The 1960s were arguably the high-water mark for Pontiac styling and image, under the leadership of Bunkie Knudsen, Pete Estes, and John DeLorean. It was the beginning of the wide-track era, which actually began in 1959 with an all-new Pontiac. I found an abundance of 1960s Pontiacs at the Mecum Spring Classic muscle-car auction a couple weeks ago. Here are the best of them from my visit, like this ’60.
Front- and rear-end styling were toned down a bit from ’59. I like the ’59 front end but prefer the ’60 tail.
The Catalina name had been part of the Pontiac story since 1950, but at first only on hardtops in combination with Pontiac’s existing series names. Catalina became a series of its own, Pontiac’s entry-level car, in 1959.
The Bonneville name was new in 1960, supplanting the Star Chief at the top of the Pontiac hierarchy. This ’64 Bonne wagon was built the second year of Pontiac’s stacked-headlight look, which was aped across much of the industry over the next several years.
I pay a lot of attention to automotive styling; it’s what got me interested in cars as a very small boy. And even while very young, I could see that nobody could bend sheet metal into a pleasing line like Pontiac during the 1960s. Pontiac even designed cool tail lights, and even on their station wagons.
The other thing that is apparently hard to get right is dashboards, at least from where I sit. Maybe I’m just too harsh a critic, but I find so few dashboards to be aesthetically pleasing. Pontiac, however, did a pretty good job with dashboards during the 1960s. They tended to be wide and flat, like this one, but still attractive and in harmony with the exterior styling.
Pontiac also launched swelled-hips styling across much of the industry in 1965 with the Grand Prix. This one’s a ’66.
There’s just not a bad line anywhere on this car.
I’ve always thought that a white interior was a bold statement on the automaker’s part. It says a lot about the car’s owner, too, as long as it stays clean, at any rate. Dark interiors hide a multitude of cleanliness sins.
In 1967, Pontiac’s styling went from hippy to voluptuous. Even though the Pontiacs of the early-mid 1970s would be even larger, no subsequent Pontiac exceeds the ‘67’s sense of sheer mass.
Pontiac’s upside-down-hockey-stick era of tail lights began in 1967. A frowning rear end doesn’t sound like a good idea, but Pontiac made it work. And weren’t Pontiac’s individually lettered name badges cool?
Here’s the ultimate ’67 Pontiac, the Grand Prix. In convertible form, it doesn’t look much different from the Bonneville.
Except for the front and rear clips, of course. But even the dashboards and seats were the same in these cars.
But this GP is stuffed full of Pontiac’s biggest available engine in 1967, the 428. It generated at least 375 horsepower that year.
Beautiful cars, all of them. Pontiac was really on the ball styling-wise and performance-wise. I wonder when did Canada get the Parisienne model, equivalent to the Bonneville south of the Border?
I am going to guess that we got the Cheviac Parisienne in 59 ….I might be wrong , I know we had on by 1960 ?
I’m confused about the Parisenne. Everyone says it was available only in Canada but I had an Uncle in Dallas that had a 1964 model he bought new. He claimed that he got it off the showroom floor. I hope someone can clear it up for me.
I just goggled the Parisenne. It was first available in 1958. And it say the Parisenne wasn’t available in the US until 1986. So how did my uncle buy one new in Dallas in 1964?
In Canada, Pontiac was historically more downmarket than in the U.S., and the cars it sold were often more closely related to Chevrolets than to U.S. Pontiacs. Between the late 1930s and 1970, fullsize Pontiacs sold in Canada had sheetmetal that resembled their American counterparts, but rode on a Chevrolet chassis, using the Chevrolet wheelbase and Chevrolet engines. A completely different set of model names was used. Parisienne was one of them. It was more-or-less the equivalent to the U.S. Bonneville. As of the early 1980s, the Parisienne name was still in use in Canada.
