The B&B has proved on many occasions that they enjoy a nice Buy/Drive/Burn or three centered around the 1990s. I sense you want more, so have more! Today’s trio sprang to mind as we discussed the article surrounding Buick’s choice to remove the brand name from all new vehicles. In the comments, things naturally turned to the Oldsmobile Aurora and the modified Rocket logo it displayed.
But what other two vehicles from 1995 do you pair with the brand new Oldsmobile Aurora? Will you want to burn any of these? Let’s find out.
Oldsmobile Aurora
First, the one you knew was coming. 1995 was the introductory model year for the Aurora. An all-new styling direction for the brand, the sleek sedan was de-badged and decidedly distant from things like the staid Ninety-Eight and its Regency Elite Grandpa Deluxe trim (which remained in production through ’96). Riding on GM’s G platform with the Buick’s Riviera, the Aurora was a unique offering and did not have a GM-branded counterpart. It’s motivated by a 4.0-liter L47 V8, based on Cadillac’s Northstar 4.6. The engine was designed especially for the new Aurora flagship. 250 horsepower travels to the front wheels through a four-speed automatic. Leather, dual-zone climate control, and real wood trim are at your fingertips. As an added bonus, it doesn’t look like anything else on the road in 1995. It would be the last all-new Oldsmobile developed by Oldsmobile.
Volvo 960
The 960 was Volvo’s flagship entry into the world market throughout the 1990s. Introduced in the United States for 1991, the rear-drive 960 would start out with several different engines including an awful PRV V6 of 2.8 liters. Thankfully Volvo developed their own engines, and the ’95 960 has a much better 2.9-liter I6 under the hood. A steady 178 horsepower are available through the 4-speed automatic. Built in Sweden, the boxy 960 would be the last rear-drive car built by Volvo. The 960 received no direct replacement after sales ended in 1998.
Saab 9000
Rounding out our trio of alternative last-of luxury is the shapely 9000 from Saab. Easily the oldest design here, the 9000 debuted all the way back in 1985. The Giugiaro design went through some modernization throughout the years, entering its final design iteration in 1994. For 1995, the CDE (sedan) version of the 9000 was equipped with a 3.0-liter GM-Opel V6 engine that would also see duty in the Cadillac Catera and early Saturn Vue. 1995 was the only year for this V6, as afterward only turbocharged four-cylinder engines were available. 208 horsepower travel to the front wheels via the four-speed auto. The 9000 would be the last pure Saab-developed sedan in production, as the replacement 9-5 for 1999 was very much a GM-sourced vehicle.
So, which of these sad last-of items gets burned at the stake, and which do you take home with you?
[Images: General Motors, Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0), ]
Buy the Saab because it’s more powerful than the Volvo
Drive the Aurora because it’s spaceship cool. My first car was a ’95 Riv on the same platform with a supercharged Series I 3800 and the Aurora was basically a 4-door V8 version of that car. When they both came to market, nothing else looked like them.
Burn the Volvo because I can’t tell them apart and wouldn’t know that’s supposed to be a fancy version.
Buy the Volvo, drive the Saab, and burn the hideous Aurora. Burn it slowly and bask in the glow of that ghastly beast melting back into the netherworld from whence it came.
Only came here to be sure someone got it right. All good. I’ll turn out the lights.
I didn’t realize there is a right or wrong answer to these, except of course for the individual answering.
Buy the Volvo, Burn the SAAB, Park the Aurora (as a collector’s item) and drive a Chrysler LHS/Concorde.
Close to first, interesting.
Buy the Aurora – Always liked the styling and the unique direction Olds was trying to go. But it was too little too late. This is the car that should of had the tagline “Not your Father’s Oldsmobile”.
Drive the Volvo – Mostly because it isn’t the Saab
Burn the Saab – Never understood peoples fascination with Saab. Under-powered, prone to breaking all the time. Quirky for the sake of being quirky. And on top of all that, over-priced
Pretty much exactly what I was going to write, particularly about the SAAB.
I owned a Saturn L series… it’s basically the same platform. Yeah, I’d pick burn, too… but I care even less about the Volvo.
Yes to all this. A Saab with a GM V6? Just no.
