Granddad Left The Option Sheet Blank: 1983 Mercury Zephyr vs 1986 Olds Cutlass Ciera

Good morning! I hope you all had a pleasant holiday weekend, full of good food and good company. We’re back with more crappy cars for your consideration. Whoever originally ordered today’s choices was obviously trying to save some money; neither one of them has a whole lot of extras on it.

Back before the break, we took a look at a couple of Cadillacs, and the results should surprise no one. The old Fleetwood took home a big win, one could even call it a landslide, and made that poor Escalade look like secondhand news. I mean, you could go your own way and choose the Escalade instead, but it’s not exactly the sort of thing anyone dreams about. The Fleetwood you could drive everywhere, all the way to Silver Spring and back. And if someone complains about a little rust on it? Oh well.

Seriously, though, that old Fleetwood Talisman is a nice old classic car, in good condition, for a fair price. And it would obviously be my choice as well. A few of you mentioned using the Escalade as an engine donor; I think that might be the best use of it. It’s really rusty.

Now then: It’s hard to find a “plain” car anymore. Even work-spec trucks and basic economy cars come with power windows and air conditioning; those things have just become the basic level of equipment buyers expect, so it’s cheaper for carmakers to just put them on every vehicle. But it used to be that if you wanted such things, you had to ask for them specifically, from an a la carte list of available options, and every box you checked upped the price by a little bit. These two are lacking in the bells and whistles department; somebody cheaped out forty years ago. Thanks once again to the Underappreciated Survivors group on Facebook for pointing these two out. Let’s take a look.

1983 Mercury Zephyr – $3,800 Canadian ($2,700 US)

Engine/drivetrain: 200 cubic inch overhead valve inline 6, three-speed automatic, RWD

Location: Calgary, AB, Canada

Odometer reading: 41,000 kilometers (probably 141,000)

Operational status: Runs and drives great

Something occurred to me just now, when I was reading up on the Ford Fox platform on which this car was based: The Fox is essentially Ford’s version of Chrysler’s K platform, a simple unibody platform that ended up as the basis for a whole bunch of different models. Both ushered in the ’80s boxy styling to their respective brands. And both were greenlit by Lee Iacocca. That guy was responsible for a lot of square, boring cars.

This is the Mercury Zephyr, a badge-engineered version of the Ford Fairmont. Though the Fox platform was new, having been introduced in 1978, the engine in this particular example is a whole lot older; the basic design dates all the way back to 1960. Its three-speed automatic is an ancient design as well, but that’s not all bad – they’re both more or less bulletproof. This one runs great, according to the seller, and it doesn’t have many miles (or rather, kilometers) on it.

The six-cylinder engine was an option, but it looks like one of very few pieces of optional equipment on this car. It has a basic vinyl and cloth interior, what looks like an AM radio, and I’d be shocked if it has air conditioning. The fake woodgrain is only there because it’s a Mercury instead of a Ford, I would imagine, and its instrumentation consists of a speedometer, a fuel gauge, and a bunch of idiot lights. It’s all in nice shape, though, and the seller says everything works – though “everything” isn’t much.

The paint is pretty dull, and the seller notes some surface rust on the left rear door, but otherwise it’s in good condition outside. It even has all four original hubcaps, and if you watched any TV back then, you know how easily the hubcaps went flying off from cars like this.

1986 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera S – $2,250

Engine/drivetrain: 2.5-liter overhead valve inline 4, three-speed automatic, FWD

Location: Hellertown, PA

Odometer reading: 69,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives great

The Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera is one of those cars that was absolutely everywhere in the ’80s. Someone’s mom had one, or your college friend drove one they bought used and cheap, or something. Oldsmobile sold a ton of them, and it was so popular it stayed in production six years longer than it originally was planned to. Most of them were four-door sedans, but you could also get a wagon, or this two-door coupe.

This is the basic S model; there was also an SL and an International Series. Olds offered a bunch of engines in the Ciera, but based on the age of this one, and the fact that it has a “Fuel Injection” badge on the front fender, I think this one has the base 2.5 liter “Iron Duke” four-cylinder. It boasts – if that is the right word – 92 horsepower, which is pretty sad for a midsized car, but it will keep clattering along and taking fifteen seconds to reach highway speeds until the end of days. These also get pretty decent fuel economy, if I recall. You could do a lot worse.

This one has a pretty basic interior as well, with a simple split bench seat and a column-shifted automatic. I see a tape deck, but the seller says it doesn’t have air conditioning (when was the last time you heard of an Oldsmobile without air conditioning?), and I see the standard instrument cluster and window cranks. It looks clean and well-kept, though, and these are nice comfy cars.

The styling of these was never really much to write home about, but it’s inoffensive, and the coupe looks a lot nicer than the sedan. It looks clean, though it is missing the hubcaps on both front wheels, as well as a piece of trim on the passenger’s side. I don’t see any rust, but it is a Pennsylvania car, so it’s worth taking a peek underneath.

I guess you could call these cars “classics.” They’re old enough to qualify for antique license plates in most places, after all. But if they’re classics, then that makes me old, and I don’t like that, so I’m going to make the case for these being viable daily drivers. Both should be reliable, parts are dirt-cheap either way, and they both should keep up with traffic just fine, as long as you keep your foot in it. So which dead brand will it be – the Mercury or the Oldsmobile?

(Image credits: sellers)