In 1982, U.S. Pontiac decided to drop its fullsize B-bodies in the wake of Energy Crisis II, moving the Bonneville name to a smaller G-body. Pontiac Canada disagreed with the decision to drop the B-body (probably for no more reason than that Chevrolet still had one), and put the Parisienne name on a badge-engineered Chevy Caprice for the 1982 model year. After a year, U.S. Pontiac thought better of its decision to drop the B-body Bonneville, and decided to bring back a B-body for the 1983 model year. Since the Bonneville name was still in use on a G-body, Pontiac turned to its Canadian branch and introduced the Parisienne in the U.S. This was the first time the Parisienne name had ever been used in the U.S. market. It remained in production through 1986 (the former Parisenne Safari wagon continued until 1989, but was just called the “Safari” from 1987 on).
I have no idea how your uncle was able to buy a new Parisienne in Dallas in 1964. I suppose that if someone had wanted to bring one in from Canada, it could have been done. In those days, there were significant tariffs on cars imported from the U.S. to Canada, but probably not the other way around; there probably wasn’t much in the way of emissions or safety requirements that a car would need to be certified for; and parts and service for a Canadian Pontiac’s mechanicals, at least, would have been easy to obtain in the U.S. (Finding sheetmetal and trim parts that were not common to U.S. Pontiacs would have been another story entirely….)
The ‘non-wide track’ of the Canadian 1960 Pontiac is clearly visible here.
My uncle (dad’s younger brother) was a trade commissioner for the Canadian government, and a notorious cheapskate to boot. While he lived all over the world, his final posting in the late 70s was to Dallas. He took with him his rusted, patched, bondo-encrusted, Rustoleum (Tremclad in Canada) brush painted, windshield and backlite sealed with house caulking ’66 Strato-Chief. Imagine this heap with Texas Consular Official plates. I think the frame finally broke and he sold it to some migrant workers who wanted the 283 out of it. He replaced it in 1979 with a used black ’74 Caprice 4 door hardtop that wore the consular plate a little better.
1964 was just before the Canada-US Autopact was signed between the two countries. The dealer must have taken the initiative to import the Parisienne. I can see one coming across the border to Michigan, but Texas? Perhaps it was brought in for a Canuck who had moved to settle down there?
Growing up in Edmonton American Pontiacs prior to 1969 were for the most part brought here by individuals or families who immigrated to Canada. That goes for certain Buick, Oldsmobile or some Chrysler models that we didn’t get from the U.S. American Pontiacs if I remember correctly were beginning in the 1969 model year.
Here’s a ’63 ad that mentions the US models, so were available at least this early. The first US Pontiac I ever saw was a ’66 Bonneville funeral car, one of those stretch jobs built by Superior or Armbruster-Stageway. I remember being mesmerized by the width of the taillights. There were a number of Pontiac Hearses that were sold here, but generally the blue block engine was a mystery to us. I remember a handful of ’69 Grand Prixs around, and the fights that started when someone claimed it was a 428, while other troglodytes would claim that they full of crap, that’s a Ford engine!
Wow, I doubt many Bonnevilles or Catalina models were sold up here back then. They probably would have cost way more than a Parisienne. As for Tempest and LeMans models they must have been even more rare back in 63 up here.
I had forgotten about Bonnevilles as limos or hearses for the funeral industry. Superior had an office in Red Deer, Alberta where I worked at the television station in 1974. I think it was simply a regional office but recall walking near the downtown area and passing their lot which had several cars parked there.
From my experience, American Pontiacs began selling in greater numbers starting in 1969. And you’re right the Grand Prix of that year must have sold really well. They seemed to be everywhere in the Edmonton area. Beautiful cars and the 69 model was voted by Car Life magazine as the best engineered car for 1969.
Amazing to see that ad. My father had a 1959 Catalina, bought at Midtown Motors, Montreal. I never knew how he got the US car–as far as I knew we had the only one in Montreal, but maybe the dealers were selling lots. The wide-track 59s were sure better looking than the Cdn edition, which looked like boxcars teetering that narrow wheelsman have a look at http://autoliterate.blogspot.com/2012/08/1959-catalina.html
Wow….gold with a RED interior, now that’s pretty bold, at least by today’s standards.
I still find it sad that GM tossed Pontiac but kept Buick….a brand that debuted several styling touches for GM and/or the whole industry.
Buick was and is doing very well in China, thus retain the brand. I too am sad that Pontiac is gone.
