There was a time when the Pontiac brand had something of an identity crisis. GM wasn’t sure if it should be a performance brand or more of a premium brand like Buick or Oldsmobile as a middle ground between Chevy and Cadillac. Up for auction is a clean and low-mile car exemplifying that time period: a 1985 Pontiac Parisienne Brougham located in North Carolina with 7,000 miles on the clock.
Offered for auction through Hagerty, this Parisienne is a V8-powered premium sedan that even GM enthusiasts may have never heard of. It was underpinned by the GM B platform shared with the Chevy Caprice, Buick LeSabre, and Oldsmobile 88 of the era. This one is powered by a 5.0L V8 rated at 165 horsepower and 250 pound-feet of torque. Output is sent to the rear wheels via a 4-speed automatic transmission.
The exterior design of this sedan has all of the trappings of a 1980s American luxury sedan. It has skirted rear wheels, a vinyl top, wire wheels, liberally applied chrome, gold stripes, and a hood ornament with an ill-defined symbol, speculated to be either a floral or solar design.
The interior is just as typical of 80s American luxury. The cabin is draped in brown and tan hues, and occupants are coddled by cushy velour seats. Wood trim covers the dash, and this example even has a sunroof with a sliding shade.
The Pontiac Parisienne was discontinued in 1986, but the wagon version lived on as the Pontiac Safari until 1989. The Parisienne was effectively replaced by the front-wheel-drive Pontiac Bonneville, which rode on the H platform shared with the first FWD generations of the LeSabre and 88. The Parisienne would be the last RWD sedan from Pontiac until the Pontiac G8 came out as a captive import of the Holden Commodore for a single, brief generation from 2008-2009.
As of this writing, this Pontiac Parisienne has a high bid of $6,000. The auction runs until Thursday, April 3rd, so get in your bids if you like the idea of something a little different from the pantheon of GM B-body sedans.
Comments
I always thought that the Pontiacs were the best looking of the B Bodies following the 1980 refresh. Interesting how they resurrected the quarter panels from the 1980-81 Bonneville when they refreshed the Parisienne in 1985. Nevertheless, this car is a sad reminder of how far GM has fallen in the last 40 years 🙁
Never drove the Pontiac, but I did drive an early 1980s era Impala. That car combined room, ride, and good handling. Miss these large cars.
Stunning car! Look at those seats. I could fill that tank with gas, pull onto the freeway and the only thing stopping me would be a fuel fill or a bathroom break. Totally unlike the overly hard and overly bolstered seats on everything today. This is such a nice car.
And there’s where the problem (IMO) came into play with Pontiac. As the article alluded to, Pontiac in this time wasn’t sure where it wanted to be. GM had already begun the “We build excitement” theme while pushing Pontiac towards sporty side. Yet this stunning car was looking to hunt down Buick’s and Oldsmobile’s and Mercury’s. I think if GM would have gone all in on the excitement/sporty side for Pontiac, they would probably still be around today. Kind of sad that this car makes a better mid-luxury Buick than the similar LeSabre did.
From what I remember, Pontiac’s traditional customers did not take too well to the downsized Bonneville of 1982 so they hurriedly brought back the Parisian for 1983- a vehicle still offered in Canada at the time
Yes, the author may not understand this car or the era in which it was built.
In the 70’s Pontiac was selling their version of the GM B-body; a full-size car. They were known as the Catalina and Bonneville. They were very successfully downsized for 1977 and then later reskinned for 1980. Although they sold well, they were traditionally designed cars akin to an Oldsmobile and by the early 80s, Pontiac was embarking on a mission to revive their sporty car image from the 1960s albeit with a European flavor.
Concurrently the Carter administration (1977-1981) had put in place stringent fuel efficiency standards and the expectation was that large cars like the big Pontiacs would eventually disappear. Given these forces, GM decided to go ahead and discontinue the big Bonneville after the 1981 model year.
In its place, they converted their mid-sized A-body LeMans into a new smaller Bonneville “Model G” that retained traditional luxury car trappings and utilized a first generation Cadillac Seville-inspired “formal roof”. It was the Model G because by this time General Motors had renamed all the RWD A-bodies as the G-body. The new smaller Bonneville arrived for the ‘82 model year. It would be the last traditional luxury sedan that Pontiac developed and was likely planned to be a stop-gap offering.
A new sporty top-of-the-line Pontiac was being developed for ‘83. It was intended to take on import sport sedans and although decidedly smaller, it was the most comprehensively equipped and highest priced Pontiac to date. It would be called the 6000STE and go on to be heralded by the motoring press as a true equal to the sports sedans arriving from The Continent.
A funny thing happened though. By the time the Model G launched and the STE was nearly finished, big cars were selling well again. Then, as now, the winds had shifted in Washington and Ronald Reagan had defeated Jimmy Carter and eliminated many of his strict fuel efficiency standards. Horsepower was suddenly back and buyers were snapping up full-size cars again. Pontiac was truly left out. The STE was quite small and the Bonneville Model G not much larger.
To adapt to the new realities of the US marketplace, Pontiac launched the Chevrolet Caprice-based Pontiac Parisienne in 1983, a product that was actually already on sale in Canada, and thus re-entered the US full-size car category. The first US Parisienne was simply a rebadged Caprice using all Chevy sheet metal. After two years with Chevrolet’s styling, the Parisienne was revised for 1985 to return to largely the Pontiac design from ‘80 to ‘81 including skirted rear fenders. This car stayed in production until the H-body FWD Pontiac Bonneville arrived ‘87.
