1977 Pontiac Grand Prix SJ - Creme Brulee

I don't know what's worse on this 1977 Pontiac Grand Prix, the two-tone paint scheme or $35,000 asking price. Do people actually drop that kind of money on these cars? It's for sale somewhere down in Florida so perhaps they're looking for a retiree with cash to burn.  

Might be that I'm a tad jealous that my 1977 Corvette, even in showroom condition, wouldn't be worth thirty-five grand. Might not be worth half the asking price of this creme-brulee horror. Then again doesn't mean the seller will get anywhere near $35,000 for it - NADA "high-retail" is $22,500 so I don't know what they're smoking. Twenty-two-five is all the money as well for this too; this is not in concours condition either. Ad for it doesn't even mention the mileage. Then again, having money doesn't mean you're necessarily smart. Someone may see this and want it at no matter the cost. That person, newsflash, would not be me. 

Despite the asking price, shame this car is painted this way and, yes, it came from the factory like this. I love 1969-1977 Pontiac Grand Prix' although I'm partial, like most old car boys and girls to the 1969-73's, particularly the 1969-72's "first-generation" of the intermediate sized Grand Prix'. 

I emphasize intermediate Grand Prix because the O.G. Grand Prix was a full-size car, actually a version of the then current full-size, B-body Pontiac that also underpinned the Pontiac Catalina. Pontiac sliced and diced the G.P. through 1968 morphing it from a handsome and chiseled two-door to verbose, over styled generic blob. There was even a complete reboot of it for '65 on GM's fabulous new full-size chassis although the styling was evolutionary from '64 to '65. You wanted revolutionary, you waited for 1967; that's when Pontiac lost its Grand Prix groove.  

They got it back, big time, in 1969 when they rolled out a comely new model based on an elongated two-door chassis of the class-of-1968 GM A-body intermediate and, voila, a legend was born. A delightful update came for 1971 before the whole thing got rebooted for 1973 when the Grand Prix became part of what is referred to as GM's Colonnade's. 

Many people don't care for the 1973-1977 "Colonnade's", so named because they had a center column or post, even on the coupes. The hardtop began its hard fade out in 1973; I happen to be fan of the '73's with their big, square jaw-like front bumper and delicate rear end bumpers. I wouldn't kick a '74-'77 Grand Prix in most any color (save for this one) if one happened to appear magically in my garage. My dumb luck, my sweet wife would surprise me with one and it would be a two-tone monstrosity like this thing. 

The Grand Prix (and Chevrolet Monte Carlo) were different from the other GM coupes of the vintage in that they rode on the four-door, 116-inch wheelbase version of the GM intermediate chassis as opposed to the two-door, 112-inch-long wheelbase version. 

Those four inches make a difference? Not really. For styling purposes only, all the extra length was ahead of the fire wall allowing stylists to create what was referred to as a heroically long hood. If you've ever driven one of these things you know that hood is like sitting behind a four by eight sheet of plywood. You either get it, like I do, or you run away screaming straight to your Toyota dealer for something you could actually maneuver in a tight parking lot. 

Car spotters know that 1973 through 1975 Grand Prix' feature round headlights, which I prefer, the '76 and '77's have rectangular ones. They're fine, I guess unless you look at a round headlight Grand Prix next to one with the rectangular ones. Your opinion may vary, see dealer for details. 

A saving grace on this car is it has the Pontiac 400 cubic inch V-8 engine and not the Pontiac 350 or the 301 V-8 engines. Although making just 180-horsepower, it did make some 320-pounds of torque which is important to motivate such a heavy car properly. Wouldn't say these are fast cars, though. Gas guzzlers? Oh, most definitely. Fast? No. The big motor enough to offset the asking price and two-tone paint scheme. Oh, hell no.  

Another bonus is it has bucket seats, console shifter and "Hurst" T-Tops; Hurst got into making more than just transmission shifters for a cup of coffee or two in the late '70's and early '80's and supplied GM with them. Breaker, breaker, it's got a CB radio too. For those who think CB radios in 1970's defined the era, they didn't. They were unusual then which makes them all the more unusual now. I think they look cumbersome, after-market and out of place. Again, that's just me. 

Along with all GM intermediates starting in 1978, Pontiac jumped the shark with the Grand Prix and never, as opposed to 1969 with the "smaller" Grand Prix' debut, got its groove back. 

 

1977 Dodge Monaco - Bad Then, Worse Now

Bet you never saw one of these before and, no, it's not what you might think it is. It's a 1977 Dodge Monaco that, yeah, looks a heck of a lot like a Chrysler Cordoba but more so like a Plymouth Fury of the same vintage. Not coincidentally, it does ride on the same chassis the 1975-1979 Cordoba did. A whole bunch of Chrysler cars did too in the 1970's. 

