Here’s wishing all you CCers a very Broughamy New Year, and all the best for the rest of the year! All of us here at CC have found some pretty great cars to share, but as your Co-Brougham CC Chair (shared with Richard Bennett), I was especially pleased with finding both a 1978 Bonneville Brougham sedan and a 1979 Bonneville Brougham coupe. My New Year’s CC Wish?
To find a 1973 Pontiac Grand Ville four door (some memorable childhood memories were made seeing one). No, it doesn’t have an actual Brougham badge, but given that Pontiac started the modern use of the term Brougham in 1964, this is certainly a Brougham at heart. Wish me luck.
Tom, is it true the Chinese have declared this the Year of the Brougham? 🙂 May your 2013 be filled with happy dreams of padded vinyl tops and the finest, cushiest of velour upholstery! Looking forward to more classic finds in the new year.
And don’t forget the fake wood trim and stand-up hood ornaments! 🙂
This makes me wonder… was there ever a hood ornament WITH fake wood trim?
I don’t think so, but the ’67 Imperial had fake wood on the front fender emblems:
Not sure about a hood ornament, but the C230 and C231 JDM Nissan Laurel were available with side bump strips and sill trim that had fake wood trim between the bits of chrome, as shown below. And an internally-lit hood ornament was optional on the JDM Nissan Cedric/Gloria throught the 80s and 90s. Such decadence!
My New Year’s CC wish is to see more AMCs this year. The last one I saw was in 2011, and it was a Jeep. I love Jeeps from that era, but I’d love even more to bump into a Hornet or a Gremlin or, dare I dream it, a Matador. Maybe even a Barcelona Matador, which is about as broughamtastic as AMC managed to get.
Best of luck Tom. I haven’t seen a Grand Ville in YEARS! But if I should beat you to the punch, I’ll be sure and get you the perfect pic!
Happy New Year my fellow Broughamaniac!!!
Happy New Year!
Talk about memories, my grandparents had that 1973 Pontiac, identical to the color/roof/hubcaps.
Hope you find one built at 11AM on a Wednesday…low mileage Arizona example, always garage-kept.
And a Happy New Year to everyone!
I’ll be on the lookout for a Grand Ville — ’71s and ’72s are pretty great, too.
I bought a Brougham badge last night on ebay for $4 shipped, but measuring today, it is going to get lost against the colossally large Odyssey badge (we will see how long it takes my wife to realize it was added). The one I bought is only about 3″ long and the Ody emblem script is about 9″.
Oh, what to do?
That is great!!!
I have all kinds of Brougham badges that I have gotten from various junkyard cars over the years, so I could turn just about any car into a gen-u-ine Bro-ham!
You know Tom, you and I may be on the verge of starting 2013’s newest automotive trend, a Brougham Revival!
You know, Sajeev Mehta and another friend started the Brown Car Appreciation Society on Facebook (of which I am a member), and it got world-wide recognition, so maybe I should start a similar “Society”….
Hmmm….stay tuned….;)
I’ll sign up.
Still no Brougham Society on facebook?
Yes, look for The Brougham Society….
https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheBroughamSociety
Okay People, it’s now Official and up and running…
The Brougham Society!
Look for it on Facebook and let’s start a trend to end all trends!!!
The Sacred Order of the Brougham.
Novis Cotigo Wood Grain Velour Sic Semper.
A happy and healthy new year to all!
I don’t really fully understand Brougham-worship, but I’ve got something good (I hope) to contribute along those lines…
The Flickr of 20,000 Broughams – That Hartford Guy
This guy constantly posts all these great pictures of Broughamy cars, new ones show up essentially every single day. The stuff that he typically puts up I actually really like most of the time too, since it’s usually more towards the rare/unique side of the Brougham spectrum. I check back every couple weeks to see whats new and I’ve wasted many, many hours of my life clicking through all his pages. Somebody should drop him a line and let him know about CC, if he’s not already lurking around here somewhere already…
Here’s an awesome ’75 Grand Ville Brougham from the collection, in a rarely seen but very excellent factory color:
I saw that one the other day. It is currently on ebay and is a mint-condition survivor. Only 24,000 miles. Nice car! Here’s the link: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1975-Pontiac-Grand-Ville-Brougham-4dr-ht-All-Original-24K-Miles-A-C-MINT-/281043969704?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item416f86a6a8
Pic from the listing:
The “Power/Economy” gauge on these 70’s land barges is hilarious – two things these cars offered very little of! I noticed the build sheet lists that as a part of the Rally Gauge Package specifically, wonder if you could alternately get them with a tachometer still in 1975. That would be pretty neat…
I’d love to have that car. I dunno what I’d do with it exactly, but it would be fun.
You obviously have never driven one of these because they did offer power despite their size. My father’s ex- ’76 Bonneville Brougham with 400-4bbl would melt the RR tire. Several people that borrowed his car remarked about how “fast” it was. I can’t argue about the fuel economy though.
The Rally gauge cluster could be had with the analog clock or fuel economy gauge as shown. No tach was offered. The fuel economy gauge could be had by itself without the rally gauges also.
Cars ordered with just the digital clock and no rally gauges had a rather cheap looking instrument cluster: the left pod consisted of a fuel gauge, three tell-tales, and a black clock block-off plate.
The E-bay car is nicely optioned. Strange it wasn’t ordered with the power seat though. Love the custom finned wheelcovers. They look much classier than the Rally IIs in my opinion although they are delicate pieces: the plastic fins snap off easily.
In addition, the E-bay car is probably one of the best ’71-’76 B-bodies built. The Pontiac plant this thing was built at really put them together well. The ’76 Bonneville Brougham my father beat on was a much more quiet, solid, and overall better riding car than any of my ’73 big Pontiacs.
The ’78 Bonneville Brougham sedan (which I assume is the one pictured) has the *same* sagging rear bumper that my recently purchased (July) ’78 Olds Delta 88 Royale had before I finally knocked it off and replaced it with a decent one! Cheapest damn composite crap in those bumper inserts! Anyway, the ’78 Royale is, by my standards, sufficiently Broughamy, right down to the tan crushed velour seats (55/45 with driver’s six-way power control). But, Broughamophile as I am, the only thing I’ve ever owned that truly deserves the moniker is an ’83 Buick LeSabre Limited…but, um, isn’t “Limited” just Buick shorthand for “Brougham”?
I used to own the exact same engine, except that it was a pre-emissions version that lived inside a lighter/smaller ’70 Catalina hardtop sedan… and it was pretty slow despite it’s tweenage fuel economy. I’m sure it probably could have towed a small village up a 20 degree incline, so it had plenty of “power” in that regard, but it didn’t have the kind of power that would allow it to keep pace with base model automatic Honda Civics.
Sorry, this was supposed to be a reply to Junqueboi’s last comment – still haven’t mastered working CC on my phone.
looking for emblems 1975 pontiac grandville
looking for emblem for 1975 pontiac grandville