Pontiac was late to get an H-body likely owing to the fact that they’d briefly dropped out of the full-size sedan category. When they did though, they made GM’s H-car into a more grown-up version of the 6000STE with a very sporting persona. Those new big Pontiacs, and particularly the Bonneville SSE, were well regarded and probably only existed because of the Parisienne and the reemergence of big-selling big cars.
As a side note, the Caprice/Impala was supposed to be dropped as well after 1981 to be replaced with a version of the then Malibu. Fortunately, those plans changed, but if you look at the 1982 Malibu, it had a Caprice/Impala inspired front end.
Sparky,
The likely reason that this car made a better mid-luxury Buick than the similar LeSabre did was because this car was Pontiac’s best full-size luxury car whereas Buick had the C-Body Electra/ Park Avenue at the top of their line.
It’s the same reason the A-Body (A-Special) Pontiac Grand Prix in this era was always nicer than Oldsmobile’s Cutlass Supreme or Buick’s Regal even though Olds and Buick were above Pontiac in the GM hierarchy. The GP was Pontiac’s best personal luxury coupe but Olds and Buick had the E-Body Toronado and Riviera as their best coupes. Both of those were nicer than a GP. That effectively made the Grand Prix the top-of-the-line A-Body coupe.
do not like the interior with wood, but when cadillacwas a real cadillac as exterior
I owned one of these in Tutone sage green. Beautiful car. I chose this over the Caprice because for 1985 the Caprice had a silver background across the dash, and I preferred the woodgrain look. Drove it for 7 years and the guy who bought it from me was impressed with how nice of a car it was. There is no way our 2022 Buick Enclave premium model has this kind of luxury. The Buick is nice, however not as nice as this.
You know the passion in the automobile industry has seriously deteriorated when folks speak “fondly” of cars like this.
This car would really be sweet… with a modern engine and transmission!
Guessing that’s still a carb 305 and 700R4 under the hood? Yikes. Anyone who didn’t experience the (first) malaise era firsthand would get a healthy primer with this car.
While not quite as pleasant as Ford’s 302 with port injection as used from 1986 onward the 305 from 1985 was actually a very nice mill in these cars. I know because I speak from experience with several examples. The 305 received a bump in compression from 8.6 to 9.5 in 1985 and gained 15 hp and 10 torque with a more useable powerband and overall was a smoother livelier setup compared to the Olds 307 as used a year later in these cars. They were far from powerhouses but 165-170 HP was a healthy amount in 1985. Note that Ford’s 302 only made 140 in the Crown Vic and Grand Marquis this year as did the OLDs 307 with the only exceptions being the Mustang HO 302’s and the 442 Cutlass Supremes.
The Port-Injected 302 Ford engine from 1986 on made 150 hp and 270 lbs. feet of torque. I used to own a 1986 Mercury Grand Marquis and a 1987 Mercury Cougar 20th Anniversary Edition with that engine.
That’s correct. I was referring to the 1985 302 to directly compare both it and this Pontiac. For 1984/85 the Ford TBI 302 made 140 HP and 250 torque
An interesting car. From the dash forward, it’s a slightly modified ‘85 Chevy Caprice. From the dash reward, internally and externally, it’s a 1981 Pontiac Bonneville Brougham.
The reason for that is also interesting, which I outlined above.
Silly autocorrect.
Should be “from the dash rearward…”
Can anybody tell me the difference between Parisienne, Catalina and Bonneville when they were still all full-size RWD B-Body based?
The Canadian market offered the Parisienne, Catalina, and Laurentian. The Laurentian was the base full size Pontiac, the Catalina the mid-range, and Parisienne the Top of the line full-sizer. Prior to 1977, the Bonneville was also offered in Canada as a step above the Parisienne.
The government mandated bumpers were a design challenge across the industry. My family had several 80s Caprices. You could ride for hours on the highway and never be uncomfortable or tired after a long trip. Great visibility. Quiet and comfortable.
We sold several of these B-body Parisienne sedans during the mid to late 1990’s and they were beautiful driving cars. One 1986 base sedan had the 4.3 injected V6 that ran quite nice and moved this large car around quite well all things considered. Another 1985 example had the Chevy 305 and every option offered in black exterior and maroon interior and that car was sweet. The other was a white 1986 Brougham with Olds 307 and a beautiful blue cloth interior. I honestly think the 4.3 V6 felt a little quicker than the 307 but then we didn’t have time to go through and check carburetor settings or timing on the Olds equipped car.
Never seen so much talk on this site about an old car. I was in that year we switched from Cadillac Mercedes. My wife’s business had really taken off and she always wanted one. I remember seeing that car and always thought it was the next choice down from a Fleetwood Brougham. I had forgotten how beautiful it was!
As a former GM rep.( on the road) in Canada from 1976 to 2001, I had the chance to have many of these to drive. We had to change our company cars every 3 months. I always be a Pontiac guy (Pontiac build Excitement Debbie was her name if I remember well in Pontiac advertising ) and my choice when placing an order for my next co-car was always Pontiac and or Oldsmobile. As Jackie Gleason, in 1977, said in the movie Smokey and the bandit with Bert Reynolds and Sally Field,, WHAT IN THE HELL THE WORLD IS COMING TOO. with Trumpy-Trump as president of the United States. Unfortunatly, I have to drive a Buick, now