1989-1999 Sinistra Traville
(Car Shown: 1989 GS/HO)
After the failure of the Swift to capture the midsize market, Sinistra set out to create something in that market, something new and comfortable, with a sense of class. With plans already on the table for the Serenade to take the place of the small, economical car, once an appropriate engine could be found, and once the market calmed a bit from the disasterous failure of the Swift, a new mid-size project was started.
The codename? Sidewinder.
An all-new engine derivative was created, using L series specifications based on the Swift’s 3.9 liter, 60-degree V6, building instead a 5.2 liter, 60-degree V8. With the new engine came a new transaxle design, never before tried by Sinistra, but one they hoped would deal with this issue of people not liking big engines in their footwell. They mounted the engine transversely, still powering the front wheels, but now sitting sideways to do it.
But, it wouldn’t quite be Sinistra if a special version wasn’t built to show off a bit of what the new engine could do. Taking the base 190 horsepower V8 and giving it aggressive cams, an octane boost, performance intake and exhaust, and a healthy dose of compression and timing, Sinistra wrestled 350 horsepower out of their proud new 60-degree V8. This was then fed to the option of a 5 speed manual or a 4 speed advanced-automatic gearbox, with the special trim getting a viscous limited-slip differential to keep the wheel-spin under control.
The goal became fun with comfort, without sacrificing the ability to drive the car. Early models, between 1989 and 1990, shipped without electronic speed limiters, but later models were intentionally limited down to 125 MPH, other than in the somewhat-rare Police Interceptor models.
Fuel efficiency, however, was not a primary concern. It was accepted that the Traville was going to gulp quite a bit of premium in the higher trims, and even the more base-line trims with the V6 and the inline-4 were on the thirsty side, as the Traville was not exactly a light car.
While the Traville was, for a time, a very fast front-wheel-drive, it was never the fastest 4-door sedan. That said, for a time, the GS/HO was the nastiest surprise at a stop-light for many street racers, who pulled up alongside expecting an easy victory against Gramps and his four-door sedan, only to be left in a cloud of tire smoke, ears still ringing from the strangled war-cry of the V8 singing to seven-grand.
After their popularity faded and the cars became less common, the base-model Travilles became great cars for first-time drivers, while GS/HO Travilles, especially early models, made excellent sleepers.
(As the model with the 60-degree V8 has some issues wanting to export (I suspect it simply doesn’t like the engine), I’ve provided the more comfortable Plus model with the 3.9L V6 for download.) (Found a solution: Don’t use / in your Model/Trim/Engine/Variant names! As a treat: you get more versions than I intended to release, as some of these were from testing…)
1989: Sinistra Traville - GS-HO (V8, AA4).car (43.6 KB)
1989: Sinistra Traville - Plus (V6, AA4).car (41.8 KB)
1991: Sinistra Traville - GS-TT (V6TT, AA4).car (44.3 KB)
Drive safely, and have fun!