 minute mark of the embedded ad, it appears to show an (exciting) Pontiac getting a traffic ticket.
Loving that Aztek rear end!
I had a co-worker with one of these things, he hated it. If you looked at it form the side, it was two different tones of silver, I asked him if he’d been in a accident, causing the paint mismatch, and he replied nope, that’s how it came from the factory.
His father was a pretty high-up exec at GM, and the car was free; he was very vocal about what a POS it was, and how mad he was this his sister got to jump the queue on the next new car from his Dad.
Don’t forget the Daewoo Lemans Korean commercial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqcSW2vYuC8
Say what you will about the heritage of the Pontiac LeMans, but this is the one that would actually blend in best in LeMans (the town, not the event, although they’re all ill-suited to the event).
They’re best-suited for the other event–Lemons.
To be fair, Daewoo probably was better than real GM shit of the time LOL
Too bad we never got the 4-door hatch. And of course, GM’s long standing tradition of stupid plastic triangles in the back instead of full windows, especially on their smaller cars.
One thing I find interesting on every article I read about these Le Mans is that the writer always seems to think the original Opel model was much better and everything bad about it is Daewoo’s fault.
The OG Opel, especially on its base models, was pretty much just as mediocre, albeit a slightly better built mediocrity, but the loose steering, boring interior and anemic engines, it wasn’t all Daewoo’s fault as you can only do so much with a platform that’s not that different than a J-body to begin with.
So how did 60 auto journalists fall in love with it?
Just like they fell in love with the Chrysler Horizon, Nissan Micra, Leaf, and even the Chevy Volt
European COTY has always had some element of nationalistic bias.
Germany had quite a bit of influence during the 80s. Post-millennium it has mostly been French and Italian.
This was a true horrible car with lousy build quality, subpar chassis and aenemic engines
Brilliant wordplay in the title. Kudos!
I thought these were badge engineered Daewoos, not actually downgraded Opels. GM at it’s finest…. Daughter had an ’09 Vibe. It was a true Toyota at heart. A collision killed it, else it would still be running.
Actually 1993 was the last model year they were sold in the US. The only reason this is notable is because the 1993 model received a facelift, with a reworked front, new side moldings, and superficially changed taillights. I always thought it was odd they decided to do that right before axing it, but that’s GM for you.
I did say ‘next and final year’ in the post, meaning 1993. I did see that it was facelifted and wondered why too!
Pretty sure I’ve never seen one in that configuration, ever.
I remember a neighbor buying one new in ’93.
My buddy’s girlfriend in those days bought one of these new. We all thought it was the worst new car we had ever seen. I don’t think she got more than two years out of it.
Shame, buying one of those was definitely a crime. She should’ve got life.
My cousin had one of theses in that horrid red and drove it from Tucson, Arizona to college in Fargo, ND. I got some minor frost bite on my fingers trying to fix the washer fluid pump on that damn POS car.
I don’t know if I have ever seen one of these and never knew they existed and I love Pontiacs haha
Not a Pontiac. Not even close.
True but a lot of later Pontiacs were just badge engineered cars pretty much anything from the 80s and on.
GM lost it’s way somewhere in the ’70s.
True, but an Oldsmobile with a Pontiac grille is pretty much a Pontiac.
Haven’t seen one in ages, my sister had one for a while, it was just cheap transportation.
My parents owned a red 3-door like the one in the ad when I was a kid, I vividly remember a Bic pen glued into the space the turn signal stalk once occupied after it disintegrated.
“If you’d like to buy one today, I’m not sure why.”
Whimsy, maybe, but as far as I know these are essentially extinct. I did see one turn up on either Malaise Motors or Obscure Cars For Sale a few years ago, honestly it wasn’t in too bad of shape. As far as I know, it sold, which means someone out there has the same fantastic sense of humor as I do.
I briefly dated a girl who proudly bought one of these, and I thought it was pretty funny because her dad was a staunch Buy American guy. I didn’t have the heart to tell her.
My brother’s father-in-law was proud to tell me that he had bought a brand new Japanese-built Toyota Tacoma. I should have just nodded, but I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. I told him to check the vin and the door jam for country of manufacture. He got really sad when he saw Mexico.
What this car needed was a V8, and RWD.
V8 and rwd solves everything
And at least Yugo-level build quality.
Or at least a variant of the 16V 2L GM Family II engine that was in the more sporty versions of the Kadett.
Hell, they could have used the 2L turbo already in use in the Pontiac Sunbird as that engine was part of the same engine family. It would have fit as the chassis was designed for it.
I’d hate to see what sort of modifications it would require to make it V8 and RWD. Doesn’t even have a tunnel for a driveshaft.
If you really wanted to hot it up and drive the back wheels, you’ll most likely need to move the engine to the back. Still not sure an ass-heavy V8 is appropriate here.
I mean, you could even swap in a supercharged 2ZZ engine, keep it FWD and it would still be a big hoot to drive.
Long live The Bad Seed Chevette
The chassis would not have carried it
***for very long. 5 mins of glory is 5 mins of glory.