Car of the Week: 1986 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS

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Even if his mother-in-law hadn’t sold him her car, Verlyn Rasmussen says he probably would have broke down and bought himself a Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS anyway.

Today, it just seems inevitable that he had to have one.

Rasmussen’s 1986 Chevrolet is his pride and joy — along with his 1978 Corvette — and as such, has always gotten special treatment. The Marshfield, Wis., resident has always coddled and babied the handsome coupe. Fate has certainly been kind to this ’86 SS — they were wildly popular during their era and many of the cars were driven hard and put away wet. Today, there are still plenty of fourth-gen Monte Carlo Super Sports around, but few can approach the showroom condition of Rasmussen’s car or the paltry 5,200 or so miles on the odometer.

“I don’t want a restored car, I want an original car. Maybe that’s part of why it doesn’t have a lot of miles on it,” jokes Rasmussen. “I know what guys who restore cars go through. It’s not appealing to me with the waiting process. I’m not a patient person that way.”

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I used to work in the parking lot of an amusement park during summers. Those and Camaros from that time were apparently really easy to steal.
 
I can't think of too much that came out of GM in the 80s that I'd want. Maybe a truck or Blazer.
 
I knew more than a few people who owned those steaming heaps of shit back in the 80s.
Even someone who had the ultimate POS monte, the Aero Coupe, that was a low vol homologation special when Chevy and Ford were fighting for the soul of NASCAR and 'murica.

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Those mid 80s Montes were fat, slow, ill handling, & had horrendous build quality. 'Course the direct competition t-birds were nothing to write home about either.
 
Total flaming turd in every sense. Butt ugly, woefully underpowered, atrocious build quality that renders even a 5,200 miles driven example a deafening rattle trap. Legendarily infamous unreliability, fatally sloppy handling. Abysmally inadequate brakes...

Next to the Buick Grand National, it's the Pinnacle of GM's absolute ineptitude during that decade.

Honorable mention for the Cadillac Cimmaron which dressed up the egregiously awful Chevy Cavalier in faux wood and pleather trim, and jacked an extra $10K onto the MSRP.
 
in 1985 i bought a new Mustang GT....i would go around flogging the living shit out of those Monte's. they used to get so pissed off. it wasn't even close. rotflmao

flogged the camaros and vettes too.
 
mongooz said:
in 1985 i bought a new Mustang GT....i would go around flogging the living shit out of those Monte's. they used to get so pissed off. it wasn't even close. rotflmao

flogged the camaros and vettes too.
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Those 5.0 Mustangs were the shit back then. Virtually unbeatable in a straight line by the competition (Camaro, Trans AM etc.). That's why GM came up with the LT1 motor that went into the Corvette and the 4th gen Camaros. It was their direct response to that 5.0 that Ford ran in those Mustangs.

I wouldn't want an 80's GM either, it wasn't really until the 90's they got their shit together and came out with some cars that were actually desirable to me.
 
The Buick Grand National was a better car. Not great,but better than the Monte.
 
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DFB said:
The Buick Grand National was a better car. Not great,but better than the Monte.
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"Better" being entirely subjective here. It was certainly faster and better looking/less offensively fugly. But, it still suffered the abysmal 80s GM build quality that rendered it a noisy rattle trap almost instantly. It also was too fast for it's own good... It was a 1/4 mile monster that couldn't stop or turn. Plus, it had those stupid fuckin' Jiffy Lube Logo looking turbo with an arrow all over it which was just annoying. Yeah Buick, we get it... The car has a spooler.

A guy I used to work with had one that he kept remarkably well. It was rarely driven, always garaged with a car cover. It looked nice at least. He had an exhaust bypass installed with all 3" piping from the head back. Flip a lever, and the exhaust was fully unrestricted. Holy shit! Not only was is brutally loud, but it ran absurd 1/4 mile times.

Alas, he took it out for a Sunday jaunt one fateful day and got a little too ambitious through the backwoods twisties. He was fine... But the oak tree turned his shiny black bullet into a pile of recycling.
 
TomcatMF said:
Those 5.0 Mustangs were the shit back then. Virtually unbeatable in a straight line by the competition (Camaro, Trans AM etc.). That's why GM came up with the LT1 motor that went into the Corvette and the 4th gen Camaros. It was their direct response to that 5.0 that Ford ran in those Mustangs.

I wouldn't want an 80's GM either, it wasn't really until the 90's they got their shit together and came out with some cars that were actually desirable to me.
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i had a '96 Z28 with the LT-1 in it. that camaro would scoot.
 
TomcatMF said:
I had a '97 SS with the same motor, but better intake and exhaust. I thought it was fast until I got my Z06 vette.
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well.....yea. if i compare any of the other muscle cars i've owned to my 1971 SCJ Torino Cobra....they are even in the same county.:grin:
 
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