These sports cars tried forcing forced-induction on enthusiasts, but spooled up a bad reputation that lasts to this day
The modern turbocharging boom is proof almost everything in the automotive industry can be charted on a familiar boomerang course of progress that reaches back into the past when novel ideas were plentiful, but execution not quite as cut-and-dried.
Set the dials on your time machine for 1980, and you’ll find a vehicular landscape that’s shockingly similar in its embrace of forced induction, a (t)heretofore exotic technology that promised to deliver big power without sacrificing the fuel economy and emissions that were suddenly so important after years of EPA intervention and tightening government regulations. Turbos were seen as a saviour—or more accurately, a shortcut—to the same kind of performance glory that had once been the exclusive province of cubic inches.
Sometimes when you cut corners, though, instead of reaching the finish line, you end up parked on the apron—or never leaving pit lane in the first place. This is especially true when your technological reach overextends your engineering grasp, and what ends up under the hood is more anchor than excitement.
Here’s a look at four key lowlights of ’80s turbocharging.
Domestic Roots Go Deep
It would be a mistake to think forced induction began in the ‘80s. Although the roots of turbocharged street cars in North America stretched back to General Motors’ experiments with the Chevrolet Corvair Monza Spyder and Oldsmobile F-85 Jetfire in 1962, it wasn’t until the following decade that turbo cars truly began to make an impact on the market.
These included GM’s second crack at the bat (lead by the Buick brand) as well as efforts from BMW and Porsche that, while far from perfect, laid a seemingly strong foundation for a new generation of turbocharged and supercharged vehicles.
Unfortunately, the future was far from perfect—and much of that had to do with the collision between product planner aspirations, the financial limits imposed by corporate bean-counters, and the realities inherent in bringing designs from the drawing board onto the streets.
2.2 Reasons to Avoid the Turbo I
Chrysler was a company on the verge of major change as the calendar flipped over into the 1980s. Forced to dig into federal pockets as it struggled through bankruptcy, the automaker turned towards cheap-to-build compacts and extreme levels of platform-sharing as its path towards profitability.
Part of that small-car strategy included a focus on turbocharging to add some zip to a line-up that had no budget for building dedicated sports cars. Faced with injecting adrenaline into its fleet of front-wheel-drive coupes, hatchbacks, and sedans, Chrysler developed the 2.2-liter four-cylinder, a motor initially launched in 1981 in naturally-aspirated trim, and which gained a turbocharger in 1984.
The 2.2 eventually went on to become a force a to reckoned with, especially as the ’80s gave way to the ’90s and Mopar finally found its forced-induction mojo. In the interim, however, the 2.2-liter unit had more than its fair share of teething problems. The Turbo I drivetrains sold with models like the Dodge Omni GLH, the Dodge Daytona, and the Plymouth Laser ran 8 pounds of boost through a Garret T03 turbo, but neglected to include an intercooler. This was problematic for a motor that, historically, had already dealt with cooling issues related to frequently-blown head gaskets.
Sometimes when you cut corners, instead of reaching the finish line, you end up parked on the apron—or never leaving pit lane
To its credit, Chrysler didn’t give up on the 2.2’s potential. While the Turbo I’s 142 horsepower added only 30 or so extra ponies versus the high-output version of the base motor, by the time the intercooled Turbo II rolled around for 1986, power was up to 175 horsepower (and 224 horsepower for the Turbo III in 1991, thanks to a cylinder-head assist from Lotus).
At this point, reliability had been nailed down, but the reputation of these engines had dimmed in the eyes of enthusiasts who’d been burned by early 2.2 woes. Dodge, Plymouth, and Chrysler turned their back on the 2.2 and instead embraced Mitsubishi’s turbo engines, sourced through the Diamond-Star Motors partnership for its compact performance needs.
Esprit-de-towing
It’s hard to think of a more finicky ’80s forced-induction machine than the Lotus Turbo Esprit. Arriving at the beginning of the decade after years of aftermarket conversions, the factory turbo pushed past 200 horsepower and leveraged its extremely lightweight chassis in order to deliver supercar levels of performance alongside the undeniable presence of its Giugiaro wedge styling.