Saabs have two types of owner’s, those who get sick of dumping money into them, and those that dump so much money into them they have to delude themselves to justify keeping it, be it mods, “being different”, the “quirky ness”.
I’ll admit, I was tempted into an NG 9-3 once, the constant coolant issues in the records turned me away (that and the mod obsessed fans).
Their unique cupholders sum up Saabs philosophy well. Unique, neat to look at, but extremely delicate, no it won’t hold your McShake.
I’ve always considered SAAB in general to be a sunk cost fallacy.
Buy the Volvo because you’re a stodgy Europhile, drive the Saab because you fancy yourself a sophisticated Europhile, and burn the Olds because it has all the frangible parts of a Euro car without the cachet.
Buy or drive either the Volvo or the Olds, but burn the Saab because that engine has a failure proned thermostat that requires removal of the entire intake manifold to replace and that alone should be enough to burn it.
Drive the Aurora, buy Volvo, burn Saab. If the Saab had the Turbo, I’d swap it and the Volvo.
Love this series Corey!
Thanks!
I’m having a hard time making up my mind on this one, and normally I’ve decided before the article is finished.
Edit: Ajla said the same thing as you, and I agree with these choices.
Corey, suggestion for another Drive/Buy/Burn:
Acura Vigor, Mazda Millenia S, Infiniti J30t.
I love all three so it’d be a hard one for me.
This is a good one, and it shall be so.
Two mediocre things and one stellar but misunderstood thing!
My choices exactly. Drive the Aurora, buy the Volvo, and burn the Saab.
Tough one. Buy the Volvo, drive the Saab, burn the Olds.
Buy the Saab, burn the Northstar equipped vehicle, do donuts in the Volvo.
Buy Olds, Drive Volvo, Burn Saab.
Buy the Saab – it’ll be somewhat valuable for spare parts in 20 years – drive the RWD Volvo, and burn the Aurora.
The Ellesmere V6 is an easy burn for the Saab. If it was turbo-4, it would probably also be a burn for me, but a less joyful one.
Buy the Volvo. I think it would cause me the least heartache.
Drive the Aurora. I like it the most out of the three, but I wouldn’t want to deal with it everyday.
You’re right. This is the right answer. That V6 in the Saab isn’t worth dealing with just to get the looks and aero wheels. Plus, it won’t be the only thing on the Saab to break or fall apart.
Agreed.Great field in this comparison.
Aurora- Best driver of the trio, luxurious and stylish. With the benefit of hindsight of failing N* gaskets, definitely for short term thrill and fits drive category
Volvo- Stodgy reliable and safe. Buy.
SAAB- Don’t know about it much, but SAAB’s are hardly know for their V6s, and the only option left is burn
“As an added bonus, it doesn’t look like anything else on the road in 1995.”
Actually it looks like a 3rd-generation Ford Taurus, slightly stretched out and with a grumpy frog face.
But I guess since the Aurora did beat the Maximum Jellybean Taurus by a year or so the “in 1995” statement is technically correct.
The head and tail light treatments are different, but the Infiniti J30 says hi.
I would take a J30 over the Sweeds in this mashup. Still would buy the Olds over it.
Buy the Volvo – you can drop a Mustang V-8 into it.
Drive the Aurora (preferably in close vicinity to a place that can fix the Northstar).
Burn the Saab.
Take the Olds. What were the other two?
Nice.
The Aurora would probably have sold better if it had been badged a Cutlass and kept the legacy Oldsmobile logo on the deck and grill. GM made many mistakes in the ’90s and their effort to re-brand the Oldsmobile ended up killing the marque entirely rather than saving it. Hey, back in ’72 they touted the Cutlass as, “This ain’t your father’s Oldsmobile.” The re-launch of a new Cutlass would have served that statement well.
Those other two? Could have burned them for all I cared. The Saab never lived up to the 80’s 900-class coupe and the Volvo lost its aura as a desirable European brand in so many ways. Neither one ever triggered any interest for me in the 90s. I enjoyed my (80’s vintage) Buick LeSabre T-type much more.
Oh, I ended up buying a ’96 Camaro instead.
That would have been difficult in 1972 as the ad campaign “Not Your Father’s Oldsmobile” didn’t happen until the late 80s.
Um… no. Maybe you mean the late ’60s because I clearly remember the early ’70s Cutlass (’70-’72 at least) using that line. Those were some of the most popular Cutlass models sold.