There’s no Holden or Vauxhall badged cars sold in America regardless of success overseas(not necessarily recent), why can’t Buick just become an overseas only entity too if they’re the only ones who actually want them?
I think they do enough volume here to make it somewhat profitable. Also, practically all, maybe 100%, of dealers mostly sell GMC so extra effort for Buick doe not require extra real estate, staff, overhead, etc. Buick units sold are thus mostly profit.
I have a feeling that if GM tried to make Buick a China-only brand, you’d see a whole slew of lawsuits here in the U.S. by franchised dealers who would claim they can’t possibly survive on trucks alone.
This attitude has something to do with the creation of the Verano. Once again, being forced to only sell Regals and LaCrosses after having lost Pontiac (and not being able to go head to head with the local Chevy dealer) survival was a (supposed) impossibility.
My father always took pride in that Chevrolet listened to its dealers feedback intently. With the dissolution of Sloan’s system of escalating brands, if anything General Motors has listened to its dealers too much in the past few decades. Dealers only think in the short terms, and if a certain Chevrolet model is hot this week, the Pontiac dealers were immediately screaming for their own version.
Brand identity? What’s that? We’re talking moving the metal THIS WEEK, boy!
1959 to 1969. What a great era for Pontiac,just about every car they built looked good, and had enough individuallity to make the special. Damn shame that GM, in all its wisdom axed Pontiac along with Oldsmobile, but sadly enough, the car market has changed. I doubt we`ll ever see cars and interiors this good looking again, but like they say, thats showbiz. We are all the poorer for it.
Beautiful. Those first two take me back. My Aunt Norma and Uncle John had a copper 60 Catalina sedan. The front end of the 60 has a way of being clean and simple yet slightly aggressive that nobody else had mastered by 1960, when stylists were trying to bring the level of the headlights down.
Then my Grandma had a 64 Catalina sedan in the very same color combo as that Bonnie wagon. I used to love that golden steering wheel.
Beautiful cars, all. I will echo Howard on that gold car with red interior – a very unusual combination.
Sure works well with the red stripe tires and the red “428” badge. Maybe that’s what they had in mind when they ordered it?
Bill Mitchell did not like the ’59 front end. He ordered the guys to rework it for ’60 and wanted them to emulate the Miller indycar front end.
And then the ’59 Pontiacs sold very well in relation to the ’58’s; so it suddenly “bring the split grille back”.
Even Bill Mitchell could guess wrong.
Nothing sold well in 1958; it was a steep recession. Well, except Ramblers and imports, that is.
BTW, the 1960 Pontiacs outsold the ’59s. It had nothing to do with Bill Mitchell “being wrong”.
I’ve always found the pre-eagle-beak Pontiacs of the early/mid 1960’s most cohesive and well thought out cars, inside and out.
Their interiors and exteriors were in perfect harmony. Their dashboards full of gauges and in dash A/C vents were a joy to use as well as look at. Their seat designs and door panels were the epitome of 1960’s “cool”.
After they acquired the pointy nose grille they lost favor in my eyes.
“I like the ’59 front end but prefer the ’60 tail.”
Not me. It’s 1960, all the way. The ’60 Pontiac was head-and-shoulders above everyone else and should have been the number one best seller of all brands that year.
The only one I’d give a slight edge to would be the following year, mainly because the 1961 ‘bubble top’ hardtops were cleaned-up and looked better.
But, yeah, it’s hard to go wrong with just about any Pontiac from 1959 thru 1969. About the worst that can be said for the styling of any Pontiac in that time period was they were ‘above average’. That can’t be said for anyone else, who all had a loser or two in the styling department at some point in the sixties.
I see that Pontiac’s expensive vented 8 lug drum/wheels have become universal now on these cars. How odd; back in the day, they were very rare; maybe the occasional GP might be seen with them. But a 1960 Catalina 2 door sedan? They weren’t even available in 1960. And a 1964 station wagon? Not likely.
But they are beautiful wheels, and the aftermarket for them must be brisk, as pretty much every Pontiac of this era seems to be sporting them.
