Car Spotlight- Buick Somerset (1985-1987)

A 1985 Buick Somerset, in all it's 80s glory.
photo credit- wikiwand

The Buick Skylark, a nameplate that has been a staple at Buick since 1953.  The Skylark was a common choice for the white collar working man and his family.  Like any other Buick, it also appealed to the average granny than needed it to get to and from church and the laxative store.  The Skylark sold well for Buick for several years.

...then came the 1980s...

In 1980, Buick applied the Skylark nameplate to an upscale version of Chevy's infamous Citation (more on that here).  To make a long story short, the Citation based Skylark left a bitter taste on many loyal Buick customer's tongue.  So when it came time to redesign the Skylark for 1985, someone at Buick felt it was time to phase out the Skylark nameplate with the outgoing model in a typical GM move to seem "fresh."

The name of the Skylark's replacement was called the Somerset Regal...okay, for those of you who aren't Buick historians, there is nothing "fresh" about that name, as Buick had another car called the Regal.  In fact just a few years prior to the Somerset Regal's debut, there was a trim package for the Regal called the "Somerset"...

Anyway, the Somerset Regal debuted for the 1985 model year and came in a two-door configuration only as well as a choice of two engines. The Somerset Regal shared it's platform with Oldsmobile's Calais and Pontiac's Grand Am (collectively called the GM N-cars)

The only thing that made the Somerset Regal stand out from it's Pontiac and Oldsmobile in-laws was the placement of the radio, which was mounted in a separate pod that sat on top of the AC/heater controls.  It looked as if Buick forgot all about it when they were designing the dashboard, and some engineer was all like "Aw crap! we forgot the radio! Uhh... lets throw it in right here!"

This is a factory-installed radio in a 1986 Buick Somerset.
Have fun trying to figure out how to swap in an aftermarket one!
Source-curbside classics.com

After the Somerset Regal's first year on the market, GM added four-door models to it's N-car lineup.  This may seem like a good idea, as the 1985 sales figures for the Somerset Regal were less than what GM was expecting.  So one would think that a 4-door Somerset Regal would help give the nameplate some more recognition...right?  Here's the thing...when the 4-door debuted in 1986, Buick didn't call it the Somerset Regal....they called it the Skylark!  That's right, Buick not only gave a 4-door version of a car that already exists a completely different name, but they named it after a car that Buick phased out two years before.  In a half-assed attempt to prevent confusion among buyers, Buick changed the name of the two door model from the Somerset Regal....to just simply "Somerset."

From here, Buick's game plan for marketing the Skylark and Somerset was that the Skylark would be marketed toward old people who tend to carpool to bingo night.  The Somerset was marketed as a more upscale "personal coupe," being marketed toward wealthy old people wanting to drive to the pharmacy to pick up their laxatives in style.  

Here's why this didn't work (for the Somerset, at least).

1. The 2.5L 4-banger engine (aka the "Iron Duke") was considered too underpowered and noisy for an "upscale car." A 3.0L V6 could be had as an option, but nobody bothered to look into that.
2. The digital instrument cluster that was stuffed into the Somerset was notorious for draining alternators (probably another thing Buick forgot about when developing the car.)
3. Rich old people typically don't spend their money on small GM cars, regardless of how "fancy" it may be. 
4. The Skylark was cheaper, since it didn't have all that luxury crap that made the Somerset more expensive.
5. It's a GM car from the 1980s...so don't anticipate any high expectations from the fit and finish department.

There may have been more reasons, but the point is that Buick dropped the Somerset name after the 1987 model year and renamed the car the "Skylark coupe"...which is what GM should have done in the first place.  

A 1988 Buick Skylark coupe...see the difference compared
to the Somerset?  I don't either
source: Orlandod87 on CarDomain

To basically sum it up, Buick may have wanted to replace the Skylark, but were hesitant to do so.  So they brought out the Somerset in two door form only as a way to "test the waters" if buyers would warm up to the new nameplate...which they didn't, so Buick phased-in the Skylark nameplate and brushed "Somerset" under the rug only three years after being introduced.  I'm sure the car would have done just fine if GM would've just kept the Skylark name to begin with, and I think GM probably knew that, too.  

