1992 Pontiac Grand Prix Richard Petty Edition - The King and I

Richard Petty had an amazing career. Between 1958 and 1992, he won seven Cup Series titles, a record he shares with Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Jimmie Johnson. He won the Daytona 500 seven times, more than any other driver, and in 1967 alone, he won 27 races, including 10 in a row at one point.

While I'm probably the least car-racing-savvy car nerd on the planet, I do tip my ball cap to the man and his accomplishments, and he's still going strong at 89 years young.

I met him in Nashville back in 2011 when he was part of the CMA Awards interview circuit; I don't remember why he was there, though. I found him friendly and approachable, although, again, knowing next to nothing about racing, I was left fumbling for stuff to talk to him about. I did know that he had switched to Pontiacs for the 1981 season, though. He was best known for his use of Plymouths and Dodges earlier in his career, but he spent the final 12 years of his driving career with Pontiac.

While Chrysler had all but gotten out of racing by the early '80s, he said to me, rather unceremoniously as well, that Chrysler had been giving him awful cars for years before they threw in the towel altogether. Not sure if one thing had anything to do with the other, but that's what he said.

Nonetheless, his time with Pontiac lasted until he retired, and he finished his career driving Pontiac Grand Prix'. In fact, he scored his 200th and final Cup victory in a Pontiac Grand Prix in 1984.

Hence, in 1992, the year of his retirement, Pontiac honored him with 1,000 limited-edition Grand Prix coupes bearing his name.

This one here is one of them, although, dang it, I wasn't able to find out where in the production run it landed. The tag on the door here notes that it was built in "5/92," but that doesn't tell us where it falls in the numbered 1,000-car production run.

Hagerty Insurance is auctioning this one off. Last I checked, the top bid was around $12,500; the reserve had not been met. Seems like all the money in the world for a W-body Grand Prix, even one with just 22,000 miles or so on its analog ticker. What drives its value, of course, is that it's a Richard Petty Edition and one that's in excellent condition.

For a modest $399 surcharge, buyers who opted for one of these got a Grand Prix SE with the Richard Petty package, including the FE3 sport suspension and Y99 handling package, automatic transmission, a five-speed manual option, a Richard Petty-inspired STP paint job, Richard Petty Edition badging, unique and quite handsome 16x8 cast-aluminum wheels and 225/60R16 tires. Only 75 of the 1,000 cars were equipped with the five-speed, so those are particularly scarce.

He even signed the glove box on this one, although they didn't come from the factory signed by The King.

Lastly, and leastly in my opinion, the Richard Petty Grand Prix had General Motors' 3.4-liter DOHC, 24-valve V-6, an engine I've discussed and lamented here before.

General Motors' cost-effective answer to the sweet-revving Yamaha-built 3.0- and 3.2-liter V-6s of Ford Taurus SHO fame, what was called the "Twin Dual Cam V-6," was derived from GM's 60-degree V-6 architecture. The LQ1 used four valves per cylinder and four overhead camshafts. Voilà, an SHO fighter. Well, sort of.

Problem was, this engine still felt like a 2.8 at heart. It was noisy and sluggish down low, and you had to rev the thing hard to get any real go out of it; good luck doing that with an automatic. Best (worst) of all, it was fussy, complicated and hard to work on because the wide, tall engine barely fit in the engine bay of these cars.

GM eventually phased it out, replacing it with the engine I wish they had put in these cars in the first place: the 3800 V-6. The 3800 eventually became available in the Grand Prix beginning with the next-generation car in 1997.

I'm the rare fan of these W-body coupes—the Chevrolet Lumina, Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme and Buick Regal, too—although I must say, the best way to have one of these is to have one that's loaded. A Richard Petty Edition notwithstanding.

This one, curiously, has a cloth interior and does not appear to have power-adjustable seats. At least it doesn't have the bladder bolsters Grand Prix SEs were famous—or infamous—for, which never seemed to work over the long haul.