The Bonneville wagon depicted in the ’64 brochure had the 8-lugs. This car already has a couple of expensive and somewhat rare options (factory a/c and power windows) so it’s not too farfetched to say that the original owner coughed up the bucks for 8-lugs as well…..
http://oldcarbrochures.org/NA/Pontiac/1964-Pontiac/1964-Pontiac-Brochure/1964-Pontiac-10-11
You are right though. Restored big Pontiacs always seem to have 8-lugs when they were actually quite rare.
Of course the brochure showed them…to best effect. But the odds of them being on an actual wagon are very small. It’s the kind of thing I was acutely aware of at the time.
How much are you willing to bet they were original to this car? 🙂
As for the wagon, probably not.
Which brings me to a related question. Were there really as many ’60s muscle cars with plain dog dish hubcaps as there seem to be at car shows and auctions? I can understand a car that was spec’ed out to race (radio/heater delete, etc) but by and large these were top of the line models. Even in ’60s money full wheel covers weren’t that much more.
Let’s just say I made my debut along with the Mach I Mustang and the GTO Judge. My earliest recollection of a genuine muscle car was a ragged out Dodge Super Bee that occasionally visited a house around the corner from us circa 1974.
I think a lot of guys ordered muscle cars with standard wheels because on “day 2” they were going to pull them off and replace them with Cragar S/S’s or American Racing Torque Thrusts. Today people are restoring cars to “day 1” factory look and also they like the sleeper look. In 1970 nobody wanted the sleeper look so I don’t recall seeing many dog dishes. Actually i do remember seeing many cars with plain steel wheels.
I remember about 20 years ago, as a little kid, when Muscle cars were starting to be restored, a lot of the survivors you’d see wore steelies, whether a nice condition barn find or a basket case covered in clutter and dirt. It seemed like post-restoration they all sported Magnum 500s, and only in the last decade do you see steelies and dog dishes showing back up.
I think the standard of restoration keeps going up and up with them. Muscle cars weren’t worth what they are now in the 80s and early 90s when many restored ones were mostly cosmetic restorations, so often the restorers would throw every option on they could – Mag 500s, rear window louvers, spoilers, ect. Now that those cars are now judged concours style the meticulousness is way up and those original restorations in the 80s and 90s are now being restored again to OCD levels in order to justify the inflated values.
I think what you see with these Pontiacs wearing 8 lugs is what you saw with every 60s muscle car wearing magnum 500s in the 90s. The Non-GTO/Firebird Pontiacs are still relatively cheap entry models on the collector market, much like the formers used to be, and repops of the coolest looking wheels/drums for them are widely available, and look totally stock, so they rightfully “figure why not?”
Not typically. Back then, steel wheels and dog dishes screamed “poverty mobile”, and was avoided at all costs. The only ones that ordered them that way were the racers, or as workingstiff said, if they were going to be mounting after market wheels right away.
If absolutely necessary, you ran bare steel wheels or baby moons; anything was better than factory dog dishes. Times change….
Our ’65 Impala, purchased from dealer stock not special order, came with dog dishes. I thought that odd because the full wheel covers were all you saw in the brochure pictures and the car had average equipment for the top trim level of a workingman’s brand, 327 4bbl, Powerglide, heater/defroster, windshield washer, pushbutton AM radio and whitewalls, all optional equipment at the time.
When I got hold of the car at 16, the dog dish steelies stayed, but whitewalls were history along with the extra quiet resonator exhaust.
I think most people restoring them now want to run those wheels because they are unique and a great conversation piece.
Kelsey-Hayes 8 lug wheels were first available in 1960. This photo of the 1960 NHRA Nationals shows Jim Wangers (of Pontiac advertising fame) driving a ’60 Catalina to a stock class win.
I don’t think it’s odd that they are prevalent. People like to upgrade their collector cars with period options that were theoretically available when new.
Pontiac wanted to put a version of the 8 lug on GTO’s but they were too costly.
There’s no reference to them in the 1960 Pontiac brochure. I’m guessing they were a special-order deal for the serious racers in 1960. The first brochure/ad renderings with them date from 1960.
8 lugs wheels have to be balanced on the car and i doubt they save weight. By ’62 nobody was using them in drag racing so they were for looks only.
The original goal of 8-lugs was to improve braking performance.
