Buick Dimensions
The Car Company Golf Sim Rabbit Hole
Most of this is copied directly from a post on my Cohost with some edits and expansions, so if it looks familiar, that might be why.Over on my Cohost account, I dissected the 1992 Buick Dimensions catalog for some PC Speaker powered Smooth Jazz, extracted voice clips of talking food, and caused a friend to make a T-shirt out of it. But what's this all about, anyway? What does this have to do with... golf simulators? Well, buckle up, as it were, and I'll relate (what I can pull together of) the story of The Buick Dimension.
(DISCLOSURE: None of these images are mine; credits are given alongside them.)
|
| The Buick Dimension, 1987, on a 3.5 inch floppy disk. The cover consists of a pink wireframe, with pink and cyan geometric shapes arranged haphazardly across it. Photo from eBay user siamjane8. |
Initially launching for the 1987 model year, The Buick Dimension was produced by electronic marketing firm, The SoftAd Group. It is a digital equivalent to what you would normally have mail-ordered: a complete brochure detailing all of the specifications and features of the newest vehicles. These disks were mailed out for Apple II, MS-DOS, and Macintosh platforms.
|
| "Here's your Great American Road Test." The 1988 edition of Buick Dimensions in its original mailer. Photo from eBay user afvet63. |
Now, if this sounds somewhat familiar, maybe you've played around with The SoftAd Group's Ford Simulator from the same year (or any of its follow-ups from later years). The idea of using computers to market automobiles was a new thing, and one could not blame General Motors for wanting to get in on it. Except that GM did not include driving simulators in their catalogs. They'd include something else.
|
| "The All-New 1991 Buick Park Avenue" - 1991's Buick Dimensions on 5.25" floppy disk. Photo from eBay user eyetimer." |
Since 1958, Buick had been sponsoring a (relatively) small professional golf tournament, the Buick Open, at the nearby Warwick Hills golf course in Grand Blanc, Michigan. This is a legacy that Buick decided they'd pay tribute to, beginning with the 1991 edition of Buick Dimensions. (Or possibly the 1990 edition. This is a bit unclear to me.) Therefore, in between all of the hotkeys that pop up details about the new Buick Park Avenues and LeSabres, is a button labeled "Buick Classic," that boots up an entire golf simulator to let you play through 9 holes at the Westchester Country Club.
|
| 1990 Buick Classic at the Westchester Country Club. Screenshot from MobyGames user piltdown_man. |
But weirdly, this would wind up being a one-off gimmick, as the next editions would not include any mention of golf. The 1992 edition would toss it in favor of a guide about the USDA Food Guide Pyramid, which had just been introduced that year, and the 1993 edition would celebrate Buick's centennial with a history trivia game.
|
| Buick Dimensions, 1991 and 1992 editions, on 3.5 inch floppy disks. These are the Macintosh Plus versions. |
But the golf simulator would not wind up being a one-off gimmick. In 1994, The InMar Group would add an updated golf simulator to Buick Dimensions' 1994 edition. Higher resolution, mouse controls, generally just spruced up all around.
 |
| 1994 Buick Classic. Screenshot from Internet Archive uploader GamePlayer123. |
 |
| 1994 Cadillac Impressions. Screenshot from MobyGames user Hervé Piton. |
That same year, a very similar golf simulation would be added to another GM brand's digital catalog, 1994's Cadillac Impressions. Which I'm not able to locate on eBay at all. This looks like a further refinement of the golf simulator from 1994's Buick Dimensions, with added (text) commentary from golfing great Lee Trevino (he of Fighting Golf fame, if you're a retro gamer), and set at the Doral Resort and Country Club's "Blue Monster." Historical item of note: this simulation was created 18 years before the country club was bought and renamed by Home Alone 2 star Donald Trump, and became the subject of quite a lot of lawsuits. Perhaps the Doral was in better shape in 1994.
Anyway the long-and-short of this rabbit hole is that I want to own the full set of these disks and identify the exact years they were sent out, and probably target the Macintosh versions because a bunch of the later ones have not been digitally preserved. (And as another weird assed cornerstone for Golfshrine...)
But of course, this isn't the last time Buick would be associated with a golf simulation. This is.
|
| EA Sports Buick PGA Tour Courses, an expansion disc for Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2000. Photo by eBay user maxwell_2014. |
This is Buick PGA Tour Courses, an expansion disc for Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2000 for Windows, which adds three golf courses featured in the real-world Buick Challenge tour. It shipped in a big box, even. So you know what I'm going to want now. (Like I'm not going broke enough...)