Have to wonder if Mr. Petty ever had one of these cars that were a tribute to him. Long live The King! And "his car" too. 

 

1967 Buick Skylark - Holy One-Off, Batman

This 1967 Buick Skylark had been trying to get my attention in a Facebook ad on my wall for a week or so. At first, I thought it was a Buick LeSabre, been there done that over and over, then I realized it was a Skylark. Wow. Holy one-off's Batman.  

Buick first used the Skylark nameplate in 1953 and 1954 on a limited-production convertible based on the Roadmaster, commemorating Buick's 50th anniversary. The Skylark name returned on a compact for the 1961 model year, although technically the Skylark designation wasn't applied to the Buick Special until 1962. It shared General Motors' Y-body architecture with the Oldsmobile F-85 and Pontiac Tempest.

Come 1964, "Skylark" was used on an intermediate, or "mid-sized," car based on General Motors' new A-body platform. The A-body designation had been dormant since 1958, when GM's former A-body cars were moved onto the larger B-body platform. It was revived for 1964 for GM's new intermediate cars, including the Chevrolet Chevelle, Oldsmobile F-85/Cutlass, Pontiac Tempest/LeMans and Buick Special/Skylark.

GM redesigned its A-body intermediates for the 1968 model year, necessitating an entirely new body and body shell. So, for 1967, Buick's A-body went out in style with a unique, one-year-only body so handsome that even fender skirts can't muck it up.

Fender skirts, which I don't care for on intermediate sized cars, gave the car a more formal, full-size appearance and were standard on the 1967 Skylark. They were not used on the performance-oriented GS models, which had open rear wheel wells to accommodate their wider tires. The "GS 340" and "GS 400" suffixes denoted Buick's new-for-1966 340-cubic-inch V-8 and new-for-1967 400-cubic-inch V-8, respectively.

Back in the olden days, kids, General Motors' myriad divisions made their own engines. No doubt it was an expensive, time-consuming proposition and ultimately a frustrating one for vehicle owners and mechanics, since many of the engines shared, technically anyway, the same displacement and sometimes even appeared similar, although they were often very different designs.

Those unique engines helped make the makes on GM's pricing ladder distinctive, even if there wasn't necessarily anything intrinsically better about a Buick-built engine than an Oldsmobile-, Pontiac- or Chevrolet-built one. And, most certainly, a Cadillac engine, although generally larger and more expensive, wasn't automatically any more reliable than a Buick engine.

1967 was also the last year Buick offered its 225-cubic-inch V-6 in the Skylark. If this car did have the V-6, which it doesn't, it would make this truly unique as you simply don't see many '67 Skylarks anymore not to mention ones with the V-6. 

This car has the 340 V-8 presumably in lower-compression, regular fuel swilling, 220-horsepower, two-barrel guise. Step up to the "Wildcat 375" version and you got a 260-horsepower, premium-fuel, four-barrel engine - the extra cost of the engine and the pricier gas it will use doesn't seem to me to be worth just 40-hp. The "375" in Wildcat 375 referred to torque output. 

Buick, based in Flint, Michigan, sold the tooling for its V-6 to Kaiser-Jeep after the 1967 model year. Kaiser-Jeep used the engine as the Dauntless 225 through 1971. After American Motors acquired Jeep, the tooling eventually made its way back to Buick/GM in the mid-1970s. The engine evolved into the 231-cubic-inch V-6 and its descendants, remaining in production in various forms until 2008.

The 1967 Buick Skylark also featured a dual-circuit brake system, four-way hazard flashers and an energy-absorbing, collapsible steering column and wheel, along with other federally mandated safety equipment. The age of government-mandated automotive safety regulations had arrived.

"Lesser Buicks," though, have always vexed me. As someone who believes in structure and a chain of command, the fact that Buick sold cars back then that stepped on the tires of similar Oldsmobile, Pontiac and Chevrolet models—and vice versa—is counterintuitive. Then again, Cadillac was the only GM division that essentially sold one basic type of car, and although historically GM's most profitable division, it never sold that many cars year-over-year compared with Chevrolet.