Prior to 1976, a Dodge Monaco was a full-size car. And I mean big. Nearly 19-feet long, 8-feet wide and 4,600-pounds big. This Monaco is still pretty big but it is about ten inches shorter, four inches less wide and about five or six hundred pounds lighter. These were simply called, "Monaco"; Dodge kept the old full-size Monaco around for 1977 that they called, Royal Monaco. 

As opposed to the Chrysler Cordoba that were only coupes, these cars were also available as four-door sedans and station wagons. They replaced the Coronet series in the Dodge lineup. 

Craziest thing about this one is the interior. Yes, kids. This was a thing back in the day. 

I was a wee little nipper, car interiors like this were all the rage. I hated them. I still do. Bad then, worse now as we say. 

Dodge discontinued these cars and their insane interiors after 1978. 

 

1955 Cadillac - Profit Margins

This 1955 Cadillac Series 62 Coupe deVille is part of Cadillac's first major update of their seminal post war models that debuted in 1948. 

That update occurred for model year 1954 with the '54's being longer, lower and wider than what they replaced. The tailfins, which first cropped up on 1948 models, were bigger than ever too. 

1955 was a big year for General Motors as they became the first company in history to net a profit of more than a billion dollars - in a single year. Actually, they made around 1.22-billion and their profit margins were an absurd, especially for an auto maker, 10-percent. 

By comparison, Walmart today has a profit margin of maybe 2-percent. You almost can't blame GM for wanting to keep their profit margins at those stratospheric levels. 

Problem was, to do so, they began skimping, especially on what made a Cadillac a Cadillac. Even by 1955, many of the features that were once unique to Cadillac had trickled down to General Motors "lesser" models. 

For instance, you could even get air conditioning in a Chevrolet not to mention a V-8 engine. Although, that V-8 engine in a Chevy was tiny in comparison to the brute under the hood of a Cadillac. 

Maintaining those huge profit margins of 1955 left Cadillac with little more to market than styling and the prestige of the brand. 

Didn't seem to matter for about ten-years, though, but by the mid-'60's, buyers of the means to afford a Cadillac were beginning to catch on that their Cadillac wasn't anything more special than a Buick, Oldsmobile, Pontiac or, heaven-forbid, a Chevrolet. 

1988 Pontiac Grand Am - Hollywood Had it All Wrong

Funny how Hollywood paints a picture of '80's cars as everyone driving a DeLorean. In reality, back in the '80's it seemed everyone was driving a Pontiac Grand Am like this 1988. 

If the insurance premiums on a Pontiac Firebird were too rich for you and you still wanted to make a fashion statement, and you somehow had the means to afford a new car, there was a good chance you drove a Pontiac Grand Am. These things were everywhere. Now a days they're as hard to find as a Members Only jackets, Guess Jeans and Milli Vanilli. 

These were the third cars Pontiac called Grand Am and they were by far and away the best-selling ones up to that point. They replaced the Pontiac version of the infamous Chevrolet Celebrity that was known as the Pontiac Phoenix. 

Somewhat curiously, although planned as four-door sedans from the get-go, when these first debuted in 1985, they were only available as two-door coupes like our '88 here; they came with the four-door versions starting in 1986. 

These cars shared their chassis and running gear with the Oldsmobile Calais, Buick Skylark and Somerset. Chevrolet's Beretta and Corsica rode on a similar chassis. 

The Grand Am was a staple of GM's long gone Pontiac division through model-year 2005. Pontiac replaced it for 2006 with a model they called the G6, G6 denoting the sixth generation of the Grand Am. 

1979 Mercury Marqus (Coupe!) - Hypocrites!

What do you get when you cross a panther and a gas crisis? Why, a Mercury Marquis, of course. In this case, not just any Marquis but a 1979 Mercury Marquis coupe. You don't see these every day, and you didn't see many "back in the day," either.

Years ago, it was the rare sedan that wasn't offered in both four- and two-door versions. Four-door sedans often sold at a premium, so if you wanted to save a buck or two, you bought the two-door.

With the increasing popularity of four-door sedans, which were considerably more practical than their two-door counterparts, sales of two-door models began to diminish. At best, they offered little more than a tad more styling elan than the four-door version. In the case of this '79, Mercury marketed its, ahem, sporty roofline to appeal to the fashion-conscious. Like many things, what's sporty and what's not is a matter of taste and opinion.

