Ah, the weird and wonderful 1961-1963 Pontiac Tempest; this Facebook Marketplace find is a '62. These little cars were Pontiac's 1961-1963 entry into the compact car market that Chevrolet first dove headfirst into with their really out-there, air-cooled, rear-engine Corvair in 1960. The Facebook ad misidentifies this as a Pontiac LeMans; LeMans was a trim package on the Tempest in 1961 and 1962 before becoming its own line in 1963. So, officially, this is a Pontiac Tempest LeMans. Asking price is $5,000.
I know. Five-grand is a good chunk of change for one of these even in showroom\museum condition - which this most certainly is not in. It's had a considerable amount of body work done and still needs a lot. Especially underneath - we can see here the unit-body has rusted away exposing the body shell. That's going to be expensive to fix - IF you can find someone to do it. At least the poster of the ad was forthcoming with it.
The Corvair with its rear mounted engine was a costly endeavor for General Motors and to amortize development costs, General Motors mandated Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buick use the same bodyshell and floor pan the Corvair used on their versions of the Corvair. Similarities all but ended there what with GM's semi-autonomous corporate structure; our Tempest along with Oldsmobile's F-85 and Buick Special rode on a slightly longer wheelbase than what the Corvair had and the P-O-B cars were front engine. Somewhat oddly, the Pontiac and Oldsmobile F-85 shared the same bodies.
Being front engine and using the Corvair's floor pan that was all but flat, there were some hurdles to clear in getting torque from the engine to the rear wheels. Oldsmobile and Buick used a two-piece drive shift with a universal joint between the two halves meanwhile Pontiac used a thin, flexible, albeit wrought shaft that somewhat resembled a cable; it was nicknamed, "rope drive". Motor Trend thought so highly of the Pontiac Tempest that for 1961 they gave their haloed golden calipers as their "Car of the Year".
In addition to "rope drive", Pontiac took funky to another level with what they stuffed under the hood. Since Pontiac and GM didn't have an inline four-cylinder engine at the time of the Tempest's development, Pontiac created their own using the right bank of their vaunted 389-cubic inch, "Trophy V-8". Displacing a whopping (for a four-cylinder) 195-cubic inches or 3.2-liters, with no balance shafts to quell the vibration inherent in four-cylinder engines and particularly large fours like this, the "Trophy 4" was one hell of a "paint shaker". Above is a picture of the big-little chugger from the Facebook ad. There's a video in the ad of it running and you can see it shaking.
GM restyled the Tempest, Olds F-85 and Buick Special for 1963 removing most if not all the unique styling of the cars making them far more mainstream looking. Pontiac offered their stump-pulling 326-cubic inch V-8 for '63; too bad they didn't offer it on our '62 too.
Despite the expense of development and even relatively decent sales, GM pulled the plug on the Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buick compacts after 1963 moving the nameplates to GM's new-for-1964. "A-body" intermediates. They rebooted the Corvair's body for '65 and kept it around through 1969.
As they say in the used car business, there's an "arse" for every seat. I've gone back to Facebook Marketplace trying to find this again - no dice. Apparently it's gone. High asking price, rust, paint mixer engine, rope drive and all.
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