1991 Everette Vancouver
Scion was never destined to be the Millennial carriage it set out to be because of one simple fact; millennials don’t have money. What is the principle carriage of Millenials then? The 1990 Everette Vancouver.
When the Vancouver was new in late 1990, it was hailed as the “ultimate family car”, something your family would drive into the ground before they ever lost their love for it. With its big cushy seats, soft suspension, optional V8 engine, and enough other options to make any dealer rub their hands with glee for the opportunity to make a confusing labyrinth of buying choice in the name of shear profit, the Vancouver certainly seemed like it fit the bill. But as the years passed and the car was subjected to the rigors of its target market, this initial self-congratulatory manifesto wore thin.
(1991 rear end)
Like Fenton GT it debuted alongside, the Vancouver suffered from FHL’s new found fascination with cheap cars. Whereas in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Fenton Holdings had stood for bringing good quality down to its most inexpensive state, by the 1990s the philosophy had evolved into just straight up cost cutting even at the expense of quality. And nowhere was this more apparent in the Vancouvers than the bodywork and interiors.
You can spot panel gaps in these things from a mile away and that is not even that extreme, as far as exaggerations go. And the decorative pieces fall off and the panels the rust to the point of looking like Swiss cheese if you live an area that salts its roads. Even without salt, the bodies on these things needed no help developing flaky brown in place of paint. As for what’s on the inside, there is a certain sleaziness to them that you can never shake. Maybe its the crinkly crackly plastic door handles or the bursting seams on velour seats or the auto-detaching trim pieces and paneling that every old Vancouver has, but whatever the case its apparent that at some point for almost every element, someone wasn’t paid enough to care.
Its for these reasons that that a sack of potatoes has a better sale price than a used Everette Vancouver and anybody in their right mind would offload these parts collections the first chance they got. Thus, many of them have found their way from the hands of the boomers and Gen Xers who bought them and into the hands of their offspring, the Millennials. It has nothing to do with youth appeal and everything to do with a plebeian price point.
And yet, that is not entirely fair to the Vancouver and that is true on a couple different levels. Because all of the terrible quality that the car became known for revolved around aesthetic. The Vancounver’s terrible quality was almost entirely aesthetic. Yes the body panels would rust. The interiors would all but fall apart entirely. But the chassis – the Delta platform on which the Everette Vancouver was built – was rock steady and would only just be hinting at deterioration by the the time the rest of the car had returned to dust. And the V8 models (yes that is an important note here, the V8s are the ones you want, NOT the V6s – we’ll talk about that in a second) would often develop head gasket problems around 180,000 miles, sure, but if that is taken care of its not unheard of for a Vancouver to broach 300,000. Leaky head gaskets unaccounted for, the V8s were still good for another 50,000 miles before you really have issues assuming you’re okay with topping off your coolant.
(1996 rear end – GST8 trim pictured)
So what do you really get for your less-than-sack-of-potatoes car? Is the joke actually on you? Well, in all honesty, no. You get a big, comfy car, that even has reasonable fuel economy for its size (21 mpg believe it or not) and whose body and interior will rot (yes), but even on a meager budget, that drivetrain will never quit and it will keep trucking until whenever you decide it won’t. Also, because of the low quality interiors and crappy bodies, low miles Vancouvers are easy find for cheap, so you play your cards right and you’re only about 50,000 miles into 230,000 mile car. How about that? By analogy, what you’re getting is a 1990s Buick. – a cheap mechanically reliable luxury barge.
As long as you don’t get the V6 models that is to say. Fortunately, most buyers opted into getting the V8 anyways and V6s composed only about 20% of sales of all Vancouvers, basically because the V6 was perceived as weak and slow. V6 models do get better fuel economy and can still get to 60 mph in 10 seconds flat, but who cares when there is a V8 option that can do it in 8.5? All the better anyways because the V6 engines are also part of the 60 degree Modular family and being more unbalanced than the V8 or V12 of the family, they are prone to excessive crankshaft and rod bearing fatigue. Late life Modular V6s get very noisy due to slop in the bearings and eventually you might throw a rod or shear a harmonic balancer. Either way, its an engine swap. So get the V8 models. They are actually good.