So, from a business perspective, I get it. As a marketing guy, though, that's where things get more than a little dicey. Then again, by 1967, the lines of distinction between GM's makes and models had long been blurred.

Cadillac XTS - Batton Down the Golf Clubs

 

This 2017 Cadillac XTS popped up on Marketplace this morning for sale down near Akron. Just 69,000 miles on her, with an asking price of $12,500. Clean title, too. Such a deal, no?

My wife hates these cars, so there's no point in me even inquiring about it. Plus. it's an almost-ten-year-old Cadillac with a questionably reliable engine and fussy suspension. A Lexus ES or Acura RLX, this redhead ain't.

Amazingly, I've never blogged about one of these, so today I right that wrong. C'mon, dress like you're headed to the golf course and dinner afterward, and let's kick the tires on the last of the "old-school, new-school" Cadillacs.

These cars were never really meant to be long-timers in the Cadillac portfolio. Introduced for 2013 to replace the long-in-the-tooth DTS and STS, the XTS was something of a bridge between Cadillac's old-school front-wheel-drive luxury sedans and the newer generation of cars Cadillac was developing. It was the natural car for DTS loyalists to trade up to.

Built from 2012 through 2019 for the 2013 through 2019 model years, the Cadillac XTS was notable for being a large Cadillac without a V-8 engine. In fact, a V-8 wasn't even optional. GM's "High-Feature" 3.6-liter V-6 was stuffed between the front wheels, making 304 horsepower in naturally aspirated form, while the optional twin-turbocharged version in the V-Sport made 410 horsepower. The V-Sport came exclusively with all-wheel drive.

Why someone who'd have a proclivity to be drawn to this car would need that much scoot is debatable; I'm glad they did, though. This particular car, unfortunately, more like fortunately, has the naturally aspirated 3.6-liter V-6. I say that knowing this has probably spent most of its obviously very conservatively driven life being under stressed. The lack of twin turbos means there's less hardware to eventually go wrong, too.

Contemporary reviews of the XTS were generally pretty benign. Targeted largely at the DTS crowd, it was reasonably proficient at providing its driver and passengers with a stylish, spacious and comfortable cabin and a smooth, quiet ride. The brakes were also well regarded. The car was never intended to be a sports sedan; comfort was its primary mission. Contemporary reviews emphasized its spacious, quiet and comfortable nature, while noting that outright acceleration wasn't a particular strength of the naturally aspirated car.

Although, a zero-to-sixty time of 6.6-seconds is more than ample. Batton down the golf clubs. 

Although the complexity of its electronically controlled adaptive suspension scares me. I'm not going to find replacement parts for that stuff on the cheap when the time comes. And you know that time will come.

The jury's out as well on the long-term reliability of the "High-Feature" V-6. Let's just say it doesn't have the bulletproof reputation of GM's old 3800 V-6 Series II or III, and I'm not sure I'd want to bet the farm on one making it to six-digit mileage without some expensive drama along the way. Best that can be said is at least it doesn't have a Northstar V-8. 

Still, for the money, if my wife were so inclined—and again, I don't even need to ask her—we could do worse.

Cadillac discontinued the XTS after the 2019 model year. The rear-wheel-drive CT6 debuted for 2016 and occupied a position above the XTS in Cadillac's lineup, with the two cars sold alongside each other for several years. The XTS remained Cadillac's big front-wheel-drive sedan for the rest of its run.

Cadillac pulled the plug on the CT6 after the 2020 model year. Since then, the somewhat smaller CT5 and compact CT4 have carried Cadillac's traditional sedan torch. As of the 2026 model year, both are still in the lineup, although the sedan side of Cadillac's business has certainly become a much smaller part of the company's portfolio.