Omni

I took this picture in Houston .. 2000- 2001

Cool. I love those cars even though they are complete turds. My brother owned a pair of non-turbo cars. One was an 84 and the other was an 85. They were like go carts with bodies on them. I was selling them for my brother while he was at sea and I finally had to stop driving them when I was blasting up a twisty mountain road and came around a corner too fast and the rear end stepped out about 45 degrees to my direction of travel. A bicyclist was coming down the hill the other way and fortunately I didn't take him out. I took it home and parked it after that and only drove for test drives to sell it.

How were you able to get the herd of admirers away from it long enough to snap that photo?

I had major with a turbo car on Telegraph and Woodward back in the 90s ..,,

The GLH cars were fun. I was working at a Chrysler Plymouth dealer when they came out. The Shelby Chargers were fun car too when they first came out.

The dealership I worked at had a sister Dodge dealership. One day, the transport truck dropped off a new Shelby Charger, and I had to do the new car inspection on it. When the SM handed me the key, he told me to be sure to run it out pretty hard on the test drive, this car was the owner's 3rd Shelby, he had wrecked the 1st two, and they had only been out about 4 months! We had a circuit we ran the cars around when we did a test drive, in case something happened, they would know where to look for us. The circuit had a long up hill stretch with a slight S at the top. Turbo cars could gain about 5mph if it didn't down shift, EFI cars would maintain the speed (about 55 mph at the top of the hill), and the carbed cars would loose about 5 mph on that hill. The Shelby whistled right up the hill in 5th gear at about 65 mph, and just as it reached the slight S, the turbo kicked in and the front wheel drive car broke the tires loose and kicked the car sideways, in the wrong direction! By the time I got back to the dealership, I had a full new respect for the guy that had already wrecked two of those cars. When I told the SM about my experience he just laughed. Later that day, he came past me with a slightly white face, seems he thought he needed to take the Shelby out for a test drive as well. I laughed at him!. Gene

I love it!

People who are calling them turds; 80's cars were practically ALL turds. And that includes Vettes, Firebirds, Craparos and all. So an Omni was an okay car FOR THE TIME, and especially if you had a GLH. I'd take it over the extremely poorly constructed Craparo and a lot of other cars of that era. (Just not my Diplomat AHB )

My old man had an 80 Malibu I borrowed on occasion in HS. The most important aspect of any car back then, for me, was the size of the back seat. In that aspect the Malibu beats everything you listed, except the M body.

But will it outrun a long roof Valiant?

my brother had a vega in the very early 80's.
good thing i owned a junkyard at the time.

Anyone remember this?



Doesn't seem that long ago, but to look at E-burg in the pic compared to now...............

We still have our 85 Shelby Charger, wife drove it everyday for 10 years. There were 17 sold at the dealership we got ours from, by 1990 ours was the only one left according to the mechanic who put a head gasket in it...

A high school buddy had a GLHS Omni we raced on Telegraph and some spots in Detroit in the late 80’s/early 90’s. I wonder if we were ever out there at the same time?

Dennis

I had a black and silver Turbo Shelby in 85 that I bought new...

15.38 at 92 mph was the best it ever ran...

1987 Car Show in Merced, CA a guy showed up with an Omni GLHS and parked next to all the Mustang guys with the magazine article where the Omni beat the GT-350 on the road course clearly visible through the back window...

Funny that’s my buddy Steve from Dallas. He drove to my house back then for that race/show, I was there with my old 87 Shelby Z. Crazy the random things you find on the internet 😄👍.

I would actually like to have a clean GLH or GLHS as a daily driver. If I could find one reasonably price and not beat to hell and back

I worked at the dealership when they were new. Those cars were a blast to drive.

Long delay but, work will commence again in 2021 ..

This was in the mid 90s ..., I picked the car up from that Mother Waddles car donation lot ... pretty clean gold car ....

Until I got side swiped in Detroit....