Minneapolis Street Sighting: Chevrolet Celebrity Eurosport

In the 1980s, GM was trying to emphasize sportiness more-so than the other "Big Three" automakers. While Ford had the SHO, and Chrysler had its turbo cars, GM had a whole fleet of "sports sedans"; unfortunately, the majority of these sports sedans were in appearance only, and offered no real upgrades compared to more plebeian versions. They sure did look the part, though. Aside from the obvious better looking wheels, the Eurosport benefitted from red-colored trim on the rubstrips, a more "sinister" color palette that was comprised of grays, blacks and white, and it gained a slightly meaner front valance as well. Apart from these cosmetic changes, the car was mostly mediocre, performance-wise, although the Eurosport did benefit from a new  firmer suspension.

While the Celebrity did go away after 1990, the Eurosport name stuck around, and was affixed to the Celebrity's successor, the Lumina; like the Celebrity before it, the Lumina Eurosport also benefited from cosmetic upgrades and a suspension upgrade and various interior bits, but the really sporty Lumina would have to wait-- and readers will too. 

I feel bad; I had to do a quick shoot because the owner was walking to this as I was shooting it. This isa relatively clean example of a fairly rare variant of Chevrolet's A-body. The painted looked great and the wheels were in excellent shape. The only real rotten things here are the bumper damage, and slight rusting on the passenger front door; other than that, this Eurosport is definitely one of the nice ones I've seen, especially on the exterior.

Inside, again, this example was pretty solid; it did show some dash curl, and the steering wheel had its fair share of use, but overall, the interior looked pretty nice, especially considering the age of the driver.  (He was a pretty young guy, who didn't seem to look like he knew anything about cars, judging by his immediate reaction to me commenting on the rarity of his car.)

I am glad I shot this one now before it got totally covered in indie rock band stickers all over; I fear for what the future holds for this rare sedan, and I hope it doesn't stray too far from unsavable.