The Bonneville Salt Flats are a 30,000 acre stretch of hard, white salt crust on the western edge of the Great Salt Lake in north western Utah. Covering approximately 46 square miles, they're named after U.S. Army officer Benjamin Bonneville who explored the area in the 1830's. Each summer on the flats, amateur and professional race teams compete for land speed records in a wide variety of different vehicles. Why the now defunct Pontiac Motor Division of General Motors felt compelled to rivet or glue "Bonneville" to a series of vehicles that were neither extraordinarily fast or in need of additional seasoning is a question we'll never get a complete answer to. Nonetheless, between 1958 and 2005 Pontiac did. Our fairly handsome albeit far from fast or sporty subject here is a 1980 Bonneville coupe.
What's in a name? Nothing, really; especially when dealing with automobiles. After all how many vehicles actually live up to what their named after? Pontiac's various Bonneville's were hardly the stuff of land speed records but over the years the nameplate became as synonymous if not more so with a Pontiac than it did being associated with a curious stretch of flatness so big you can actually see the curvature of the earth at a distance.
The Bonneville's position on Pontiac's totem pole was as ponderous as a starting NFL quarterback's job security. From stater to being benched, back and forth, downgraded an ultimately forgotten about, going on a decade since GM's massive reorganization that led to the entire Pontiac division's ouster, our 1980 Bonneville here here is just another vestige of the old General Motors. That being an unwieldy corporate giant that was comprised of five automobile divisions that all mass produced essentially the same cars with nuanced styling differences.
That didn't make any sense then and certainly makes even less sense now. Yet through it all I find this car to be as utterly alluring as a western driving trip would be to the place that it's named after. I mean, seriously, how fitting would it be to go the Bonneville Salt Flats in an actual Bonneville? If I came home one day with this car telling my family we were driving to Utah they'd, once again, believe I've lost my mind since all they'd see with this car is literally what it is; a nondescript "old man's car". They don't see it as another time machine back to my youth.
No, my old man never had a Pontiac Bonneville but I knew plenty of families that did or had similar types of cars from GM. I'm not alone in my appreciation for these cars either; they have many a fan of mostly men of a particular age. I know I'd get sick and tired of this big old salty boat quickly but if it were only a little bit closer I'd love to stab the gas and take it for a spin and be 16 again. Understand that compared to the dreadful cars I had back then, these big stylish GM's were the stuff of dreams.
Our subject here was part of GM's 1980 updating of their much acclaimed 1977 downsized, full sized models. As ballyhooed as the '77's were, the 1980 models were derided for much of the same reasons what they '77's replaced were. Too big, too thirsty. We have to remember that things were much different in 1980 compared to 1977 what with the second gas crisis jacking prices of gas up and over the one dollar a gallon mark. Sales of big cars dried up like a lake in the middle of the dessert.
Perhaps, maybe, in the end, Pontiac's use of "Bonneville" was appropriate.
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