That would have been difficult in 1972 as the ad campaign “Not Your Father’s Oldsmobile” didn’t happen until the late 80s.
It’s amazing how the front of the Aurora in the ad looks like the rear of a five year old Lexus convertible…
Buy the Olds because it looks cool. Others may disagree but I always liked its lines. Also, the Aurora engine saw time at Indy.
Drive the Volvo because RWD.
Burn the Saab because it was an old design when new, and the car is a mess of corporate components.
“The 9000 would be the last pure Saab-developed sedan in production…”
Hogwash. The 9000 was every bit as much of a mashup as the GM-era cars – it was co-developed with Alfa, Lancia, and Fiat and it even shares styling elements with the latter two cars.
Buy – The Volvo. Stately and square, the way the “real” Volvos should be.
Drive – the Olds. A free-revving 250hp V8 and a decent chassis should be entertaining.
Burn – the Saab.
I’ve got to say “drive” the Olds. I only had two posters on my dorm room wall in the fall of 1995. The Oldsmobile Aurora poster given out at NAIAS and a Penthouse Pet from June 1995. It was also the last Oldsmobile I remember my father actively lusting over, he even gleefully pointed to the original Toronado styling cues in the Aurora.
Buy the Volvo, when a Volvo was still a by god Volvo.
Burn the 9000, I don’t need no SAAB story.
I’d have wanted to “ahem” drive the pet, but maintenance cost would have been out of this world.
Personally I thought there was evidence of body work and the miles were kind of high.
Buy the Oldsmobile. I’m about to do this for real, although a 1999. Love the car, love how it drives, love how it looks. Reliability be damned, it’s a fine car. Drove these when they were new(ish), I wanted one then and I want one now. I was thinking about buying some repop “O L D S M O B I L E” block letters from the 1960s era and put them across the panel between the tail lamps. I don’t care if it is or it isn’t your father’s Oldsmobile. It’s gonna be MY Oldsmobile.
Drive the Saab. Interesting enough to be cool.
Burn the Volvo.
Meh, I’ll swap the last two answers upon further consideration. I would much rather have a Mazda Millenia S or a Infiniti J30t.
Six or eight on the 99 Aurora?
1999 was the last year of the first gen, so it’ll have the 4.0L V-8. Don’t care much for the looks of the second gen.
I’ll bet that Olds inhales miles with the small V8 in there, looks like a fun choice. Did the Northstar issues carry over into this smaller version, and is it as big a deal if you do your own wrenching?
I haven’t heard much about the 4.0L V-8, but the Shortstar V-6 was a basket case. Another reason to avoid the 2nd gen.
I did a little research on the Aurora V-8 last night. Early models had a two-piece block which was prone to oil leaks, but it was long replaced by a one-piece block by ’99.
I may have to put off buying the Olds. My boyfriend’s bike got stolen last night, and he has a 3 hour walk to work. This is the second bike that has been stolen. I gotta find him a cheap car.
I thought about buying the Olds any way and letting him take my Taurus back home, but for reasons I’d rather not discuss here, I nixed that idea.
So far, the best thing I found him is a 1998 Maxima 5 speed, but it has 310k on it and “runs a little rough, but is a daily driver”. I’m really hoping something better comes along. It looks extremely clean, the paint, body and interior are quite nice. But, those miles and not being home to work on it for him has me in doubt. I love that body style Max, and always wanted a 5 speed, but Imma keep looking.
Scratch the Maxipad, I found an Iron Duke 1992 S10 for $1k/obo. Either that or I will buy my brother’s ex commuter 2001 Altima GLE, throw a distributor and a radiator in it, call it good.
V6 not offered until 2nd generation car.
A mistake in my opinion, they added the V6 to have a “cheaper” version to sell to the “I’m trading in my H-body 88” crowd.
Olds Antares was in theory supposed to replace H-body and Aurora was supposed to slot above it. In the wake of the demise, they simply offered a V6 in the carryover G-body model.
https://history.gmheritagecenter.com/wiki/index.php/1995_Oldsmobile_Antares_Concept
“I was thinking about buying some repop “O L D S M O B I L E” block letters from the 1960s era and put them across the panel between the tail lamps. ”
I love this. Please send us pictures if you do.