Somewhat ironically, though, while sales of ordinary two-door models were declining during the 1970s, sales of personal-luxury cars, which were predominantly two-door coupes, soared. In retrospect, especially in this day and age of do-everything-well sport utilities, it's a bit of a challenge to understand the appeal of personal-luxury cars, to say nothing of two-door sedans. You either get it, like I do, or you don't.

Although Ford advertised that its big cars were still full-sized for 1977 and 1978, it too downsized for 1979, when it introduced a new line of full-size Ford and Mercury models that were dramatically shorter and lighter than what they replaced. Ford's downsizing of its big cars for 1979 seemed almost inevitable by then, given the industry's response to increasingly stringent fuel-economy requirements.

The Big Three were all downsizing their full-sized cars to improve fuel economy and meet federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, requirements. Ford's answer was the Panther platform, introduced for the 1979 model year. It was a rear-wheel-drive, body-on-frame architecture that underpinned the new Ford LTD and Mercury Marquis, as well as their station-wagon counterparts.

Ford's internal nickname for the new platform was Panther, while its smaller Fox platform had been introduced for 1978. The oft-repeated story that Ford's Fox platform was named after the Audi Fox, however, appears to be apocryphal. Ford was already using the "Fox" name internally by 1973, before the Audi Fox name was introduced in the United States.

Incidentally, a cougar and a "panther" aren't really different species of big cat. A cougar is a species, Puma concolor, also known as a mountain lion, puma or catamount. "Black panther" is a common name generally used for a melanistic leopard or jaguar. So the Panther name is more a colorful nickname than a reference to a particular species of cat.

Amazingly, considering Ford originally developed the Panther architecture as a solution to the fuel-economy and downsizing pressures of the late 1970s, it stuck around for 33 model years. Panther-based Ford, Mercury and Lincoln cars were produced through the 2011 model year, making the platform one of the longest-running production architectures in American automotive history.

The Mercury Marquis nameplate dated back to 1967. It was introduced as Mercury's new full-sized luxury model and was initially offered only as a two-door hardtop. When Ford redesigned its big cars for 1969, the Marquis was offered in four-door form as well.

When Ford rolled out the Panther-based Marquis and LTD for 1979, for the first time the two cars rode on the same basic chassis and the same 114.3-inch wheelbase. They also shared much of their underlying structure and body architecture. You wouldn't be alone in thinking this was a Ford LTD; it all but is.

Lincoln moved onto a longer-wheelbase version of the Panther architecture for 1980, when the new Continental debuted. The Town Car was initially a trim level of the Continental before becoming its own model for 1981. The Lincoln versions also received their own distinctive bodies rather than simply being rebadged Fords or Mercurys.

Despite their smaller external dimensions, these cars, like the downsized GM full-sized cars introduced earlier, offered surprisingly good interior room compared with what they replaced. Ford touted improved interior space and greater glass area, which improved outward visibility. The improved interior efficiency highlighted just how space-inefficient some of the enormous cars of the preceding era had become.

The days of form over function were, if not completely over, certainly numbered.

Ford kept making these handsome two-door coupes through 1987, but sales continued to decline. The Marquis name did indeed move to the smaller Fox platform for 1983, where Mercury offered a completely different, midsize four-door Marquis through 1986. It was then replaced by the all-new Mercury Sable, the Mercury counterpart to the Ford Taurus.

Meanwhile, the Panther-based four-door Marquis continued under a new name: Grand Marquis. Mercury introduced the Grand Marquis as a separate model for 1983, and it remained part of the Mercury lineup all the way through 2011. Unlike the earlier Panther Marquis, the Grand Marquis eventually became a four-door sedan-only model.

The Grand Marquis name itself wasn't entirely new, however. It had been used as a high-level trim designation on the full-sized Marquis beginning in the 1970s.

1979 was by far the best-selling year for the Panther-based Marquis coupe. Mercury built 20,662 of them that year. Coupe production plunged to just 4,874 in 1980 and continued falling thereafter. By the end of the 1979–1982 run, only 31,311 Panther Marquis coupes had been built.

So, while this '79 isn't exactly a one-of-a-kind unicorn, it's certainly an uncommon survivor—and considerably rarer today than its four-door brethren.

1982 Chevrolet Caprice (Coupe!) - Blue Bonnet

General Motors "Class-of-1977", downsized full cars get an inordinate amount of praise from automobile cognoscenti that are of my age group and roughly ten-years older and younger. Not to be contrarian, but while I agree they were better transportation conveyances than what they replaced, aesthetically, there's not much of an argument they were nowhere near anything GM had come out with in the thirty-or-so-years prior. The dawn of the dutiful, disposable automotive appliance was upon us and for better, worse or indifference, with some exceptions, the automobile industry hasn't looked back. One of those most pleasant of exceptions was, my blog, my opinion, of all things, Chevrolet's 1980-1986 Chevrolet Caprice coupes. I found this 1982 for sale on Marketplace with a, "I guess the Pandemic is really, really over" asking price of $4,250. 