Paul 1960 was the first year for the 8 lug wheels which were credited to John DeLorean.
http://www.pontiacparadise.com/parts-id/8-lug-wheels.php
According to “Pontiac’s Greatest Decade” by Paul Zazarine the 8 lug wheels were a mid year 1960 option.
I remember the Pontiac eight-lug wheels from when I was a kid. Those wheels were very sharp, and certainly dressed up the appearance of the car.
But they were also relatively rare…and you certainly didn’t see them on station wagons or two-door sedans. The people who bought those cars new weren’t going to spend a lot of money on fancy wheels.
Buyers of two-door sedans tended to be tightwads; while station wagon buyers generally had families. Neither of those buyers were going to spend money on fancy wheels.
These are all very nice. As someone born in the early-1990s, the only Pontiacs I have memories of were the over-styled (and frankly very ugly), plastic-cladded, cheapo interior ones of the 90s and early 00s. It’s refreshing to see Pontiacs like this!
I’d never seen a 66 GP before. I love the taillights. They look like the GTO but all the way across.
I’m not a fan of being asked what my favorite car, book, etc. is. The word favorite feels too restrictive. I like a lot of cars, books, etc.
But, under duress, I’d probably tell you my favorite styled car is the ’65 / ’66 Pontiac full size. I like them in all trims, but the Grand Prix and Bonneville do wear their gingerbread exceedingly well.
The Smithsonian seems to agree that ’60s Pontiacs are something. I was there last summer, and came across this ’67 Grand Prix. The backstory was that it had belonged to its first owner couple a very long time, and it was used to travel and see virtually every state – with no AC in this case. It still amazes me that once a person became aware how wonderful AC is in a hot car, that a person would spring for a fairly expensive car and omit AC. A Catalina coupe with AC would have cost a good chunk less and been more comfortable, and still quite stylish.
I had not been around a full-size car from this era in quite some time, and this actually seemed small!! The proportions are just radically different from today’s cars – the hood, top and deck lid seemed incredibly low. My kids were not impressed when I called this a big car.
My I phone isn’t the greatest camera, but this picture at the Smithsonian is quite accurate. The car does show some patina……..
+1 on not liking to be asked “What’s your favorite…?”
Doesn’t bug me, I have many favorites, and the list changes regularly.
The Bonneville was first used on the 1958 models, as the top of the line, moving the Star Chef down.
1957 was the beginning as a limited production model.
The Bonneville name was first used in 1957 on a limited-production, extremely expensive (by Pontiac standards) personal luxury halo model that came only as a convertible. Only 630 were built.
For 1958, the Bonneville continued as a special top-of-the-line personal luxury model, but it was decontented to a price point just beyond the top of Pontiac’s normal range, and a coupe was added to the lineup. About 12K were built.
For 1959, Pontiac extensively revamped its model lineup. At this point, the Bonneville became more of a “regular” model, expanding to a full range of models (including 4-doors) and effectively taking the place of the Star Chief as the top series in Pontiac’s model lineup. The Star Chief continued but was bumped down a notch in the Super Chief’s former territory; the Super Chief name went away. There was no longer a specific model serving the purpose of the 1957-58 Bonneville.
The 1957 Bonneville was fuel-injected. My Dad’s good friend had one from new – in Kenya white and blue. I’ve got a photo somewhere around here…
The article said 1960, which I knew was off. Pontiac’s 57 brochure did not show it (or the one I found didn’t). The Bonneville started off kind of like the Impala, a special model. Wikipedia indicates that the 57 Bonneville was a limited edition Star Chef convertible.
Beautiful cars. My grandfathers ’65 Bonneville convertible, beige with white top and interior was a beautiful machine. It had the 8 lug wheels as well. He kept it like new, and only lowered the top to take pictures of it. When he passed in 1971 it was a treat to lower the top and take it for a drive. A crazy friend had a ’65 GTO 4 speed that was a car I also admired. It was originally a 4 bbl but he had installed a tri-power on it. He almost fell out when he was hooning the local mountain roads and the door popped open just from body flex. Golden age of GM for sure.
The 1960 Pontiac was and still is a great looking car. Smart to do away with the 59’s wings.
Beautiful, elegant cars! I also love the steering wheel in that wagon. Is that the A/C control panel to the left of the radio? Nice “symmetry”!
