1977 Pontiac Catalina - Proof Is In The Pudding

I found this pristine 1977 Catalina on Facebook Marketplace the other morning for sale down in Akron. Not that it matters on a car this old but there are less than 35,000-miles on its 46-year-old ticker and has an asking price of $8,500. I guess the asking price is fair - although, this is about as rental grade as it got back then and for that money, in my opinion, you could get "more car" for your money than an old bone stripper. What I found interesting about this car, though, and I never realized this before, is how much it looks like a Buick LeSabre two-door coupe from the same era. 

As they say, proof is in in the pudding. Above is a 1977 Buick LeSabre. From interior accoutrements to powertrains, the Catalina and LeSabre came similarly equipped too. That meant relatively spartan accommodations, power windows, seats, locks all optional, air conditioning wasn't standard either although most came from the factory with it. Options were a la carte which is why so many cars of this era are equipped so differently. Made no sense to me then and certainly less so now why General Motors would go through the trouble if not expense of lightly disguising some of their makes and models when they were, for all intents and purposes, identical. Perhaps GM wasn't as margin conscious as we may have thought. To some degree anyway. Ha, as if. 

The roof lines on the Oldsmobile and Chevrolet versions of the Catalina and LeSabre go a long way towards disguising how similar the cars are. Oldsmobile touted their exclusive, formal roof line on the 88's of the vintage; I think it makes this car look like an unfinished Cub Scout pinewood derby entry. That blind spot can't be fun to live with either. Above is a "Delta 88 Royale", if you wanted to skip the damn vinyl top, you'd have to step down to a "Delta 88 coupe". Personally, I'd "step down" to a 1977 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. Vinyl top and all. 

Through my foggy goggles, the belle of the roof line ball of GM's class of 1977 full-size (B-body) coupes is the Chevrolet Impala and Caprice. That's actually three separate pieces of glass glued together, you can't bend glass like that and have it retain its rigidity; especially being as thin as it is. I'm actually ambivalent towards of GM's 1977-1979 GM "B-body" coupes but of the lot of them, the Chevrolet rows my boat the least. Save for the far out rear windshield. The rest of the car looks under-designed. Your mileage may vary, see dealer for details. 

Pontiac may have been GM's "excitement" division but in terms of profit margins, they were GM's "smallest". Purely speculating if not hypothesizing, would make sense GM would skimp corners in the design and then the manufacturing process and use the Buick design on the Pontiac; if they had to have a "Pontiac" in the first place. Doing so would enable higher volume Oldsmobile to market the exclusivity of their (frumpy) "formal roof" on their 88 and it doesn't take an engineer or an accountant to surmise the LeSabre's roof had to be whole lot cheaper and simpler to produce than the Chevrolet's.  

When General Motors rebooted their full-size models for 1980, the distinctive roof lines were gone on the (B-body) coupes. Gone too was the Catalina two-door; you wanted a big Pontiac with only two-doors in 1980 and 1981 you had to pony up to a Bonneville. Come 1982, though, the big Pontiac show was over - albeit temporarily. The "Catalina" nameplate gone forever too. The Bonneville nameplate lived on as a tarted up version of the intermediate Grand LeMans through 1987, then as a front-wheel-driver through 2005. 

Legend has it Pontiac dealerships complained they didn't have a full-size car to sell  in 1982 and 1983 so from 1984-1986, they rebadged the Canadian version of the Chevrolet Caprice and called it, "Parisienne". 

1981 Pontiac Turbo Trans Am - You Rather Have Been Smart or Good Looking?

A girl in my high school had a brand-new Turbo Trans Am just like this '81 in luscious dark red. Beautiful car. She was way out my league too. The fact she not only drove a brand-new car but a Turbo Trans Am made her "Hollywood" in my eyes. 

I thought her car fitting for her as it was as unapproachable as she was. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt that she wasn't as shallow as these cars were. "All show and no go" as they say. Or, "all fluff and no stuff". Didn't matter because they both looked so damn good. The world's at your beck and call when you're young and beautiful. Everything comes out in the wash, though. 

