1995 Porsche 911 Carrera 2

The 993 generation of the 911 represented an almost total redesign of Porsche's iconic rear-engined sports car. Almost everything was new for 1995, with Porsche claiming only 20% of parts carrying over from the previous 964 series.

The rear-mounted SOHC flat six was still air-cooled and still displaced 3.6L, but output was upped to 270 ponies versus the previous car's 247. The motor was now backed... er, "fronted"? ...with a modern six-speed manual gearbox, or a four-speed Tiptronic automatic if you were dead inside. 

The rear suspension was completely redesigned, replacing the previous semi trailing arms with a multilink design that made it much less likely to deposit a 911 novice in a ditch ass-end-first.

Identification of the year on this one is easy as only early '95 models had the third brake light in the little "basket handle" spoilerette used on cabrio models; midway through the model year it was moved to a faired housing along the upper edge of the rear window.

Car and Driver's test of the then-new 1995 911 Carrera 2 returned a zero-to-sixty time of 4.7 seconds and a 13.4 second quarter at 104mph. Top speed was a buck sixty-two and the as-tested price was $66,775, which comes to $143k in today's money.

The lower two photos were taken in April of 2015 using a Nikon Coolpix P7000, while the top one was snapped the same day using a Leica Z2X on Kodak Portra 800 color film.

1995 Buick Roadmaster Estate Limited

For the 1991 model year, General Motors heavily redesigned the full-size body-on-frame rear wheel drive B-platform that underpinned the Chevrolet Caprice and (in a longer wheelbase form) the Cadillac Brougham. The previous version had been around since the 1977 model year and was getting long in the tooth, stylistically.

While Buick and Oldsmobile had shifted their full-size sedans over to FWD platforms in the mid-Eighties, they retained full-size RWD B-body wagons, the Electra Estate and the Custom Cruiser, respectively. Oldsmobile continued with the FWD luxury sedan and only offered the new car as a wagon, but Buick revived the Roadmaster nameplate, dormant since 1958, and offered it as a sedan as well as a wagon.

The 1991 Roadmaster Estate wagon came with a 305 cubic inch Chevy small block with throttle-body fuel injection, rated at 170 SAE net horsepower, while the sedan was powered by a 180hp TBI 350 V-8. These 1991 B-bodies saw the end of the division-specific V-8s, with everyone getting Chevrolet small blocks.

The faired-in side mirrors came along in 1995, as seen on this Bright White Roadmaster Estate Limited. Unlike the Roadmaster sedans, the 15" alloy wheels were standard on the Estate wagon.

By 1995 the sole powerplant in the Roadmaster was the 5.7L LT1 V-8 with Tuned Port Injection, derived from the motor in the C4 Corvette, and making 260 SAE net horsepower.

1996 would be the last year for the big RWD B-body GM cars, freeing up factory space for the increasingly popular SUVs.

This one was photographed in June of 2025 using a Sony a700 and a 16-80mm F3.5-4.5 ZA Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* zoom lens. 

1995 Chevrolet Impala SS

The boxy third generation of the Chevrolet Caprice, which had been around since the mid-late 1970s, was replaced for the 1991 model year with a car featuring much curvier, more aerodynamic bodywork. It was about this time that Ford also launched a more aero Crown Victoria.

Interestingly, with police performance packages, these newly sleek versions of the big body-on-frame police cars dramatically suppressed the sales of pursuit versions of Mustangs and Camaros, which had flourished briefly during the later Malaise Era when the blocky sedans were too asthmatic for high-speed chases.

It was from the roots of the fourth generation Caprice 9C1 police package that Chevrolet's Special Vehicle group ginned up a show car for 1992 that revived the Impala SS name, which had lain dormant since the late Sixties.

With distinctive wheels and badging and a sinister murdered-out paint job in any color you wanted as long as it was Black, the show car came to dealerships almost unchanged for the 1994 model year. 1995 saw some minor cosmetic changes and the addition of Dark Cherry Metallic and Dark Green-Gray Metallic to the palette. Production ceased after the 1996 model year after just shy of 70,000 had been sold.

They were all powered by the 5.7L LT1 pushrod V-8 derived from the Corvette making 260 ponies, with a 4L60E GM four-speed auto sending power to a 3.08 rear end.

When Car and Driver hooked the test gear up to a '94 Impala SS, it had enough Wheaties under the hood to launch the bulbous 4,221 pound sedan to sixty in just 6.5 seconds, which was considered a decent sporty coupe number at the time. The quarter went by in fifteen flat at 92 MPH.

All that could be yours for only $22,495 in 1994 money, or about $48,500 in constant dollars.