...Oh, one last thing.  I found this Buick Somerset commercial on YouTube...I can name several cars that I would rather have than a Somerset. 

A Brief history of the 1996-1999 Ford Taurus...was the design really ahead of it's time?

"Taurus.  It's the North American Car with the looks and the feel you've never seen before...It's a personal car that's exactly what we've been looking for!" (link)

That was the jingle Ford used to describe it's revolutionary Taurus mid-sized sedan and wagon when it was introduced in 1986.  And revolutionary it was, as it's design was unlike all the other cars being sold at the time.  It was all a very risky design for Ford as the total cost for the car's development was well over $1 billion.   Had the Taurus been a failure, Ford would have REALLY been in deep trouble.  Luckily it wasn't as in it's first year of production, Ford sold 200,000 Tauruses...yep it was definitely a game changer!  Eventually, it became the best-selling passenger car in America.  The Taurus continued it's winning ways throughout the early 1990s.  A re-design of the Taurus in 1992 further solidified the car's dominance on the American car market.

In an attempt to repeat the original Taurus's success by being like no other car out there, Ford once again thought outside of the bun (sorry, I'm eating Taco Bell as I'm writing this) when designing an all-new Taurus.  The new car was much more rounder than it's predecessor, and by that, I mean it was WAY MUCH MORE ROUNDER than the previous Taurus. Take a look at the two cars below.  Both are Ford Taurus's and they're only one model year apart.  Not a single line was shared between the two cars.

1995 Ford Taurus
image credit-GTcarLot.com

1996 Ford Taurus
image credit-jordanmotors.com

Can you count the number of circles on the dashboard?

Now this one is for you Chevy and Dodge fanboys.  Have any of you ever heard of the Ford joke regarding the emblem and the phrase "well...at least they circled the problem" Well, the 1996 Taurus was literally FULL of circles.  Everything about the car was round.  The windows were round, the lights were round, the shifter was round, the trim pieces were round. EVERYTHING WAS ROUND!  One would think that the inspiration for the design was the Ford emblem itself.  I'm willing to bet that there isn't a single right angle on the car.

The 3rd generation Taurus debuted in late 1995 as a 1996 model to generally positive reviews from the press.  The public however, was more lukewarm to the new Taurus, as after only one year on the market, the Taurus lost it's best-selling car status to the Toyota Camry.  Some would later dub this itineration of the Taurus "the goldfish car" or "the submarine." It wasn't long before the majority of Taurus sales went to fleets and rental companies.  I bet if you were standing in line at the local Enterprise or Hertz desk in the late 90s and early 2000s, you would most likely hear other mutter "Please don't give me a Taurus, Please don't give me a Taurus..."

Ford realized their mistake and quickly restyled the Taurus in 2000 to make it more "conservative."  But nevertheless, the damage was done.  The Taurus was no longer a "competitive car."  Several car people even go so far to say that the 3rd gen Taurus was what led to the downfall (and immediate revival) of the Taurus nameplate.

Now most car people dismiss the 1996-'99 Taurus as a "game changer" done wrong.  The way I see it is that Ford wanted to be revolutionary just like the original Taurus was, but the end result just simply didn't sit well with the public.  What people don't realize is that the Taurus really was ahead of the times...at least from a design standpoint.

So let's fast forward to today and look at some mainstream family cars. (Although by today's standards, they're quite normal), and compare them to the design of the 1996-'99 Taurus. (all photos courtesy of Wikipedia under public domain)

#1-Hyundai Sonata

#2-Kia Optima

#3 Ford Fusion

#4-Toyota Prius

Now, many of you would argue that the cars I listed would be "10 times better than the fishbowl Taurus in for x amount of reasons..." And I would probably agree with you.  However consider this,  say the Taurus debuted 15 years later than it did, and had all the modern amenities that a typical 2011 car would have, yet still retained it's ovid shape.  Do you think it would fit right in with the competition better than it would have in 1996?