On the heels of a surge in popularity after "Smokey and The Bandit" shot Trans Am's to the pinnacle of the public's automotive awareness, to be in compliance with federal fuel economy and emissions regulations, Pontiac had to drop the big engines that powered the Bandit era T/A's. Rather than stuff T/A's with the Chevrolet 350-cubic inch V-8 that powered Camaro Z/28's and Corvette's, Pontiac bolted the same Garret turbocharger Buick used on their blown 231-cubic inch V-6 to their 301-cubic inch V-8. An underwhelming legend was born. 

It wasn't all bad. At maximum boost, the turbo 301 spooled up 210-horsepower and 345-foot pounds. Not bad. Actually, on paper, that's more torque than the Pontiac 400 that made Bo Darville's car go. For the record, all the T/A's in Smokey and The Bandit, the original not the farcical sequels, were 1976 T/A's with the front ends from 1977 models affixed to them. There are conflicting stories about what was under the hood of the six T/A's used in "Smokey". For 1976, the standard Trans Am engine was Pontiac's 400-cubic inch V-8 and their 455 was optional. For 1977-1979, if a Trans Am has "T/A 6.6" on the Shaker, it has a Pontiac 400. If it says "6.6 LITRE", yes, "LITRE", it has Oldsmobile's 403-cubic incher. 

Problem was, the boost got spent quickly and after the reserve was gone, the engine wind milled. Buick's much smaller V-6 wasn't any better of course and GM only figured out how to make those engines run right with the advent of port fuel injection. Pontiac had planned to further refine the turbo 301 but GM scuttled Pontiac's engine program negating them to only pushing out (4-cylinder) "Iron Dukes". Fun fact, there's a hood bulge on 1982 and 1983 T/A's that was to make room for the turbo 301. 

My time in "Bandit era" T/A's was less than enthralling, perhaps not unlike going on a date with that girl that had that dark red '81 in high school. I found the ride harsh, flinty and truck like. Squeaks, rattles and moans and groans galore. They did handle well, everything is relative, and of course the big engines made the cars fly. And they looked so good. Damn. 

Back in high school, would you rather have been good looking or smart? 

 

1968 Pontiac Grand Prix - The Dustbin of Irrelevancy

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. 

1977 Pontiac Can Am - I Know. As If

Here's something you don't see everyday and you didn't see that many of them in the late Seventies either. It's not a Pontiac Grand Am, Grand Prix or Lemans, although it shares a lot of DNA with those cars, but a 1977 Pontiac Can Am. Excuse me, a what?

A one-year-only, 1977 Pontiac Can Am. Technically a 1977 1/2 Cam Am while we're at it and it's supposedly a mashup of the then current Pontiac Grand Prix and Trans Am; although it's based on a LeMans Sport Coupe. If you're of my certain, ahem, vintage, and you appreciate automobiles from your woe-be-gotten wonder years, you may have a proclivity to go bonkers over these things. I know I have, on occasion, done so. It's no "Smokey and The Bandit Trans Am" but us beggars born in the hey-day of the muscle car era, meaning by the time we came of driving age they were all but dead and buried, can't be choosers. 

Pontiac introduced these cars halfway through the 1977 model-year as either a re-imagining of the Pontiac GTO or a literal big send off to their intermediate sized coupes that were about to be hacked into upsized compacts. Legend has it Detroit ad man Jim Wangers, many give credit to Mr. Wangers for marketing the original GTO when he was Pontiac's public relations director, who approached Pontiac management with the idea of a Pontiac LeMans dressed up akin to a Carnival Red or orange, 1969 GTO Judge. The original inspiration was a 1975 Pontiac Grand Am decorated in a Bicentennial motif; that car never saw production. Can't blame Wangers as he was part of the team that came up with the GTO Judge in the first place.  Perhaps he saw the downsized, 1978 Pontiac mid-size models and thought these outgoing cars needed to go out guns blazing. 

Pontiac "suits" were not amused. When Wangers came back with a LeMans in Cameo white like the Grand Am Bicentennial car, tri-color stripes, body-colored rims and the shaker hood from the Trans Am, somewhat amazingly considering the era, they greenlighted the production of 5,000 Can Am's. 