The enormous asterisk to all of the above, of course, is “when it’s running.” Coincidentally also displacing 2.2-liters, the mid-mounted four-cylinder engine in the first turbocharged Esprit was as delicate as a spring flower if not cared for according to a precise maintenance schedule, buttressed by specific driving behaviours.
Timing belts? Better change them every 24,000 miles (38,000 km). Revving a cold engine? Not unless you want to risk a premature rebuild. Temp gauge starting to surge? Time to park it, take the bus, and come pick it up later—and then check the fans, the charge cooler, and the head gaskets, because they’re probably about to give up the ghost.
Owning a Turbo Esprit in the 1980s was a bit like driving a Chihuly sculpture: beautiful to look at, exciting to experience, but not something you’d want to move from one location to another without a significant repair budget at the ready.
Bi-no-thank-you
The Turbo Esprit might have been “finicky,” but the Maserati Biturbo was downright disastrous from start to finish. Offered between 1981 and 1988 (with a 1983 debut in North America) the coupe came with a 2.5-liter V6 tied to a pair of turbochargers (allowing Maserati to claim its “Biturbo” was the first in the business).
So much about the Biturbo set it up for failure. Borrowing its engine from the mid-motored Merak, the two-door offered a much more conservative design that in no way allowed it to carry on the legacy of its predecessor. Using the older motor was a cost-cutting move from Maserati as the brand sought to sell higher volumes, but it’s arguable that each and every Biturbo that left the lot irrevocably damaged its reputation.
Remember, this is an era where a single turbocharger was still causing problems for automakers learning the ins and outs of this relatively new technology. Asking two to play nice together required communications skills and engineering acumen that was completely outside the scope of Maserati’s design team.
Early cars lacked intercoolers, restricting horsepower to 185, but this was likely a blessing, as it was simply one less thing to break. The oil-clogged bearings in the turbos were going to fail regardless, so why not remove the middle man? Throw in a fuelling system that relied on non-adjustable carburetors and electronic control systems that couldn’t keep up with the demands of regular driving, and most Biturbos were better acquainted with flat-beds than their actual owners.
Pariahs on the classic-car scene, every once in a while an attempt is made to rehabilitate the image of the Biturbo. That kind of spin job is usually forestalled at the first non-responsive turn of the key-slash-underhood conflagration-slash-five-digit repair bill.
Turbo Bandit
The death of the muscle car was very much on Detroit’s mind as the smog-choked ’70s gave way to the 1980s. With Chrysler having given up on the concept entirely, and even Ford hedging its bets with four-cylinder versions of the Mustang, the engineering team at Pontiac began to prepare for an era where big displacement was no longer on the menu.
The brand’s iconic Trans Am became a test-bed for turbo tech at a time when GM was still trying to get a full handle on how forced induction could play nice with emissions equipment. Deprived of its big-block V8 (which had bitten the dust the year before) but still determined to produce its own engines, the 1981 Pontiac Trans Am Turbo (and the more spartan Firebird Formula Turbo) offered an unusual, and ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to plug the performance hole looming large in the automaker’s showrooms.
Pontiac’s 301-cubic-inch V8 ran 9 pounds of boost, required the installation of an automatic transmission, and included a Turbo Charge boost pod mounted on the hood in the driver’s line of sight. Not included? Anything resembling speed or torque, with the 210 horsepower setup barely able to run the quarter-mile in 16 seconds. That’s only if you could keep it running, of course, as the vehicle’s wonky ignition computer often dragged its timing into the mud to prevent detonation under boost.
Pontiac doubled-down on the ones and zeros in 1981 by adding a computer-controlled carburetor to the mix, but buyers weren’t going to be fooled twice. Sales plummeted and the car was cut from the line-up, serving as a second-hand oddity kept alive by true believers in the years that followed—and eventually forcing Pontiac to give up its in-house engine department and accept drivetrains sourced from rival GM brands like Chevrolet and even Buick moving forward.
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