GM's thought process behind the first gen H body Bonnevilles

[Keepin'her_going]

I found these pics of what the Pontiac designers had in mind for the H body Bonneville debut.

Their first concept:


Then the bosses said make it lamer.

Their second concept:



The bosses said good, but can you copy the european styling and maybe make it look like this.



The designers said, "Yes sir!" and they came up with this.



The bosses said, "Whoa baby, Hot Stuff!" Now it is going to be branded as a Pontiac and we are the performance division what performance upgrades have you all done to separate this car from the other divisions H body?

So far we've taken the Buick V6 and haven't added any horsepower to it.
We used the other divisions firm suspension and the quicker turning rack.
We've also decided to use the same lame brakes as the other divisions. But we will be adding ground effects AND red lighting in the interior!!

The bosses said, "Well, since it has no actual better performance than the grandma buicks and olds we're gonna have to market it carefully and flashy. No 0-60 times mentioned or anything like that, we're going to aim for the guy who wants a sports car but whose wife demands he gets a 4 door for the kids, this is going to be easy."

"We'll even have the actor play with the automatic floor shifter to make it seem like we offer a standard transmission."

Thus the Bonneville campaign was launched. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njMQUfA8RK8

[96 SSEi]

that looks similar to a W body.........

[Saturn Simon]

Interesting. The first one looks cool but I doubt the Fiero-like steep hood line would work with the 3800 V6. The back looks like a Subaru XT.

I quite like the second one too. With flush fitting one-piece composite headlights and corner-mounted turn signals I think it would look pretty good - almost like a Rover SD1.

I always thought the final 1987 Bonneville design was quite European influenced, but I thought it more resembled a very large Saab instead of a BMW. Saab had the 900 and 9000 at that time, so with a Saab grille the Bonneville would have made a good Saab 90000.

[fgtr56]

I know it does looks like it i just nocticed:)




audi servicing

[retroren1]

Funny stuff. I own a 1990 SSE and you can add a bit where the GM executive says make the exhaust growl at the rear to distract the driver from what isn't happening at the front, namely decent HP. thanks for sharing the early design images. The top of the driver's door. in the concept drawong, has a flow that is similar to my '88 Toro or even a Riv from '86-'92?