Function wasn’t enough for GM in the 1980s. Beauty and excitement was a new value add philosophy for them. GM provided its engineers with facilities, equipment and the latest technology. Freedom meant they could look beyond the bounds of what was possible then. For example, working with voice activated controls and computerized navigation systems, with speed variable attitude adjustment, column centered electronic instrumentation and aerodynamic body skins, sounds like a no-brainer today, but considering the production automotive designs of 1984, this was considered space age.
Aerodynamics became an increasingly important design factor. And it was an excellent example of what the resources of GM could do when they were committed to the solution of a problem. GM was the only car company at the time with a full-scale automotive aerodynamic wind tunnel in the USA. That meant they conducted extensive testing of every new design from concept model to final production car. As a result, GM was able to build more kinds of aerodynamically efficient cars and trucks than anyone else. The Pontiac Trans Am, in fact possessed the lowest coefficient of drag of any US production car, at the time.
That ‘Lean Machine’ is wild!