The car was named after the Canadian American Cup Series races and were "special builds". They had the sportier looking dash from the then-current Grand Prix and the 220-horsepower, 6.6-liter (400-cubic inch) Trans Am engine; California and high-altitude areas got the 185-horse, Oldsmobile "403". They were shipped to Wangers' "Motortown" facility where they cut a hole in the hood, fitted the engine with the Trans Am's "Shaker" hood, applied the decals and installed the all-important fiberglass rear spoiler. The machine that made the spoilers broke after 1,377 were made and production ground to halt.  Apparently, you can't have no Cam Am with no rear spoiler. 

I have my doubts this a "real" Can Am, though. The exterior stripes are missing, good luck finding those, and that's a steering wheel from a Grand Prix and not the one found on other Can Am's. I doubt that's a dashboard for a Grand Prix as well. As far as the engine goes, Pontiac's non-Trans Am 400-cubic inch V-8 was available for 1977 on the LeMans as well. So was their far less powerful "350" and (new-for'77) 301 engines. But who knows. Jim Wangers has said there are a number of "Can Am clones" out there too. 

Why anyone would go through the trouble of cloning a 1977 1/2 Pontiac Can Am is anyone's guess. The lack of the stripes is disheartening, though. Especially on something with a Facebook Marketplace ask of $13,000. I know. As if. Take it from me, when you own a car this old that's had multiple owners, you're not only dealing with what you want to do it or have done, but what its myriad other owners have done to it too. I you're interested comment below. I'd triple check the build codes and VIN number. 

1981 Pontiac Phoenix - Rising From The Ashes

I don't tell many people this, but I failed my first driver's test in the fall of 1981. Yup. "Car guy" me failed it hook, line and sinker. And I was mortified. Especially since I had told "the gang" I aced it and I would be driving them "all over the place" in my old man's Cadillac as soon as the confirmation of my glorious passing came in the mail. 

To make matters worse, a three-month backlog to reschedule meant the B.M.O.C. life I dreamed of would be significantly shortened. Might as well spend it in detention or worse, on my aging Ross 10-speed like some sophomore. So, I hedged my bets. 

Swallowing hard on my enormous sense of self-worth, and really with no other choice since getting into a driver's ed class after school had already started was not possible, I enrolled in a driving school. Twice a week for the three months leading up to my rescheduled road test, a driving instructor would pull up to my house after I got home from school, and we'd go driving. On paper it was pure, unadulterated and unfiltered humiliation bordering on self-mutilation. In reality, it was a most pleasant experience despite the car the driving instructor showed up being a brand spanking new, 1981 Pontiac Phoenix. This junker here looks just like it.

   

I was not a fan of the all-new-for-1980, boxy and not good looking, front-wheel-drive Chevrolet Citation and its very similar minions introduced in the spring of 1979 as "early" 1980's. At first, however, it seemed I was alone with that sentiment as Chevrolet sold some 811,000 Citations for 1980 making it one of the most successful vehicle introductions in GM history. Legend has it that if factories where able to keep up with demand, they could have surpassed 1 million sold in an elongated 1980 model year. Throw in sales of the similar Buick Skylark, Oldsmobile Omega and the Pontiac Phoenix, they most certainly did. 

The implosion in sales of what were known internally at GM as the "X-bodies" is the stuff of legend. However, the ultimate failure of the Citation, Omega, Skylark and Phoenix had nothing to do with their appearance and all to do with how terrible an automobile they all were. Contrary to what many might think, looks aren't everything in the car business. After all, the car that inspired the X-bodies, the Volkswagen Rabbit, was certainly no looker but it was well-built, sensible, economical, efficient and affordable. Precisely what Middle-America was looking for in the darkest, deepest throes of what is referred to as the "Malaise Era". 

My instructor was a young man who was maybe ten years older than I was at the time. Affable, friendly, supportive and kind, he immediately put me at ease, and I got the feeling that things were going to work out fine for me. Especially after a couple of days instruction where he was impressed with my driving; he felt I may have failed my road test because the evaluator thought I was "too comfortable" behind the wheel. That's funny when I think about that in retrospect; my ability to appear comfortable in situations I was actually uncomfortable in readily apparent at the tender age of seventeen. That Phoenix I drove had an interior identical to this one. 

