ponchoman49

If this is Lincolns new flagship and the styling direction, or lack of, then they are in real trouble. From the side profile this car is any bland genric Lexus/Toyota clone and the grille design is what I would expect on a future Oldsmobile. If you showed anybody the side profile of this bland car with no nameplate moniker, few would think it was a Lincoln. A Hyundai or Toyota or Lexus maybe. Designers today are clueless into thinking everybody out there wants bland slab sided plain looking generic cars that copy Toyota or the insert here current fad division of the day. What happened to good old American design?

My dad bought one of those G-body Malibus brand new. It was a 1983 blue CL sedan with blue interior, 305 4 bbl V8, limited slip 2.73:1 gears and the normal helping of options to keep him happy. That car would lay rubber on command, rode like a dream and saw 26-27 MPG on trips to Cape Cod! It also gave him years of trouble free service with nearly 150K miles before he sold it to a college kid who kept it another couple of years before smashing it up. I would call that a very good Malibu indeed.

The future is looking ever more grim with this garbage.

The future is looking ever more grim with this garbage.

The current Sienna looks 100 times better and thats not saying much.

This is exactly how I would predict the rankings to go. Unlike the eggheads at Motor trend who are gaga over the Blandry, Edmunds at least gave a fair account of things.

I have driven most new cars and for the most part few of them really lacked power for there intended purpose and lets remember that 3.20-3.50 per gallon of gas. The Honda Fit stands out in my mind as downright slow just like an 80's car with a 0-60 time of 11.9 seconds from one of the rags. The Automatic equipped econo buckets like the Yaris, Kia Rio/Hyundai Accent, Chevy Aveo etc are too slow to easily keep up with traffic. Most mid to full sized cars had plenty of performance. A new Taurus surprised me with a 0-60 time of 6.4 seconds, my Buddys 2006 Impala LT3 3900 fleet car consistently clocks a 6.2-6.3 second time with it's so called ancient pushrod V6 and 4 speed automatic trans, the Camry and Avalon V6 will knock your socks off(when the tranny is operating correctly), the new Malibu V6 and Saturn Aura 3.6 are very frisky and never did I feel that I needed more in a front drive setup. The new Silverado offers plenty of scoot with the 5.3 and 6.0 liter mills but I think a 6 speed automatic would just add more driving fun and mileage to these vehicles. The Chrysler minivans with the base 3.3 V6 and 4 speed automatic are pretty slow, especially the new 2008 versions which gained some weight. Plan on taking some extra time to exit that off ramp and merge into fast moving traffic with one of those.

I remember it quite well as I lived through it. In the early 70's it was the ever shrinking compression ratio and HP numbers and by the late 70's and early 80's it was shrinking engine displacements and sticking V6 engines in litterally everything from a Caddy Cimmaron to a 4000 LB plus Fleetwood Brougham. GM was caught out with LeSabres, Bonevilles, 88/98, Park Ave, Deville, Fleetwood, Seville and Eldorados without large displacement V8's after 1980 and the largest gas engine was a 307 or a 350 diesel. Many were made with 231 or 252 CID V6 engines that litteraly couldn't get out of there own way. It wasn't until the 90's when V8's made a comeback in the SUV and truck craze when gas was cheap again. And now we are right back in the same mess we were in the 70's all over again with way too many large gas sucking V8's on the road and record oil prices.

Well when you take a Holden Caprice and slap a Buick grille on it and upgrade the interior and charge huge sums of money what do you expect. I never bought into the silly fad of the way overrated China Park Ave. Yes it does have a nice interior and it's rear drive. But it looks like a bland souless appliance with little to any Buick in the styling. It doesn't even have port holes.

Yawn!

Could this thing look any more like a blah genric boring Lexus? I really think these so called designers have totally run out of ideas.

Toyota should design Toyotas and GM should design GM's.

