Although through most of the Pontiac Grand Prix' production run they were mid-sized models, from the model's introduction in 1962 through 1968, Pontiac built them on two-generations of General Motors "full-size" chassis known as the "B-body". My 1968 Grand Prix Facebook Marketplace find here hails from my old stomping grounds of Queens, New York and has an asking price a not-out-of-this-world, $4,500.
I wouldn't pay that much for it but then again, I've always chafed at most of Pontiac's mid-to-late-Sixties full-size fleet. It runs but the poster of the ad claims it can't be driven. Just as well since if I was really interested, again, I'm not, it's not like I'd drive this the 500-miles back home. Probably cost me half the cost of the car in gas if I did.
This '68 is part of the "second generation" of Grand Prix' that Pontiac introduced in 1965. All General Motors full-size cars where new for '65 and while the 1965 GP was a vastly better conveyance than the '62-'64 models, in my opinion, they lacked the panache and sporting elan of the originals.
Here's a 1962 Grand Prix in all its glory. Pontiac Grand Prix', along with Buick's Wildcat, which was a sub-series of the Buick Invicta for 1962 before becoming its own model, and the Oldsmobile Starfire and Chevrolet Impala SS that both debuted in 1961, where GM's indirect salvo at Ford's four-passenger Thunderbird that had the personal-luxury-car lane to itself from 1958-1960. Debate all you want that GM didn't come with a Thunderbird fighter until 1963 when they introduced the Buick Riviera, but GM's PLC-quadrumvirate that came before the Riviera tipped their bumpers in those unchartered personal luxury car waters first.
Any sporting pretense a "Pontiac Grand Prix" had seemingly went out the vent window come 1965 with the rebooted Grand Prix that technically followed the original's formula of a Catalina coupe with the trimmings of a top-drawer Bonneville but, and perhaps it's just me, something got lost in translation. Just like that, Grand Prix became bloated, over-styled, gaudy and dowdy - looking not unlike something your well-intentioned Granny would drive to impress upon you that she was hip, relevant and all about current trends. At least the '67 and '68 Grand Prix didn't have fender-skirts like the '65 and '66's did (he screams).
Seeing that car designs take upwards of three-years to develop, it's presumptuous to assume that Pontiac moved the GP out the GTO's way come '65 by coming with a new model that was more "Ford Thunderbird" than '62 Grand Prix. Most likely they moved the Grand Prix out of the fast lane to make way for the (scratch-my-head) "Catalina 2+2" for '65. The 2+2 came standard with all the sporting pretense the previous GP had albeit with a less luxuriously appointed interior. Grand Prix, then, becoming just another "luxury car".
Much like today's do-everything-great including looking good crossovers, it took a number of years for GM to figure out the personal-luxury-car recipe before they got it right. And oh, did they get it right starting in 1969 with a new Grand Prix that was built on a special version of GM's intermediate sized chassis.
Chevrolet followed suit come 1970 with their "suitcase fender" Monte Carlo built on the same chassis the new GP was and one of the defining automotive niches of the 1970's was born. The new "smaller" Grand Prix, actually, they were less big by overall by less than two inches although they did ride on a three-inch shorter wheelbase, pushing these old GP's, especially the 1967 and 1968 models, to the dust bin of irrelevancy.
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