Bargain GM Tanks: 1990 Chevy Lumina vs 1994 Pontiac Bonneville

Good morning! I have a little bit of a theme this week: I’m going to seek out cars that have the same asking price, because I keep forgetting to include the prices in the poll like you all have asked. This way it doesn’t matter; both cars each day will be the same price. We’ll see if I can keep it up all week.

Friday, we stepped out of our comfort zone price-wise, but it was worth it to look at a couple of really cool little vehicles. I had an idea how this one was going to go, and I was right: For the majority of you, as it was for England Dan and John Ford Coley, LUV is the answer. (Yes, there were literally hundreds of musical references I could have stuck in there, but ’70s truck, ’70s song.)

I honestly could go either way with this one. That LUV, or something very much like it, is the only thing that could possibly replace my beloved Forest Service truck, if any terrible fate were to befall it. But the Honda takes up less space, and I have a weakness for tiny cars.

When it comes to cheap transportation, for my money, big General Motors cars of the ’90s are where it’s at. Yes, the interior will fall apart. Yes, you’ll be just a little bit embarrassed to be seen in it. But as long as you keep gas, oil, and a charged battery in it, you can virtually guarantee you’ll get home. What’s more, you’ll do so in comfortable seats, getting reasonably good fuel economy, and feeling just a tiny bit smug about having spent half as much as the next person did on a Camry with double the mileage. Still not convinced? All right, let’s check out a couple of them.

1990 Chevrolet Lumina Euro – $1,800

Engine/drivetrain: 3.1-liter overhead valve V6, four-speed automatic, FWD

Location: Hays, NC

Odometer reading: 210,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives well, everything works

We’ve already taken our shots at Chevy for its flagrant misuse of the term “Eurosport.” I’m not going to pile on here. But I do find it amusing that when the Celebrity gave way to the Lumina, Chevy dropped the “Sport,” but doubled down on the “Euro” part. Really all it means is red trim instead of chrome, alloys instead of whitewalls, some added-on spoilers and ground effects, and a center console between bucket seats. It’s “Euro” in the same way that Blink-182 is “punk” (okay, maybe I’ll take one little shot) but it does suit the car’s styling better.

Some Luminas with red trim and spoilers had some cool stuff under the hood, like a 3.4-liter quad-cam V6 and a five-speed stick, but not this one. Here you’ll find a garden-variety 3.1-liter engine and a four-speed automatic, just like Grandma used to drive. It’s not exciting, but it’s durable and gets decent gas mileage. It has 210,000 miles on it, but the seller says it runs just fine, and everything works, including the air conditioning.

The interiors of GM cars this age are often a letdown and this one is no exception. It’s not trashed by any means and the seats actually look pretty good, but the more you look at it the more little flaws you find. The center armrest is toast, and the gray part of the plastic dashboard is warped and coming apart. But it’s an $1,800 car, you can’t expect showroom condition.

Outside, the paint is sun-baked and the clearcoat is coming off. But the seller is quick to point out that it has the same color scheme as a much faster, more famous Chevy, and suggests this would make a good tribute car. I guess, if that’s your thing, then yes, it would.

1994 Pontiac Bonneville SSEi – $1,800

Engine/drivetrain: Supercharged 3.8-liter overhead valve V6, four-speed automatic, FWD

Location: Sanford, ME

Odometer reading: 120,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives but has been sitting, needs some work

“We Build Excitement” was Pontiac’s slogan for years. But as someone who grew up in a town where a Pontiac dealership was the only game in town, I can tell you that there were a whole lot of Pontiacs that weren’t exciting at all: Iron Duke-powered Grand Ams, beige 6000s with bench seats, and the entire LeMans line from the ’80s. You had to get into the upper trim levels before you got to the good ones, like this top-of-the-line Bonneville SSEi.

To give the Bonneville a little something extra, Pontiac bolted a supercharger to the top of its already-famous Buick 3800 V6. It doesn’t magically turn the Bonneville into a sports sedan, but it makes stoplights and on-ramps a lot more fun. This one has only 120,000 miles to its name, but it has been sitting for years and has only recently been revived. It needs brakes and shocks, but more critically, the harmonic balancer is coming apart. That’s not an expensive repair to do, but ignore it and it has the potential to really ruin your day. It might be best to tow this car home.

This one looks quite a bit better inside than the Lumina, but it has a lot fewer miles. And a whole lot more buttons. It’s funny how we’ve now gone so far the other way with car interiors, with virtually no buttons at all in something like a Tesla Model 3. Personally, I like this better; KITT had lots of buttons, so it seems fitting that this car does as well.

It looks good outside, but as I was informed last time I featured a car from Maine, this car has been exposed to road salt, so it’s best to check underneath for rust. In that regard, having spent the last ten or fifteen years in a garage might have worked to this car’s advantage. Rubber stuff is replaceable; rust repair is a lot more difficult.

Eighteen hundred bucks isn’t a lot to spend on a car these days. But I think these two show that you can still have a decent car for that price. Not perfect, but decent. They’ll get you around (once you do a little work on the Pontiac, obviously), and for this price, that’s not nothing. So which one is more to your liking?

(Image credits: sellers)