Agreed on the dashboards, too. The one in Dad’s 68 Catalina is still my all-time favorite. it was indeed flat-similar to the one pictured from the wagon-but with a nice, darker-grained wood finish, and the air conditioning vents were better integrated. Minimal instrumentation, but it was all legible. And it had that wonderful push-button HVAC control panel, styled to look like another push-button radio. (Stylish, but expensive to fix-those buttons had to go a long way into the dash to reach their destination.) Nice to look at on a long trip, which was this car’s forte.
I remember the beginning of the Wide-Track era with the 1959 Pontiac. That year’s car was a refreshing change from the still-stodgy 1958 model, without going to extremes as did the 1959 Chevrolet. The split grille was especially fresh-looking.
But then on the 1960 Pontiac, the split grille disappeared. I remember thinking that this meant it had just been a passing fancy.
But no…it reappeared on the 1961 Pontiac, a smaller, trimmer and especially graceful car, though there apparently were none at this auction; and remained a Pontiac styling feature to the end.
To this day, I have wondered…what happened in 1960 to make Pontiac drop the split grille, when they returned to it with such gusto the very next year and far beyond?
From what I’ve read, Bunkie Knudsen wasn’t exactly enamored with the split grille, so he didn’t object when proposals for the 1960 model substituted a pointed front for the split grille.
Customers, however, loved the split grille, but it was too late to change the front of the 1960 model by the time this was apparent. The split grille returned for 1961, and for 1962, both the split grille and the “point” returned to the front.
That ’64 Bonneville wagon brings back some “searing” memories. Back in, probably, 1965 (or so) a next door neighbor kid and another kid down the street did the one thing all our parents most feared and admonished us against; they played with matches. And darned near burned the house down. The family had a ’64 Pontiac wagon, light metallic tan in color. I’d ridden in its cavernous “way-back” several times. I remember my folks taking me down the street to see the fire damage and, of course, teach me a graphic lesson. The family’s now-charred black Poncho wagon was pulled out in the driveway from where it had been in the equally charred garage, near where the fire started in the basement. It looked for all the world like something beelzebub himself had driven straight out of hell. My parents succeeded in scaring me s*#tless about playing with matches, at least for awhile. It also left a searing impression of ’64 Poncho wagons on my young 5 year old brain that somewhat remains to this day.
Nice cars and from an era when we could actually buy them new however we mostly got Cheviacs with the narrow track and 283 engines not real Pontiacs.
We also had Cheviacs,regular Chevys and Pontiacs and Acadians just to confuse everyone.Seeing these beautiful cars I can’t help wondering how it all ended so badly for Pontiac.
Simple. Pontiac dealers couldn’t stand it that a Catalina was more expensive than an Impala, which meant they couldn’t easily steal sales from the local Chevrolet dealer. So GM turned Pontiac into a rebadged Chevrolet. And Pontiac dealers could compete with the neighboring Chevrolet dealer to their heart’s content . . . . . . . until they suddenly found out they didn’t have a particularly special car to sell anymore.
But what dealer thinks thirty seconds beyond this months sales figures?
What luck for the family to open the Pontiac dealership in 1961! Lots of forgettable product, but some truly remarkable cars kept popping up right up to the end (G8).
While the ’60 front is pleasant, it just doesn’t fit a Pontiac. And the ’59 front was so much more… Fitting.
Same thing happened with the ’62 Tempest, but then they were back to a split grille for ’63
I remember quite a lot of disappointment at the time of the debut of the 1960 model. That split-grille on the 1959 was awesome and Pontiac quickly went back to it with great success throughout the 60’s. The 1960 is not a bad looking car, it just isn’t distinctive and trendsetting as was the 1959.
There are only details to argue about concerning 1960s full size Pontiacs. They’re beautiful. Zenith of the brand and US manufacturing. Beautiful, durable, and accessible to the majority of new car buyers. Probably the last time there was truth in advertising too, thank you Van and Art.
Owners today should be heavily subsidised to parade about in these artifacts for their positive contribution to the public realm. Paint dedicated parking spaces for them too, safe from door flinging klutzes. These cars make me smile a lot.
