2005 Pontiac Bonneville GXP - Deck Chairs On The Titanic

Much the same way I found our Mustang, thanks to "cookies", this 2005 Pontiac Bonneville GXP popped up on msn.com one morning during our two month search to replace our younger son's Camaro. Seeing that it had only 39,000 on it and had an asking price of a relatively mere $6995, I couldn't get my phone out quick enough to make a call to the dealership to see if one of the mid '00's oddest and coolest performance sedans was still available. And much to my delight it was.

I should have realized that something was up, though, when the dealership told me that the car had just been traded in and that it hadn't gone through their service department yet for inspection. That and an asking price a good $2,500 lower than it should have been and knowing full well that our twenty year old son wouldn't appreciate a car like this above and beyond it being just a car didn't stop me from making the thirty minute traipse across town to check it out. After all, with the car for sale at one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the area, I felt as secure as I could in knowing it was probably on the up and up. Even a Bonneville GXP with only 39,000 miles on it with an asking price thousands below market. This had to be my lucky day. Well, not so fast, cowboy.

When it comes to old cars, regardless of the amount of miles on them, if it's "clean", I can look past most mechanical issues save for blown transmissions and engines. And by clean I simply mean no rust. And right from the get go I knew my time spent with this big Bonnie was going to be limited. I'm not sure why this happens to many a car up here but rust in this area of the car is quite common and is a tell tale sign of pending doom; if a car is rusty here there's going to be more. I'd rather buy a car with busted up brakes, struts and wonky wiring before I'd buy something with rust. It's damn near impossible to fix let alone expensive as hell.

Another tell tale sign that this wasn't going to go well was when the sales person who gave me the keys didn't come with me on the test drive. Perhaps he didn't want to die. For starters, the inside was filthy and smelled like the inside of a garden shed that a squirrel had croaked in. I'm kicking myself for not taking pictures. The good news was, haha, it didn't smell like an ashtray. The check engine and ABS lights were on and turtleing out of the parking lot I noticed the air didn't blow cold and the brake pedal had a lot of travel in it. Odd.

With no salesman on board and really no intent to buy something that smelled like a dead animal, I floored the gas on the entrance ramp to I-480 and the Bonneville took off nicely. Powered by the 275 horsepower version of Cadillac's star crossed NorthStar V-8, why they made two versions of that engine is any one's guess, it had the smooth whoosh of good acceleration that was refreshing and fun fourteen, fifteen years ago. These days, and remarkably so, speed being a commodity, it really wasn't that great. Quick? I guess...but then again most everything is these days.

Still, eighty, eighty-five miles per hour came up pretty fast and that's when that long brake pedal travel became a serious liability. While I always leave plenty of room between myself and the driver in front of me, slamming the brakes resulted in intense anxiety - for a split second I didn't think this thing was going to stop. It did, of course, but man. I hadn't driven anything with brakes that bad since my '96 Camaro let loose of its rear cylinders. The rest of my drive was taken at a much, much slower clip.

I told the salesman of my concerns about the rust, the smell, bad brakes, the AC that didn't work, the check engine and ABS lights and of course then offered him three grand for the car knowing full well he wouldn't bite. He told me again the car hadn't gone through their inspection process and that he'd give me a call once it did and if I was really serious we'd talk more. I really had no intention of buying this thing with the rust again being the big reason. The organic smelling interior being a close second. Still, it was a Bonneville GXP and warts and all, maybe I could clean it up and make it work for me. Doubtful but you never know.

Ah, the allure of a V-8. Somehow, and this admittedly is a stretch, the Bonneville GXP with the NorthStar made sense a decade and half ago. What with the demise of Oldsmobile after 2004 and their absurdly ugly 2001-2003 Aurora, GM technically moved the V-8 Aurora down market to Pontiac. Mercifully, they did not offer the Aurora's "baby NorthStar" 4.0 liter V-8 on these cars; what was that engine all about? Anyway, while wonks like me found the car interesting if not alluring, the general buying public could have cared less. It wasn't as if they were intrigued by cross overs back then either; there was just no market for a car like this back then and especially from plastic cladding obsessed Pontiac. No doubt a sticker price near forty grand didn't help either. Pontiac pulled the plug not only on the Bonneville GXP after 2005 but on the Bonneville altogether. With Pontiac hitting the ocean floor five years later, cars like this were akin to arranging deck chairs on a sinking Titanic.

As for that woe-be-gone 2004 Bonneville GXP I test drove, the dealership called me back the next day and told me that it had, no surprise to me, failed their inspections and they were sending it straight to auction. I asked them if I could still make a run for it and they said they'd consult with their upper management to see if we could arrange something. I didn't hold my breath waiting for a call back.