Guaranteed. :)
Corey has the falling sickness.
I have an Oldsmobile sickness, and I don’t want the cure (if there is one aside from self-destructing Northstars).
Saabs should have a turbo 4 paired to a manual transmission, just like Dad’s 1979 900. That’s non-negotiable, so burn this one.
The Aurora is unique, but I like boxy sedans far more than swoopy spaceships. However, a 250hp V8 will be far more enjoyable than a 178hp small six. We have a car with 178hp already, I’d prefer 250.
Buy the Aurora and risk the Northstar issues.
Drive the Volvo even though it doesn’t sound like much fun at all.
The Aurora, the Intrigue, the (under)Achieva, the Alero with those ridiculous taillights…the wheels really came off Olds towards the end. The Bravada was the only decent offering they had left and it was long in the tooth. The Intrigue had that failed tie-in with the ‘X-Files Movie’. Painful stuff, watching a once proud brand languish. Better to die that way I guess, than to be turned into vapid CUVs.
Buy/hold: Volvo 900 series.
Drive: Olds Aurora.
Burn: Saab 9000. Ye gods.
Well we all know you’re an RWD Volvo enthusastical.
Not so much these days, but of those three it is the safest choice (although the 2.9 I6 is no “redblock”). Aurora seemed to be hit and miss.
When Steve Lang was still writing here he once claimed he would buy a V8 Aurora but not a Northstar Cadillac.
When I pressed him about why, he never responded.
Perhaps the Olds 4.0 was not as susceptible to the Northstar design issues? I have seen them with miles a Cadiwreck of the period could not put up.
I’m hoping whatever issues they had would have been resolved by 1999. The rest of the car benefited from several improvements from the introduction through 1999.
The whiteblock I6 had a really narrow timing belt for the first few years (belts would snap at as little as 20k), later on it was an okay engine.
My biggest concern with the 960 would be the rear Corvette-inspired suspension.
My only real experience with these was looking at a V90, well trying to at least. Everytime we’d drive to meet the owner he’d be elsewhere.
In one day:
“Meet me at this restaurant”
We’d go there, no Volvo
“Meet me at this address”
Go there, no Volvo
“Meet me at this location”
We gave up, no Volvo
I could make a song with that!
The nice thing about the early 960 belt setup is that you can change it in 30 minutes. BTDT. The bad thing is you really do need to do it every 20K miles to be safe… Super, super easy to do. Wish all cars were as well thought out for that.
The early 965s do not have IRS – though many of them have Nivomat self-leveling dampers which are a bit of an acquired taste. Same live axle suspension as a 945 until ’96. All sedans are IRS. The only real issue with the IRS is that literally NOBODY makes decent shocks for it anymore. Even what you get from Volvo are crappy Monroes in a Volvo blue box. So they tend to be a bit nautical in ride and handling. Which the float-boat lovers around here would probably adore.
Buy – the Olds. Space age styling a great cockpit and a 250hp V8.
Drive – The Volvo. Torquey straight 6, A traditional Volvo.
Burn – the Saab 9000. The V6 is troublesome the Turbo-4 is far better and more appropriate.
When I look at these three cars I think; burn, scrap, or hit-to-pass!
Buy the Volvo, because it’s the easiest to sell of the three, and then sell it to finance improvements to my 1995 Acura Legend which I’d rather have than any of these cars.
Drive the Saab for turbo lag sh!ts and giggles. (I think this may be the laggiest factory motor in any car I’ve ever driven.) Edit: I see you chose the V6. Drive the Saab straight to the repair shop.
Burn the Olds because GM was so ashamed of the brand as to try to hide it from the public.
You’re breakin rules. The buy is a keeper, no sales.
If the Legend requires one to sell a Volvo to improve it, I’d sell the Legend.
Right now it needs new struts, strut bushings, and engine mounts. The sale price of a crappy 960 should about cover that.
Once it gets those things it will about as perfect as a near 200k-mile car gets.
Theoretically we’re talking $800-1200 with that.
I’m always at a toss up between old Japanese cars and Volvos, do I deal with crappy interiors or do I deal with crappy rust protection?