Toyota- slave driving forward

The 1978-1983 Buick carb 3.8 liter turbo(pre 3800) V6 was, like the 301 turbo of the 80-81 vintage, an engine that few people understood and knew how to properly service. Many were yanked in favor of a traditional Chevy 305 or 350 V8 and I have seen numerous examples with the turbo plumbing ripped off and a regular 4bbl manifold and carb in it's place. These 2 engines were primarily GM's answer to the 70's fuel crunch to bring V8 power with V6 fuel economy with the Buick turbo and big 400 CID power out of a fuel sipping 301. The Buick carb turbo suffered from some reliability issues in it's early years, oil leaks, weak bottom end and lets keep in mind that these early Buick V6 engines were not balance shafted and the pistons were offset respective to there crankshaft throws which caused excessive cylinder wear. Carburetors were often not in proper tune, even straight off the showroom floor, fuel injection was a pipedream at this point for the intended price and turbos attached to carburetors did not equal combustion harmony. The other major problem with these engines was serviceability. Ever try changing the spark plugs on a Buick carb turbo? Good luck with the valve cover gaskets. Where is that EGR valve or PC valve? Vacuum lines ran everywhere and the introduction of the CCC computer command system in 1981 made things even worse. So what consumers were left with was an engine that was tougher to service with shorter intervals, poor reliabilty and very expensive to work on, lackluster performance compared to a traditional V8 and the added complexity of caring for that turbo to keep it alive. Of course much of that was resolved with the introduction of the 1984 SFI Buick 3.8 turbo as fitted to the GN and T-Types of that era that offered much better power, driveability, gas mileage and reliabilty and turbocharged engines were much more common at that time so people and mechanics knew more about them. This Riv is in very nice shape and the engine looks to be unmolested and original. With the proper care and attention to service, it could live a long and healthy life in the right persons hands.

"We build rebadged Chevys and Holdens"

Now lets pretend that C&D did the test. The pecking order would be as follows: First place: Accord Second Place: Malibu Third place: Altima Fourth place: Camry This just shows how Motor trend is protecting there COTY choice and not alienating there beloved Toyota.

I found the new Malibus trunk to be a dissapointment and it felt a bit cosy inside. Those 2 things alone would have me choosing the Impala over the new Bu. Now if only they could make the Impalas interior look as neat as the Malibus and offer that 6 speed automatic tranny.

Right where any Lexus belongs- moving towards the bottom of the list.

Notice how they keep bringing up engine power. Like the Turdra from which it's based, this new pig like slug of a vehicle has little else going for it other than slightly greater interior measurements in certain areas. Even it's fuel economy is worse than the GM products and it will surely be more expensive.

Kudos to the CTS. I figured it wouldn't be the Malibu because it doesn't offer really anything different compared to it's competition other than a prettier face. The CTS has that wonderful new DI V6, a much improved interior and exterior and class leading technology and ride/handling characteristics for a reasonable sum of $$$

I'll bet your actually right on this. 3800's are probably stockpiled like crazy and with the Grand Prix disappearing after the end of this year, that will make only the 2 Buick products left with this engine so there will be lots to use up with only 2 cars to put them in.

Another typical bland overbloated Toyota mess. Toyota- moving fatter

Interesting read. I remember vividly owning a 1985 Park Ave sedan which of course is a cousing to your 88. I never could believe the amount of vast interior space in that car, how well it drove and handled(mine had the Grand Touring suspension) and the near 30 MPG on the open road. Many of todays cars are such a dissapointment in comparison. They are very dull, bloated and plain looking. Exterior trim is as scarce as cassette players. Interior colors you ask. You can have anything you want as long as it's tan, black or gray. I also find it mind boggling how a 2008 Malibu which is nearly as long as your 88 has a considerably smaller trunk and opening, way less interior space and gets worse V6 gas mileage. Such progress. I am a believer of the tried and true methods. Modern day fads are meaningless and cars such as the new Malibu can't even carry paper grocery bags upright without squeezing. My Intrigue is another case in point. It's interior is considerably more cramped and lacking in leg room comapred to the 88/98 Park Ave etc and it's trunk opening is far smaller. The funny thing is that many people today bitch about how terrible our cars were in the 80's. I disagree. Some of my best vehicles came from that time period. And your 88 with well over 300K and my old Park Ave with 200K are testimony that not everything back then was garbage.

And you have touched on my 3 biggest beefs with the new Malibu. It's smaller inside than the old one. It has a smaller trunk and trunk opening than the old one. Worse, it's interior feels cramped compared to even a Kia Optima. I'm still trying to figure out how they managed to LOSE interior space from 6 out of 8 dimensions and get a smaller shallower trunk with a smaller opening on a physically larger car on a longer wheelbase compared to the 2004-2007 generation Bu.

Looks sweet. I will be very interested to see what real world gas mileage will be with one of these.