Have you tried to buy an affordable coupe lately? It’s not that easy. Everyone knows that crossovers have been killing off sedans and wagons for the past few years, but they’ve also decimated the sporty two-door market.
Sure, if you have upwards of $80,000 to spend, or are willing and able to compromise on seating and practicality, you can buy something fun with two doors. But wind the clock back 30 years and you were spoiled for choice when it came to affordable coupes.
Let’s take a look at some of the cars available back then, and see which of those brands are still keeping coupe lovers happy three decades later.
Acura
The Integra was one of the founding fathers of the Acura line when Honda established the brand in the U.S. in 1986, and the RSX was still flying the flag for coupes 20 year later, before killing its affordable two-door line in 2006. The Integra’s return this year has generated a real buzz, but let’s not kid ourselves that the 2023 MY five-door liftback is anything but a sedan.
Audi
Here’s one that bucks the trend. Audi pulled its handsome 80-based coupe from the U.S. market in 1991, though by ’92 you could still have grabbed yourself a barely used example. Fast forward to 2022 and Audi has two coupes on offer in the form of the A5 and TT, but maybe not for long. Rumblings from Ingolstadt suggest the slow selling TT won’t be replaced, or it may be reincarnated as, yep, a crossover.
BMW
BMW actually offered two coupes in 1992: the 3-series and the 8-series, though we’ve discounted both the classic E31 8-Series and its model day G15-code descendant on affordability grounds. But with two-door versions of the 2-Series and 4-Series in its current range, BMW actually offers more coupes than it did 30 years ago.
Buick
Thought Buick’s coupe aspirations ended with the Grand National and GNX in the 1980s? One look at this early 1990s Skylark and you’ll wish they had. And believe us, we’re doing you a favor by not showing it from the rear. The pretty Reatta died in 1991 but the Skylark coupe was a mainstay of Buick’s line for almost 50 years and lasted through ’til 1997. These days the brand only sells crossovers and SUVs.
Chevrolet
Chevy’s Monte Carlo was on sabbatical between 1988 and 1995, but bow-tie fans could choose between the front-wheel drive Cavalier and Beretta, and rear-drive Camaro in 1992. These days the Cav and Beretta are long gone, and hard though it is to imagine a Chevy lineup without a Camaro, dwindling sales mean the legendary pony is getting ready for a trip to the glue factory.
Dodge
Dodge’s Challenger is the best selling current pony car, but it was nowhere to be seen in 1992. But Dodge did have two coupes on offer to the one you’ll find in Dodge dealers today. The front-wheel drive Daytona was built around Chrysler’s K-car platform, while the Dodge Stealth was a badge-engineered Mitsubishi 3000GT/GTO.
Eagle, Mitsubishi And Plymouth
Eagle, Mitsubishi and Plymouth all got to slap their badge on a version of the coupe built by the Diamond Star Motors joint venture in Normal, Illinois, earning rave reviews. But you won’t find a coupe descendant of any of these cars in modern showrooms. Chrysler killed off Eagle in 1998 and Plymouth three years later, and while Mitsubishi still sells an Eclipse, it’s a five-door crossover.
Ford
Like Chevy and Dodge, Ford had a two-tier coupe lineup back in 1992. The front-wheel drive Probe was developed from Mazda’s 626 chassis and that year marked the changeover to the almost Firebird-looking second-gen car. But for Ford fans who still wanted a trad rear-drive coupe, the Fox Mustang was enjoying its last couple of years on sale. Only the Mustang badge is still going 30 years later, and according to Ford’s website, it’s the only “car” the marque sells.
Geo And Isuzu
Geo was GM’s 1990s attempt at a small car brand, but not all of its cars were boring subcompacts like the Metro. The quickest Storm coupes came fitted with a 140 hp (142 PS) 1.8 that got them to 60 mph in just over 7 seconds.
Sadly, GM had to drop the Storm in 1993 when Isuzu stopped building both it and the Storm’s Isuzu Impulse twin. GM killed off Geo in 1997 and these days Isuzu is all about trucks.
Honda
Acura might have got the Integra, but Honda dealers still had plenty to offer coupe buyers. The fourth-generation Prelude was new for the 1992 model year, and though the also-new, two-seat CRX Del Sol was arguably more sports car than coupe, it was fun, affordable, and too cool to leave out of this list.