I can safely say that at near 200k my Volvo 745T needed more than suspension work. Like my 240s, the interiors wound always find new ways to fall apart somehow. Then you had a radiator leak, piston slap, transmission issues (wouldnt go in reverse sometimes), in-operative AC (despite a recent conversion by the PO), in operative electric fan, steam boiler noises, in operative heated seats, blech.
Ouch. Since buying the Legend, I’ve had to do:
– Timing belt + water pump + EGR cleanup
– New radiator (previous one was original, developed a crack)
– Valve cover gaskets
– New front ball joints
– One new rear control arm
– Vehicle speed sensor (very common failure)
– Spark plugs
– Rear pads
Every interior and exterior feature works except that there are two burned-out dash lights.
Fortunately around here there is no rust. :)
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Then burn the Volvo, buy the Olds, and leave it parked along frat row at the university of your choice with a big poster in the windshield that says “SMASH ME.”
Legend had engine issues
Addressable by cleaning the EGR system every 60,000 miles. Do that and the C32 is indestructible.
“This car sucks, buy a Mazda”
My old joke still stands.
My biggest issue with the Legend is when Honda stripped its cool name away and made it into a FWD Lexus, rather than a FWD Bimmer. They fixed the engine at least.
Yeah, the 3.5RL is a tank that will run forever on oil changes and brake pads, but the joy was gone.
Steve Lang bought a Volvo like that one, he later made a portrait of it as it was the most troublesome car he’d ever gotten at that point.
Buy the Oldsmobile, GM over built these and if I need parts they won’t be hard to find for the most part. I’d still prefer an 88 though, something with a good ol 3800.
Drive the Volvo. I wouldn’t want to own this one, by then Volvo transformed the decent 940 into a RWD 850. Ugly exterior, cheap interior with seatbelt buckle buttons that love to break (an oddity for a carmsker that prides itself on safety). At least it’d be okay to drive though.
If this were a 940 I’d swap with the Olds.
Burn the Saab. I get the weird backwards engined 900 (as flaky as they are). I don’t get these nor many similar Saabs. Most were overpriced and did little beyond eat at GMs wallet, along with their owner’s wallets.
From my understanding, the one reliable Saab was the early 9-3 NG series? New keys cost a solid $1000 though, and when I ask a Saab forum about reliability I get more posts about hp numbers and tunes (I didn’t ask about mods).
Ultimately I’d have either an Infinite I30 or a Town Car over these three.
A new key, singular, costs no more than any other modern chip key and less than many as long as you still have a working key in hand. The problem is that if you lose ALL the keys to a modern Saab (NG900 and up), you get to buy a new computer too. That is why it costs $1000+. You need a key wed to the computer to unlock the computer so that it will accept another key. An anti-theft feature, allegedly.
My old 9-3SC is now up to 150K or so in the hands of the person I sold it to, with no particular dilemmas. They are quite well sorted cars, at least as long as you didn’t get one of the late ones with bad block castings. Those that were sold by GM got fixed under warranty, but beware the 2010 and 2011 cars. Sweet spot is the ’07 and ’08s, I think.
I think the most reliable Saab is a NG900 (’94 to ’98 900). Still had the old motor that didn’t have sludge issues, simpler electronics by far, and better rust protection than what went before. A close second is a 9-5 Aero. My Aero lived in the NYC suburbs most of it’s life so it is a bit battered, but at 170K everything works just fine, it goes like a bat out of H3ll, the interior looks like new and so far it has had nothing go wrong that isn’t perfectly normal for a car with 170K and 16 years under it’s belt. Brakes, exhaust, a couple motor mounts and some vacuum hoses since I have owned it. And changed all the fluids. I slapped the new DI cassette it came with in it when I changed the plugs just because, but the old one was working fine.
It was the right car at the right time for the right price, but ultimately I would rather have a Volvo 945 for this slot in my car life, and if the right one comes along the Saab will go.
One wonders why GM didn’t ever put the Northstar in the Riviera. Then again, both the Series I (’95 only) and Series II 3800 N/A and supercharged engines were very good. For ’98 and ’99, only the supercharged engine was available.
And anyway, GM did build a single Northstar Riviera prototype:
https://www.mecum.com/lots/CH1009-84684/1998-buick-riviera/
To answer your question: Buy the Volvo, because it will probably be a collector’s item someday, since it’s among the last of the RWD Volvos. Drive the Oldsmobile because it’s brilliant and looks sharp. Burn the Saab; I don’t need justification for that.