Unvalued and undervalued resale notwithstanding, the Vancouver can still be seen as a success in its own right. Sales even in the latter years of its run were strong, probably because of the car’s appeal to a more classic America. Like the Ford Panther bodies and the GM B bodies, the Vancouver needed only two selling points: I’m big and I have a V8. Everything else was essentially secondary including its front wheel drive; Indeed the FWD may have even been part of the appeal given how easy it made it to drive.
All things considered it was easily FHL’s most successful car of the 1990s, running virtually unchanged for 10 years, apart from cosmetic facelifts and improved transmissions. So successful indeed – with about 1.4 million sold in its lifetime – that while many of FHL’s nameplates died out in the 1990s from similar or worse quality, the D bodies including the Vancouver lived to see a second generation in 2001. The model’s popularity was doubtless helped by the various trims and special editions offered. Upgraded trims like the LR and GLR came with heated seats, CD player, improved brakes, and variable boost steering while sportier packages like the SR and GSR had lowered heavy-duty suspension, electronically controlled transmissions, and aerodynamic improvements.
(1996 Vancouver GST8)
One especially notable trim was introduced with the 1996 facelift – the GST or Grand Sport Turbo. It came with a 3.8L twin turbo V8 making 285 hp, exclusive 5-speed automatic transmission, limited slip differential, 17-in wheels with sport tires, and adaptive shock absorbers, all of which made for a 0-60 mph time of 6.8 s and a quarter mile under 15. At the same time, apart from a single Turbo badge on the rear and a rear wing instead of spoiler, it looked no different from a GLR. Factory sleeper especially considering tuners have put the engine as high as 350 hp on a stock bottom end and even more on forged pistons sourced from junkyard GTs. Because yes, the 3.8L V8 is part of Fenton’s 60 degree Modular family. GST Vancouvers are rare though considering its factory sleeper status means most people don’t even know what they have. Only around 35,000 were made in total.
Still even despite all of this, it must be recognized that poor quality demands reprimand. The Vancouver is a Millennial carriage because it left itself be that. Its the pedestrian nature of its character that is its saving grace to some but by all reasonable standards, it remains to be a critical vice. So if there is one thing that can be learnt from the Vancouver’s story its that, well-roundedness counts and your saving grace shouldn’t be found by accident.
(1996 Vancouver GST8)
1991 Everette Vancouver: Its a Millennial carriage. Because unlike Scion, it wasn’t trying.
Specifications
- Wheelbase: 2.92 m
- Length: 5.3 m
- Body style: 4-door sedan
- Seats: 5
- Transmission: 4-speed automatic, 5-speed automatic
- Engines: 2.8L V6, 3.8L V8
- Layout: longitudinal front engine, front wheel drive
- Fuel economy:
- 11.0 L/100km (21.4 US mpg – 1991 V6 model)
- 11.4 L/100km (20.8 US mpg – 1999 V8 model)
- 12.5 L/100km (18.7 US mpg – 1999 GST model)
Engines
6VB-W28M
- All aluminium; cast internals w/ low friction pistons
- Single overhead cam; 4 valves per cylinder
- 87 mm bore X 78.5 mm stroke
- 8.5:1 compression
- Multi point EFI
- 111.1 kW @ 5800 RPM
- 229.9 Nm @ 2800 RPM
8VC-W37M
- All aluminium; cast internals w/ low friction pistons
- Single overhead cam; 4 valves per cylinder
- 87 mm bore X 78.5 mm stroke - 3733 cc (marketd as the 3.8L)
- 8.2:1 compression
- Multi point EFI
- 152 kW @ 6100 RPM
- 308 Nm @ 2700 RPM
- 6700 RPM redline
8VC-H37MT
identical to W37M variant except as follows
- Twin turbocharged
- 220.5 kW @ 5800 RPM
- 483.7 Nm @ 2880 RPM
- 6800 RPM redline