The Phoenix may have had something to do with my coming across as a competent young driver to a qualified, licensed driving instructor. Up to that point, the bulk of my driving had been behind the wheel of my father's oafish 1972 Cadillac Sedan deVille. An oversized, shuddering, phlegmy mess, I actually never felt totally at ease driving it but the diminutive, responsive Phoenix felt like a go-cart in comparison. Dare I say, I thought it fun to drive. In "Driver's Ed" the summer before my senior year, a gaggle of us shared time behind the wheel of a 1976 Plymouth Volare which was a paragon of performance compared to my father's Cadillac. 

Looks aside, the Phoenix wasn't perfect. Although it had that "new car smell", it had a mild vibration through it at all times and when parallel parking, if I locked the wheel too hard left or right, the engine would stall. My instructor sheepishly grinning and shrugging simultaneously. Aside from those foibles, it felt "modern", new and given its maneuverable size, was a good car to learn to drive in. I felt as though I could do anything behind the wheel of it except look cool or good. I took my rescheduled road-test in it and passed with flying colors. 

In many ways, that Phoenix reminds me of people I've met in life whom some thought despicable but that I never took exception to. That doesn't make those people not despicable, but while I give people the benefit of the doubt that they're not a-holes, they need to prove to me firsthand that they're either scum or saints. Prior to that experience in a GM "X-body", I had heard much about how bad they were, but that Phoenix did alright by me as my driving life began anew...rising from the ashes. 

1973 Pontiac Luxury LeMans - What is a Luxury Car?

A fellow member of a car group I belong to on Facebook says they recently bought this 1973 Pontiac Luxury LeMans to "save" it. "Saved" a term as broad as the rear fenders on it. It hails from the state of Washington so at least it's been spared the rust-breeding brine they put on roads up here in Northeast, Ohio during wintertime. Still appears to need everything if it's going to be truly "saved". 

I remember seeing GM Colonnade's like this as a car crazy nine-year-old running amuck at the New York Auto Show in the fall of 1972. Shout out to the long since demolished New York Coliseum in Columbus Circle in Manhattan. Their extended front bumpers with shock absorbers built into them were all the rage and made anything that didn't have them appear old and outdated. That's really funny now that I think about it given that cars made before 1973 are generally worth more now primarily because they don't have the battering ram "safety bumpers". 

I used to go weak in the knees over stuff like this. Seriously. However, my recent restoration of our 1977 Corvette has me appreciating a weekender that has a little something extra and really different from my daily drivers. The way I look at it these days, if your "classic" is going to break your heart and bank account, at least make it worthwhile to the seat of your pants. Your opinion may vary. See dealer for details.  

The first Pontiac LeMans was a top-of-the-line trim level on the weird and wonderful 1961 Tempest (above). With its canted, "half-of-a-389", inline four-cylinder paint-shaker and flexible, cable like driveshaft feeding torque to a transaxle, what's referred to colloquially as "rope drive", built on the same chassis that also underpinned the Chevrolet Corvair and Buick Skylark, the Tempest was arguably the oddest of a really odd bunch. That said, I really like 1961 and 1962 Tempests, I'll pass on the '63's.  And I'll take mine stuffed with a 326 cubic-inch V-8 although that saucy mill wasn't available until 1963. '61 and '62 Tempest's could be ordered with Buick's alloy, 215 cubic-inch V-8. No six-cylinder was offered on 1961-1963's Tempests and LeMans'.

For '62, LeMans became its own model line although it really was still a top-of-the-line Tempest. LeMans and Tempest were fused at the swing axle through '63 and were siblings through their more conventional GM A-body intermediate phase through 1970. For 1971 only, Tempest was replaced with something Pontiac called "T-37", also available in GTO knock-off guise as the "GT-37". From 1972 through 1981, LeMans was Pontiac's intermediate model. 

As muscle cars or cars with a whiff of performance got insurance surcharged up the tailpipe, they were replaced with "luxury" cars. Or anything deemed or termed remotely luxurious. Hence the madness of the "personal luxury car" niche of which, to some degree, Pontiac's "Luxury LeMans" could be lumped into if no other reason by what it's labeled as. Pontiac debuted the first Luxury LeMans in 1971, abovie is a 1972. I guess a luxury car was anything that the manufacturers said it was.  