This one was photographed in May of 2025 using Pentax K20D and a DA 16-45mm f/4 zoom lens.

1995 Cadillac Eldorado Sport Coupe

The Eldorado debuted in 1953 as a sporty convertible coupe with show car styling at the pinnacle of Cadillac's lineup.

From then on, it remained as Caddy's sports-luxury coupe, and often debuted new tech for the company. The '53 had been the first Cadillac with a wraparound windshield, and the '67 Eldo was the first front-wheel drive Cad. The '76 Eldorado was the first with the fuel-injected 500, and the last Cadillac convertible until 1984.

The Eldorado in the picture, I think a '95 in Pearl Red, would be from the twelfth… and final …generation of the Eldorado. While the sportier Eldorado Touring Coupes had the 300hp version of the 4.6L 32V DOHC Northstar V8 along with a silly "ETC" decklid badge, this base ESC model would have had the lower-revving 275-horse LD8 variation of the Northstar. 

While the higher-output L37 and the LD8 shared the same variable valve timing 32V architecture and 10.3:1 compression ratio, the LD8 had five more lb/ft of torque, at 300, that peaked lower in the rev range so that it didn't require as much pressure on the gas pedal from an orthopedic loafer to summon up.

While 275 horsepower may not seem like a lot by modern standards, or by those of the ‘60s Muscle Car Era, the LD8 Northstar was a big bump over the ‘93 Eldo’s 4.9L pushrod L26 port fuel-injected V-8 that only put out 200hp. The ESC ("Eldorado Sport Coupe") could squeak under the 8.0 second mark in the sprint to sixty, and the ETC was quicker. The price on the 1995 ESC started at $38,220, which is eighty grand in today's money.

Alas, Eldorado sales numbers had been on a steady glide slope toward oblivion since 1986 and the Eldorado nameplate went to that Great Country Club Parking Lot in the Sky after the 2002 model year.

This one was photographed in November of 2023 using a Fujifilm X-T2 and a Fujinon XF 16-80mm f/4 R OIS WR zoom lens. 

1995 Buick Century

At first I thought I'd seen this particular '94-'96 Buick Century running around the 'hood before, but no. That one, seen below, was Dark Cherry Metallic with faux wire wheel hubcaps and this one's Ruby Red Metallic with what look to be steel sport wheels. Looking at both cars, the front passenger door rub strip appears to be a known failure point for this model.

The Century, platform mate to snoozers like the Chevy Celebrity and Pontiac 6000, was supposed to have been discontinued in 1990, replaced by the rebooted Regal, which rode on the same new aerodynamic front wheel drive GM W-platform as the Lumina, Cutlass, and Grand Prix.

The Century still sold like gangbusters though, especially to rental fleets, and the tooling on the old A-body cars was long amortized, so they and their Olds Cutlass Ciera cousins soldiered on with only a minor facelift.

In my headcanon, some young designer got tapped to design the snout of a "potential future Buick sedan with retro cues" and so he penned a shape with a bit of an aggressive undercut reminiscent of 5- and 6-series BMWs combined with flush aero headlamps and a graceful grille that showed a trace of that classic Buick waterfall look...

And then, to his horror, management took that attractive snout and slapped it on the front end of the '91 Centuries, to "freshen them up".

From the leading edge of the hood on back, the rest of the car is the same dull, boxy, angular Century it had been since 1982. Powerplant choices for '95 consisted of the LN2 2.2L multiport injected four cylinder rated at 130hp or the optional 160hp L82 3.1L SFI V-6. Both motors were backed with either a three-speed automatic or a four-speed automatic with electronically controlled overdrive.

This other Century had what looked like a two-letter badge on the rear fender back by the taillight. I couldn't exactly make it out, but it looked like a round letter and a squiggly letter. Did that dude put "GS" badges on his boxmobile? I opened it in Photoshop and blew it up before I realized that he'd just lost the "NTURY" off the right rear fender nameplate.

The top photo was shot with a Nikon D7100 and 16-80mm f/2.8-4E VR zoom lens in October of 2023, while the bottom one was taken in August of 2021, using a Hasselblad Lunar and Sony Zeiss Vario-Tessar T* E 16-70mm f/4 OSS zoom lens.

1995 Chevrolet Monte Carlo LS

Despite the Monte Carlo nameplate being a consistently strong seller for Chevrolet from its introduction in 1970 all the way through its final, abbreviated 1988 model year, Chevy decided to put it out to pasture when the rear wheel drive G-body personal luxury coupes got the axe.

For 1989, the new Lumina on the front wheel drive W-platform came in both notchback coupe and sedan forms and replaced both the Monte Carlo and the midsize Chevrolet Celebrity.

