Talk:Cadillac Cimarron
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What initially hurt sales of the Cimarron was the small four cylinder engine and manual transmission. Cadillac should've made the car available only with the V6 and automatic. Unfortunately, the public was mostly ignoring the car by the time the V6 was made available. I still meet people with my 1986 Cimarron who don't believe the car was available with a V6. A bad first impression is tough to shake, especially when you don't massively advertise and promote it when you rectify the initial issues. (See also the Ford Mustang II with no V8 for 1974. Many people still assume the car was never available with a V8 through its five year production!)
Another strike against the Cimarron was the availability of only one body style, the four door sedan. Had Cadillac at least made a convertible (which I believe the Cavalier was the only J Body with a convertible option) version, it might have helped sales. There also should've been a two door coupe Cimarron.
[edit] What hurt the Cimarron...
I think you're absolutely right. Cadillac wanted more time to develop the car, but GM is really to blame. Them and their CAFE goals. The 1.8 was an extremely weak engine, and they just never should have used it in a Cadillac. The availability of a stickshift wasn't a bad thing at all, especially according to the press, but to have had to pay hundreds more for an automatic on a car many already considered too expensive was an insult to many buyers. I own an '88 with the V6, and I never have problems convincing people it has a V6; my main problem is convincing them it's a Cadillac because next to nobody alive today has even seen one, and few have heard of them. Maybe Cadillac likes it that way and wants to keep it a corporate secret from now on. (Haha!!)
Both Chevrolet Cavalier and Pontiac Sunbird (later Sunfire) had convertible versions from 1983 to 2000, with the exception of a few years. A Cimarron convertible would have been sweet. A few exist, but I'm sure they're all custom jobs. I've even seen a stretch limousine version for sale in Illinois!
Honestly, though, I've owned three different Cavaliers of different years, engines, and body styles (convertible, wagon, Z24 coupe), and my '88 Cimarron is far nicer than any of them. By the last year, they had made quite a competent small luxury car, and there's no doubt in my mind that if that version had hit the scene first, we might still have it around today (though it might now be called "CTS", wink, wink), but, alas, you never get a second chance to make a first impression, and that's what stuck with people. weetbixkid 14:46, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