Two-door sedans were quite fashionable after World War II and GM came with a full-range of them for the "Great Downsizing Epoch". While I'm partial to the 1977-1979 "D-body" Cadillac and Buick two-door sedans, giving credit where it's due, though, I have to applaud the efforts Chevrolet's design team for what they did on their B-body Caprice coupe. Doesn't mean I liked it, though. Above is a 1977 Impala. 

The unique roof line of these cars has its fans, I'm not one of them. I don't get it and I think it looks out of place. My initial reaction to it was I thought it off-putting; they might as well have put tailfins on these cars. That far-out rear windshield was made by placing glass over hot-wires and slowly, literally, bending the glass over them. The process was time consuming, expensive and the failure rate was absurdly high. 

Not surprisingly, come 1980 and GM's mid-cycle reboot of all of their full-size cars, the ambitious and pricy rear window or "backlight" was gone and was replaced with an all but bolt-straight roof treatment straight off the 1976-1979 Cadillac Seville. It also helped create my third favorite General Motors "1977" behind the aforementioned Cadillac deVille and Buick Electra coupes. Sometimes less really is more. 

I actually like this bluebonnet so much that I know if I didn't have two "classics" already, I might lobby the wife for it. I mean, look at this interior! There's so much to work with here although there's much to be done, apparently. 

Kudos to the poster of the ad who made the effort to photograph it so it looks, apparently, better than it is. Although the frame and pans are solid, there's rust issues. The driver's door has the tin worm, and the passenger door is so bad, they say it could or should be replaced. Well, again, snaps to the poster of the ad, you'd never be able to tell. Thanks for being so forthcoming. 

It's got a busted brake line and although it runs and moves under its own power, it's sat since 1999 so it's going to need a good going over or two or three. Bring a trailer, literally and figuratively. 

Under hood, the poster of the ad claims that's a "4.3 V6" but unless someone swapped in that engine, it can't be that. Chevrolet didn't offer the 4.3-liter V-6 on the Caprice until 1985, again, this is an '82, so if it is a V-6, that's Chevrolet's own 3.8-liter V-6 that's not to be confused with the Buick 3.8-liter chuffer of the era. The 4.3-liter V-6 replaced the 3.8-liter Chevrolet V-6. 

It looks a tad long to be a V-6, though, sorry, that was the only picture of the engine in the ad, and since the poster said it was a "4.3", perhaps they're mistaking that for, "4.4"? In that case, and this makes sense, it would be Chevrolet's "L39", 4.4-liter V-8. Chevrolet made that boat anchor from 1979-1982. Also known as the "267-cubic inch V-8", it made 120-horsepower and 215-foot pounds of torque and it's most "powerful". Even in a "downsized" Caprice, you ain't going anywhere fast with it under the hood. Chevrolet also offered the 267 in the Monte Carlo and Malibu. 

The reasonable asking price is also, I take it, reflective of the fact that this car doesn't have at least Chevrolet's vastly superior "LG4", 5.0-liter (305-cubic inch) V-8 which, for 1982 (engine choices above), made a fairly respectable 145-horspower and 245-foot pounds. The LG4 is also vastly tunable, the L39 is not, and there's an entire cottage industry devoted to making it more powerful. 

Another Achilles heel this car has is its transmission. This probably has GM's infamous THM-200 which is a lightweight version of their venerable THM-350. I'd use the rust, the engine and the transmission as bargaining points. Given the interior and the frame being solid, this is very well bought closer to two-grand. 

Take the savings and get the doors fixed and plop in a proper powertrain. Keep in mind, you don't have to "LS-swap" it. There's plenty of engine and transmissions out there that for very little money could transform this handsome blue bonnet into the sleeper of your dreams. Or nightmares. 

1982 Chevrolet Caprice Classic 2dr Coupe, 4.3 v6 auto. The car runs and moves under its own power but currently has a bad brake line. The car has sat since 1999 and could use a good going over before putting on the road. Car is not perfect, it has some rust spots around the car, all rather small. The worst rust on the car is in the doors. Passenger should be replaced, drivers could be fixed but its not great. Aside from that, the frame is 100% rot free, no cracks or holes. Trailing arm pockets are very solid. Floor pans, trunk pan, rockers, hood and deck lid are all very nice. Best part of the car in my opinion is the interior, front and back seat are very nice, headliner is solid and the carpet is intact. With minimal cleaning it would be pretty darn nice.