Very lovely array. I think I’d prefer the 67 Bonneville to the Grand Prix, that face is so sculpturally amazing. Just swap the colours over; I’m good with the gold/red combo. I’ll take the GP’s wheels as well.
It has also struck me that the upside-down-hockey-stick taillights of the 1967+ Pontiacs looked like they were frowning – I liked that observation. Which brings me to this: even though cars don’t have a humanly “facial” anatomy, I’ve always seen the fronts and backs of cars as having features and personalities similar to those of living things, if that makes sense at all.
When I think of what Pontiac was, and then what it became, I can understand why it was euthanized. That dog might still tree a coon, but it couldn’t be counted on to hunt.
I had a ’67 Grand Prix convertible. The Grand Prix was built on the shorter Catalina wheelbase with Bonneville level trim. 1967 was the only year Pontiac offered a Grand Prix convertible on the RWD chassis. They made around 5,600 of them. Another interesting piece of trivia: the Grand Prix models sold in Pennsylvania did not have the parking lights/turn signals above the bumper since they would not pass PA inspection regs. PA cars had black painted plates under the slits and Catalina/Bonneville signals in the front valance
At the Pontiac dealer in PA near my home, they didn’t use “black painted plates” – they simply filled in the slits with black goop.
As for the red GP convertible in the Smithsonian pictured above, a convertible in those days with factory a/c was quite scarce, I’m sure (except perhaps for Lincoln Continental and Cadillac de Ville). Even a car with power windows, seat, etc. might not be equipped with a/c. I myself drove a ’66 Bonneville 389 convertible with factory air for many years, and I’ve only rarely seen another ’59-’68 large GM convertible with a/c, in person or in photos.
I have had 4 1960s convertibles and all had factory A/C. My ’66 T-bird and my ’67 Grand Prix were originally sold in Florida and my ’64 1/2 Mustang was sold in Albuquerque, NM. My ’63 Lincoln was an original Pennsylvania car.
My Grand Prix was sold new to a retired GM exec through the Pontiac Factory Store and was delivered in West Palm Beach. The car had nearly every factory option including front disc brakes, tilt wheel, power windows, locks and antenna, reclining passenger seat, headrests, AM/FM Stereo, cruise control and Redline tires. The only things missing were the 428, 4-speed, power seats and 8-track. The disc barke cars had unique wheels to clear the calipers and special Disc Brake wheel covers.
The color was Tyrol Blue with a Pearl White interior with Black dash and carpet and a White top.
I always had a weak spot for Pontiacs, ever since a friend of my older brother brought home a spotless 48 convertible. My younger brother had a 63 Catalina in high school, which he sold after he got married. 20+ years ago, I was talking to him on the phone while browsing the local Recycler (think Craigslist in print), and saw this one for sale here in the L.A. area. Took several days to contact the seller, when I finally saw it, it was almost (except for no bucket seats) a dead ringer for his high school car. Bought from the original owner, a 389 4 speed car with the 8 lug wheels. The story was the original purchaser was looking for a 3 speed, but this was the only stick they had on the lot the day he was shopping for a car. It was completely rebuilt after he got it. Purchased new at the Pontiac dealer in Hollywood, it lived in the high desert around Lancaster, CA. The overall condition, other than the sun faded paint, was amazing. Not a speck of rust in it, and every area the sun hadn’t touched was like brand new. It had to be redone a few years ago after a tornado dropped the garage on it (fortunately minimal damage). They’re just gorgeous cars.
I missed one helluva deal in the early 70s, a friend told me about coworker of his mother, she had an ‘old car’ in her barn. I went to look at it, a spotless 64 Bonneville convertible, red with red/white interior. Beautiful car. had a blown transmission, and had been sitting in the barn since the late 60s. Had plastic seat covers, the interior and exterior were flawless. “How much?” the answer… “$150”. Just out of high school, working part time, I said DEAL! Unfortunately, I spent so much time drooling over the car, I was late to work, and got fired, so no money for the car, damnit. That’s one I always think of as ‘the one that got away’.
There’s just not a bad angle anywhere on these cars.
I really like the 1960 Pontiac, of course they all look good up to the ’67 that just doesn’t work for me.