These 1973-1977 "Colonnades" are nothing if not distinctive although, again, I'm a tad foggy on what the "Luxury" moniker really denotes on these otherwise mundane LeMans'. Aside from the fender skirts which were rare back then on anything that was considered "full-size". Somehow, they work, don't you think? 

New owner claims this has a "455" although there are no pictures of it. You don't post a picture you can claim anything you want. Seeing this is fairly devoid of most obvious luxury accoutrements like bucket seats and a console, I'd venture to guess this has a Pontiac 350 with a teeny-tiny two barrel. Just a hunch. You could technically get a "SD455" in one of these too although those only came with 4-speed manuals. 

Can you imagine this fender-skirted behemoth with an SD455 and a stick? That's something that even this recovering personal luxury car fan might be able to get his arms around. 

 

1969 Pontiac Firebird - Void Where Prohibited

This 1969 Pontiac Firebird reminds me of the bombed-out, rusty shells from my woe-be-gone, misbegotten youth. Thing is, this Facebook find has an asking price of some $7,500; that's all the money in the world for something that "needs everything" and is not a Trans Am.  

Junkers like this from back in the day had asking prices way more in line with the value of the dollar. If this came into my midst when I was 16 or 17 years old, I'd expect to pay around $1,000 for it. Maybe $1,500. Roughly $3,000 today give or take a five-hundred-bucks given the wonkiness of online, inflation calculators. Even so, back then it might have been money well spent since such a car would have punched my ticket to the "cool kids" table. Restore it? What? 

From 1967 through 2002, the Pontiac Firebird was the badge-engineered clone of the Chevrolet Camaro. Sure, there were disparate differences between the two cars but for all intents and purposes, they were the same cars albeit marketed at somewhat different buyers. 

Legend has it that in early 1966, GM wonks told then Pontiac General Manager John DeLoreon that he had little more than eighteen-months to cobble together a luxury-tinged Camaro akin to what Ford was doing with a Mustang for their Mercury division. Unlike what Mercury was able to do with the Mustang, suits didn't give John Z. and his team the lattitude to change the wheelbase or, save for front and rear facias, the body. Not that given such a short runway he would have been able to do much anyway. 

What was to become the "Firebird", a name used on Motorama Turbine Pontiac's from the 1950's, would be all Camaro save for some suspension tuning and of course GM's then odd policy of divisional engine autonomy. Even then they clamped down on limiting engine displacement and tuning. 

What scares me most about this car is not so much the beat up body and the lack of a top but the rusty frame. Frame repairs are tough because you have to find a welder willing to do the work and good ones you'll find will charge you an arm and leg. I'd figure at least $3,000 for frame work best done with the body off the car. You separating this fifty-three year old body and from it's frame yourself? 

$12,000-$15,000 for bodywork done right and that includes paint. $2,500 for a new top, $3,500 for an interior. Suspension work, all in, if you have a shop do it, will run you the dark side of five-grand. You want "vintage" air-conditioning too? Be prepared to pony up, son. How's the rear axle on this thing? Best best it'll need to be rebuilt to the tune of around $1,500. Holy smokes, this is adding up. 

Then of course there's the engine rebuild and transmission swap - this is an automatic car so out the factory door it came Oldsmobile's "Jetaway"\Buick "Super Turbine 300" two-speeder and not even a Chevrolet Powerglide.  Perhaps a Turbo Hydramatic was installed years ago. Who knows.Throw that slushie in the dumpster along with the cheesy Mickey Thompson (M/T) engine dress up kit.  You're looking at $6,000 all in to make this thing go fast. Or as fast as it looks. 

Given the asking price is $7,500 your price of admission is already quite high an don't count on the seller willing to take much less for it. At least not right now. Give them six-to-eight months of no one calling on it. They said there'd be no math when I started this blog but putting pencil to paper, you're looking at pushing $40,000 all in for this when it's said and done. 

There are first generation Camaro's and Firebird's out there in good shape with those kind of asking prices but if you're restoring this to flip it the margins dont make any sense. Ones that have been resto-modded, where more modern steering and suspension components have been used, will go for upwards of twice that. And they still ride like ox carts with square wheels. 

Figure the better part of a year to get it all done too. That's with you chipping in and doing some of the work yourself. Pick and choose your projects. Results will vary. Void where prohibited.