However when the second generation of the W cars came around for the 1995 model year, the Lumina name was only used for the sedans, and the coupes revived the Monte Carlo name after its half-decade hiatus.

All the attention was on the sporty Monte Carlo Z34, which carried over the 210 horsepower DOHC LQ1 3.4L V-6 from the Lumina Z34. Although the motoring press paid all the attention to the performance version, as usual, the base Monte Carlo LS outsold it by nearly a two to one margin. (As it did most years, sometimes by as much as more than four to one.)

A base Monte Carlo LS, like the Torch Red example in the photo, would have started at $16,760 ($34,675 today) and come with the 160 horsepower 3.1L pushrod 3100 GM corporate V6. The LS Monte had an interior style that was rare in a coupe of the era, with a column shifter and split bench front seat with a folding armrest; the six-passenger coupe was practically a relic of a bygone time by then.

Notably, the one in the picture has the optional 15" five-spoke alloys shared with the performance model.

1995 Pontiac Grand Prix SE

The 1988 model year was a jolt for fans of classic Detroit iron. The G-body coupes from General Motors, practically the last bastion of classic midsize front-engine, rear-wheel-drive coupes, got axed and replaced with smaller front wheel drive substitutes.

The G-body Buick Regal and Pontiac Grand Prix, cars that had been the staple of NASCAR were gone. (The Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme and Chevy Monte Carlo got a one model year reprieve, with the RWD Olds still being sold for the '88 model year as the Cutlass Supreme Classic alongside its FWD replacement, and the Monte disappearing for '89, replaced by the 1990 Lumina coupe.)

Those G-bodies were the cars that much of GenX learned to drive on, borrowing dad's Cutlass 442 or mom's Monte Carlo LS on a Friday night and doing the only performance modification you could do that could be undone without anyone being the wiser: Flip the air cleaner lid upside down so you could hear the weedy little 305 or 307 smog motor sucking air through the Rochester carb for all it was worth while you brake-torqued it at the traffic light in front of the Dairy Queen to annihilate that kid in the Accord coupe.

The replacement for the RWD G-body Pontiac Grand Prix was built on GM's new FWD W-body platform, also known as the GM10 cars.

In addition to going to front wheel drive, the sixth generation Grand Prix offered another change, because starting with the 1990 model year, a 4-door sedan was offered alongside the coupe; a first for the Grand Prix nameplate, which up until now had solely been a personal luxury coupe.

For the 1994 model year, Pontiac gave the Grand Prix a mild styling refresh, with new front and rear fascias. The car in the photo, a Grand Prix SE sedan in Medium Teal Metallic, is from the '94-'96 model years. The steel wheels and plastic wheel covers tell us it doesn't have the GT package, so under the hood you'll find GM's 3.1L 3100 pushrod V-6 rated at 160 SAE net horsepower.

With the port fuel injected engines, there was no flipping the air cleaner lid over for that easy 2hp boost, alas...

The one in the picture was photographed in December of 2023 using a Canon EOS-1D Mark IV and an EF 24-105mm f/4L IS zoom lens.

1995 Mercedes-Benz E320

It's a size of car that the British call a "spanner"... no, wait, that's what they call a biscuit. This size car they call "Executive", meaning it's larger than a compact but smaller than a "Luxury Saloon".

In America it's a midsize, and Mercedes has been making them since the Fifties. Nowadays it's referred to as their "E-class", sized between the compact C-class and full-size S-class. It's the equivalent to BMW's 5-series or a Ford Taurus or whatever Chevy's currently calling the Maluminpala.

When the generation shown in the picture debuted back in the mid-'80s, it was just the known in-house as the W124 platform. Back then the letters went on the end of Mercedes model, and the "E" in 320E would have stood for "einspritzmotor", signifying a 3.2 liter fuel-injected car.

For the '94 model year, the letters got moved to the front of the model designation on Benzes*, since referring to a car as having an "einspritzmotor" in 1994 would have been as redundant as referring to it as a "vierräder". So from '94 on, the E320, like the '94-'96 wagon in the picture, was a midsize E-class with a 3.2 liter motor.

In this case, that 3.2L motor was a DOHC inline six putting out 217bhp. The '96 E-class was the last hurrah for the classic M-B straight six, with six cylinder Benzos using V-6 motors until 2017 saw the revival of the inline, with the turbocharged M276.

This one was photographed in January 2024 using a Nikon D700 & 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G lens.

*Causing a great deal of distress for car nerds like me who had actually gone to the trouble of cracking the alphanumeric code on Jerry decklids. Don't get me started on how the numeric designations on Mercedes and BMW models only have the most tangential relationship to engine displacement now.