Hyundai
The Hyundai Veloster’s single rear door means it’s only a true coupe on the driver’s side, but we’ll forgive it because the the 275 hp (279 PS) N version (the only Veloster left on sale) has 2.5 times the power of the most potent 1992 Scoupe. That name’s pronounced “scoop”, by the way, which led one magazine to reference a popular dog turd collecting device of the time in the headline of its less than flattering review: “Poop S-Coupe”.
Lexus And Mercedes
We’ve tried to stay away from premium brands for this list, but the reality is that both Lexus and Mercedes currently offer coupes at surprisingly affordable prices. The base Lexus RC costs $43,545, making it significantly more affordable in real terms than the old SC300 coupe, which stickered at $32k in 1992. And skipping past the four-door CLA coupe pretender (come on, it’s a sedan!), the Mercedes coupe range starts with the $47,850 C 300, again massively undercutting the old W124 300CE when adjusted for inflation.
Mazda
The 1992 Mazda MX-3’s cute styling, smart interior and agile handling helped it stand out from the coupe crowd, but not as much as its bonsai 1.8-liter V6. For buyers needing more space there was its MX-6 big brother, a close cousin of the Mk2 Ford Probe, while speed freaks got the RX-7.
You won’t find anything like that in Mazda’s current range, but the MX-5 does have an RF retractable hardtop body option not available back in ’92, and we guess the MX-30 with its suicide rear doors is at least trying to inject some coupe sizzle into the crossover market.
Nissan
Nissan’s product lineup contained so many coupes back in 1992 you’d think it was a dedicated sports car brand. From the cutesey NX1600 and its NX2000 big brother (“an affordable Porsche 944” said Car & Driver), to the do-it-all Sentra, the sexy 240SX and brawny 300ZX, there was a two-door Nissan for every pocket.
That’s not something you can say in 2022. The ageing GT-R’s $114k starting price means it definitely doesn’t match our “affordable” remit, but the new 400 hp (406 PS) Z does at least look like it’s going to be great value at $40,000.
Oldsmobile
Here’s another forgotten coupe from an almost forgotten brand. The front-wheel drive Achieva was available as a sedan or coupe and replaced the Lego-look Cutlass Calais. The biggest available engine was a 160 hp (162 PS) 3.3-liter V6, but the biggest power output belonged to the high revving 190 hp (193 PS) 2.3-liter Quad-4. The Achieva snuffed it in 1998, and the Olds brand lasted only six years after that.
Pontiac
Pontiac used to claim that it built excitement, and if you got excited by the sight of two doors, GM’s performance brand had you covered. The brand’s front-wheel drive coupe offerings were the Sunbird and Grand Am, while the rear-wheel drive Firebird was available with everything from a mild V6 to a 350 hp (355 PS) small block V8 in the SLP Firehawk version that ripped to 60 mph in 4.6 seconds. But there hasn’t been a Pontiac coupe since 2008’s G6 because there hasn’t been a Pontiac to build one; GM axed the brand that year.
Saturn
Is it just us, or is the 1990-96 Saturn SC looking pretty sweet for a car designed when Ronald Reagan was in the Oval Office hot seat? It’s certainly fared better than the third-generation car that followed it. GM’s no-haggle brand only had one coupe in its range in ’92, and the only available engine was a 123 hp (125 PS) inline four. But that was better than nothing, right? Which is what we’ve got now because Saturn burned up in 2010.
Subaru
Ninety-two was a changeover year for Subaru. The weirdly angular XT with its even weirder asymmetric steering wheel passed the torch to the more advanced, but much more expensive (and still weird) SVX. But we’d take a modern day manual-shift BRZ over either of those cars any day.
Toyota
Okay, so no one is really pining for another Paseo, but it was still cool that Toyota offered an entry level coupe for 1992 buyers that couldn’t afford a Celica or Supra. These days the range is down from three to two in the shape of the GR86 and BMW Z4-derived Supra.
Volkswagen
Volkswagen kicked off its coupe line in 1955 with the Beetle-based Karmann Ghia, followed it up with the Scirocco two decades later, and by 1992 the Corrado was the sportiest car in the VW lineup. These days you can’t even get a GTi or Golf R with two doors from your VW dealer, let alone a real coupe.
Keyword: What On Earth Happened To All The Affordable Coupes?