I would also submit the Mazda Millenia as an excellent near-luxury car from the 90s, even if it wasn’t executive-sized.
I love the Millennia, give me an S with the Miller Cycle 6.
My neighbor had a ’99 Millenia S. It lasted eleven years before being totaled in a hailstorm, at which time he replaced it with a ’10 Explorer Sport Trac.
Buy the Saab, because fond Saab memories from my youth.
Drive the Olds, because it’s not a Volvo.
Burn the Volvo, because bad once-repressed memories of an ungodly unreliable 164E just came flooding back to me.
“it doesn’t look like anything else on the road in 1995”
Well, in 1996 there was Ford Taurus that really like Aurora from every angle.
Ok, buy Volvo, drive Olds, burn Saab – only one GM car allowed
The Aurora really was a beautiful car, probably the best looking sedan GM made in the 1990s. I heard they had an insane amount of issues though.
Problem was, the car was simply too expensive. Oldsmobile should be somewhere between Chevrolet and Cadillac. I saw these sticker at like $45k in the mid-nineties, that’s like $60k in today’s dollars.
That’s LS400 money, son!
Buy the Volvo. (wish I had- waited too long, and no wagons in a color I would take were available).
Drive the Aurora. Owned a Riviera of that vintage- not bad cars.
Burn the Saab. I loved earlier Saabs… by this time they were quirky, less reliable GM product.
There is absolutely nothing GM about a 9000. It was co-developed by Saab and Fiat, and spawned the Saab 9000, Fiat Chroma, Lancia Thema, and Alfa Romeo 164. It had existed for five years before GM bought into Saab in 1990.
The car in question has a 3.0L GM V6.
The 960 never had anything but the Volvo 2.9L I6 in it (in the US – there were diesels elsewhere). The PRV V6 died with the 760/780. There were two versions of the I6 – the early cars had more hp but less torque, then they revised it for more torque at the expense of hp later. 210hp vs. 185hp, IIRC. There was also the one-year-only ’91 940SE which was a 960 with the redblock turbo in it. The last year or two were badged S90/V90 but are otherwise the same car. 960s have slightly different sheetmetal ahead of the A pillars (long hood no cowl, different fenders) than 940s, but are basically the same.
I owned an early 210hp 960 wagon before they went to IRS. Nice car, fairly fast for a Volvo. The engine is good, but nothing like as bulletproof as ye old redblock Volvo tractor engine, because nothing is. Timing belts can be an issue (early cars had a 30K change interval, as well as oil leaks – they have kind of a weird head design.
As to the question, buy the Volvo, drive the Saab, and burn the ugly Oldsmobuick. Though I did like the second gen Aurora, had a couple as rentals back in the day.
The Riviera and Aurora of ’95 were the last two great GM big cars.
My criterion here is that they casually wasted space to offer style. The pinched tapered trunk of the Riv, the bobtail of the Aurora, the long, long hoods. Big, beautiful wasteful cars. What the GM line aspired to do from the early ’50s onward, and which they never really did again after Aurora and the last Riviera.
(I might allow you to argue with me on the basis of the Cadillac XLR, or possibly even the CT6. But somehow, the aesthetic is slightly different.)
Buy: Volvo. RWD and I like the boxy styling. Apparently Volvo seats tend to be comfortable.
Drive: Saab. I’ve never even been in one but I always found them interesting. I could use that for winter highway trips.
Burn: Olds. I’m just not a fan of the “melting” look. Might as well use fire to advance the design straight to its logical conclusion.
Buy the Aurora, tell Elon Musk that this spaceship belongs in orbit. I always loved it!
I’ll have to pass — I couldn’t burn either of these, for entirely different reasons. The Volvo is too good, the Saab too cool, and the Olds too strange to justify torching.
Buy the Volvo, drive the Olds and what is the Saab doing in this comparison anyway ?
Buy the Volvo (soft spot for the old boxes)
Drive the Saab… More HP
Burn the Olds … Complete GM plastic 90s suck-atude.
Someone mentioned a Chrysler LHX…. UUgh… Horrible trash