I must say that this is the least attractive front end to ever grace a rwd X body, which is saying something considering the earlier 4 slotted affair on the earlier Ventura II.
The LeMans of those years had virtually identical front end styling.
What is interesting is that for a brief time (about a year and a half) what were supposed to be the intermediate cars (LeMans, Malibu, Cutlass, Century/Regal) had a smaller wheelbase than the compacts (Ventury/Phoenix, Nova, Skylark, Omega). At the Olds dealer, the Omega seem to sell better to a more conservative older buyer, while the Cutlass sold to a younger buyer. I am not sure how that shuffled out at Pontiac. We had a relative in the family with a 1978 Phoenix who kept it until the late 1980s it was a basic 4 door automatic, 305, blue cloth interior. What I remember about that car that was most interesting about the X-body RWD is the lower half of the dash was metal. You did not see metal glove boxes that late.
At the 1977 Chicago Auto Show, Pontiac made a big splash introducing the “1977 1/2” Phoenix as a “new car”. It was meant to compete with Granada/Monarch as a ‘lux compact’.
But, then, for 1978, then whole Ventura line was renamed Phoenix, with base models. And, the new LeMans/GP came out at same size. Phoenix was overlapping so then dealers were pushing the base models as price leaders.
For ’79, with FWD X cars coming, the old RWD models were kicked out after 6 months.
So, good question is why did Pontiac bother with rename and all the promotion, for a short run? Most likey was to lead into the FWD X cars.
My great uncle had a gold 1978 Phoenix, absolute stripper price leader – he drove that car for what seemed like forever – at least 15 years until he could not drive any more! I will never forget one day I was driving down a secondary road with a 45 MPH speed limit. There was a line of traffic in front of me and a huge line forming behind me, traveling about 20 MPH. I remember thinking who the heck is causing this mess – sure enough my uncle was the one leading the pack in his gold Phoenix, trudging along on his way home!
I get to be the outlier here, I was rather fond of that car’s styling. It really worked well for me, and I also liked the contemporary G body Pontiac with the similar styling.
I must say that this is the least attractive front end to ever grace a rwd X body, which is saying something considering the earlier 4 slotted affair on the earlier Ventura II.
The LeMans of those years had virtually identical front end styling.
What is interesting is that for a brief time (about a year and a half) what were supposed to be the intermediate cars (LeMans, Malibu, Cutlass, Century/Regal) had a smaller wheelbase than the compacts (Ventury/Phoenix, Nova, Skylark, Omega). At the Olds dealer, the Omega seem to sell better to a more conservative older buyer, while the Cutlass sold to a younger buyer. I am not sure how that shuffled out at Pontiac. We had a relative in the family with a 1978 Phoenix who kept it until the late 1980s it was a basic 4 door automatic, 305, blue cloth interior. What I remember about that car that was most interesting about the X-body RWD is the lower half of the dash was metal. You did not see metal glove boxes that late.
At the 1977 Chicago Auto Show, Pontiac made a big splash introducing the “1977 1/2” Phoenix as a “new car”. It was meant to compete with Granada/Monarch as a ‘lux compact’.
But, then, for 1978, then whole Ventura line was renamed Phoenix, with base models. And, the new LeMans/GP came out at same size. Phoenix was overlapping so then dealers were pushing the base models as price leaders.
For ’79, with FWD X cars coming, the old RWD models were kicked out after 6 months.
So, good question is why did Pontiac bother with rename and all the promotion, for a short run? Most likey was to lead into the FWD X cars.
My great uncle had a gold 1978 Phoenix, absolute stripper price leader – he drove that car for what seemed like forever – at least 15 years until he could not drive any more! I will never forget one day I was driving down a secondary road with a 45 MPH speed limit. There was a line of traffic in front of me and a huge line forming behind me, traveling about 20 MPH. I remember thinking who the heck is causing this mess – sure enough my uncle was the one leading the pack in his gold Phoenix, trudging along on his way home!
I get to be the outlier here, I was rather fond of that car’s styling. It really worked well for me, and I also liked the contemporary G body Pontiac with the similar styling.