Difference between Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser and Cutlass Ciera from late 80s?

Hi there,
I am wondering if anyone can tell me what the difference is between these two cars... many years ago, I knew somebody who drove an Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser, and I am almost positive that he said it was a 1988 model. In looking around, I have found 1988 Cutlass Cieras, but I know for sure his was a Cruiser because I have a photo of it and can see where it says Cutlass Cruiser on the side. Were Cruisers made in that year, and did they look very similar to Cieras? I only see Cieras on the road lately, and those wagons are still quite rare to see!

Thanks!

 

At one point, they became the same car.

http://www.lov2xlr8.no/olds.html

http://www.lov2xlr8.no/brochures/olds/84cu/84cu.html

 

I believe when they introduced the fwd Ciera in 1984, they were called Cutlass Cieras and the older rear wheel drive Cutlasses were then called Cutlass Supreme. The name "Cutlass Cruiser" carried over to the Cutlass Ciera fwd wagons in '84 and if I'm not mistaken, they discontinued the rwd wagons in the same year.
So yes, in '88 your friend could definitely have had a Cutlass Cruiser that was a Ciera wagon.

 

Thanks for the info!
Here are a couple photos of it, just for fun... photos taken with my phone of old photos, ha, so not as good of quality as the originals... the grill on it definitely doesn't look like the earlier 80s models. So were Cruisers still Cieras, just like a special version or something? Cieras could be either sedans or wagons, I know... it seems pretty confusing, ha!

 

We just covered this question in Fannie's thread on her new Olds Cutlass Cruiser.

I did some research on it. I'll fill in the details.
GM's front-drive 'A-Body' was brought out in model year '82 to replace the older rear-drive intermediates. The older rear-drivers were still selling very well, so the GM divisions sold both types of intermediates for quite a few years, side-by-side. In '82, when they first brought out the front-drivers, the wagon body style was not ready. If you wanted a mid-size Olds wagon, your choice would have been an Olds Cutlass Cruiser (rear-drive, like the one below)


When the 'A-body' wagons were ready for model year '84, the old, rear-drive wagons were dropped.

The Olds version is not called 'Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera Cruiser'. They deleted the 'Ciera' name I would guess, because it's just too long of a name.

Sooooo..... it's an Olds Cutlass Cruiser, whether it's an old rear-driver, or the newer front driver.

 

Thanks for the details, Krash! And I found the other thread you all were mentioning.

Why is it that Oldsmobile had two station wagons of practically the same style - I can't see hardly any difference between them, anyway - and named one Cutlass Cruiser and named the other Ciera (even though they also made Cieras that were sedans)? Did they have both Cutlass Cruisers and Ciera wagons in 1988? Or was there no overlap between the two and the Cieras are the older ones?

I keep seeing this one around town and have passed by it close enough to notice it says Ciera on the side... but to me, it looks very much like a Cruiser:

 

Nope, there was no overlap. The last year for the rear wheel drive Cutlass Cruiser was 1983, (like the picture in KK's posting.) From 1984 on, the Cutlass Cruiser was really a Cutlass Ciera Cruiser without Ciera in the name. The one you keep seeing is one of those, not the rear wheel drive version.

 

But then it seems that the Cutlass Cruiser name came back, looking more like a Ciera and not like an early 80s version... like in the one that Fannie bought and the white one I posted photos of above. Hers is a 1989, and I thought the white one was an '88, but I could be off by a year... wish I could remember for sure.

It looks like Cutlass Cruiser was a bigger wagon in the early 80s and then the name went away for awhile and came back later on wagons that looked like Ciera wagons. I am trying to figure out what year the name "Cruiser" was first put on the Ciera-looking wagons because it would help me narrow it down to what year that white car really was!

 

OK, I can see you are still confused........

Fannie's wagon, and that white one you have 2 pictures of, are BOTH - 'CUTLASS CRUISER'S

These are front wheel drive wagons, and the sedans and coupes are called 'Cutlass Ciera'. Technically, Fannie's wagon and the white one ARE Cutlass Ciera wagons, but apparently Oldsmobile chose not to put the 'Ciera' name on the wagons. (My guess is that the name's too long - 'Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera Cruiser' - imagine that on a nameplate.)

You also might be getting a bit confused by the BIG Oldsmobile wagon, which was called the Oldsmobile 'CUSTOM Cruiser'. This wagon was based on the old big Olds platform, like the Delta 88 sedans. These wagons were produced by all the GM divisions, except for Cadillac, and they were mostly the same, with specific front sheet metal for each division. I have the Pontiac version. Here's a pic of an Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser:


Marshall

 

Yes, I am still confused, ha ha!

I may not be communicating my confusion clearly! I will try to do it like a timeline:

1. Apparently there are these larger, older, early 80s Cutlass Cruisers: http://www.lov2xlr8.no/brochures/olds/83sup/bilder/4.jpg

2. Then, there are Cutlass Cruisers that are a bit smaller from the late 80s like the white one I have photos of and Fannie's from 1989.

3. The confusion part for me: there are also wagons that say Ciera on the side. They look like late 80s Cutlass Cruisers but say Ciera instead.

So I am trying to figure out if they are really different, or if there was a name change in a particular year... the wagons that say Ciera - like the dark grey/blue one I posted a photo of - do look a bit older than the late 80s Cruisers. Did Olds make the Ciera wagons in the mid-80s and then drop the Ciera name in a specific year, or was there a year they made both Ciera wagons and Cutlass Cruiser wagons at the same time?

I guess the only reason this is important to me is in trying to remember what year the white Cutlass Cruiser was. I was reminiscing with somebody who was amazed I remembered details about cars, and I just am not positive if this was an 88 or 89. If they called this style a "Ciera" wagon through 1988 and then switched to Cutlass Cruiser, then I would know the white one must have been an 89, if that makes sense... I am not sure if that helps or makes it more confusing, ha!

 

I haven't slept in two nights !

 

Lisa, now you've got my curiosity going.
Did a little bit of "imaging" research and I can't find any Cutlass Ciera wagons with a Ciera emblem on the side. They all say Cutlass Cruiser.
Can you recall where you saw the Ciera emblem on a wagon?

I thought, perhaps, the version without the wood was called a Ciera and the upscale wood sided ones would have been the Cutlass Cruisers, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

 

That is because Olds never built a car with the "Cutlass Ciera Cruiser" name. The RWD Cutlass Cruiser, based on the G-body platform, was built through the 1983 model year then dropped. The FWD A-body Cutlass Cruiser first appeared in the 1984 model year. Yes, the RWD version shared platform with the Cutlass Supreme and the FWD version shared platform with the Cutlass Ciera, but as noted previously, there was no overlap in production. During this period Olds also offered the smaller Firenza Cruiser wagon (based on the J-body) and the larger Custom Cruiser wagon (based on the B-body).

 

The G-body Cutlass Cruiser is a REAL car....and the Ciera Cruiser has roll-down windows on the back doors. Ha!

CLEAR?

-Mike

Oh and the CUSTOM Cruiser is the big-dog Delta 88-based wagon...my favorite of the three!