Sometimes, individual cars tell a story by representing profound corporate triumph or failure. Other times, cars seem to speak to the conditions they lived their life in. Occasionally, they can reveal the personality that customized them. Today’s junked rarity with a bad toupee represents all three.
It would take some time to make sense behind the idea to bestow Pontiac’s supposedly rakish –yet slow-selling– late ’70s X-body coupe with a vision-blocking slab of fake convertible top. All to transform it into, presumably, a mobile brothel. This is a car that has some stories to tell; not just from its ill-fated conception but its probably hard-partying life as well.
Yes, you are seeing this correctly. The entirety of the rear side glass has been intentionally obscured with and ambitious faux convertible top. The sheer size of this project has brought with it one of the largest cases of vinyl top cancer I’ve ever seen. Check out the length of that rust-through!
The fake snap rings call to mind the Landau-fied Mustang we saw here a while ago, where the fake snap rings went over the hatchback. And it’s difficult to notice, since the fabric has pulled away, but the material was attached under the additional chrome trim on the trunk lid. This means the faux convertible top moved with the trunk lid, requiring that convenient slit to relieve the tension.
That’s not where this car’s builder ended his crimes against good taste; the side glass naturally still exists under the added bling. A layer of gross old foam and designed-in rust lay beneath it.
But they didn’t cover up the inside! You just had to sit there in the shadow of this monstrosity looking at that scabby old glue! C’mon now. A simple strip of fabric would have made the execution vastly more cohesive.
Given the only reason I presume for creating such a massive blind spot would be to protect potential intimacy, this shoddy workmanship might put a damper on the mood.
Fortunately, we know who was to blame for rendering the back seat of this budget Pontiac conveniently opaque. Since Grady was kind enough to sign his car.
This particular example of the Pontiac Phoenix is so thoroughly used up that it’s difficult to see its formerly upscale intentions. Pontiac’s rather lackluster effort at dressing up the Chevy Nova with a gigantic schnoz deserves more attention than I can write here (links below), but it was not met with great enthusiasm from the market.
As someone born long after Phoenixes vanished from the streets, it took me poring over full model line brochures and discovering a familiar face lurking in the background to notice the Phoenix existed at all.
Other divisions did well initially with the early RWD X Body, but the first generation Phoenix has been mostly forgotten thanks to its short ’77-’79 production run. Its similar Grand Am and LeMans in-house competitors were more popular.
The Phoenix was already one of the more cynical products of GM’s family of downsized compacts. The deeply questionable modifications done to this particular doomed Pontiac only enhance the malaisey mood. It’s hard not to see this car as the culmination of a series of poor decisions for both Pontiac and Grady alike.
Related CC reading:
Cohort Classic: 1975-79 Pontiac Ventura & Phoenix – Seeking Greater Fortune
This is both literally and metaphorically a shady car. It says Grady’s Pontiac on the side but I can’t help but think Grady’s Shady Lady. Of course we don’t know what Grady’s line of work was…
The front facia looks much more Oldsmobile than Pontiac. What a crime.
Grady used to cruise his Phoenix, back in the ’90s.
Seeing this brought back memories of living in the Fort Lauderdale area. The older people were convinced that adding a top like this was well worth the dealer mark up!
My FIL and I were at a LM dealer looking at a Mercury Sable wagon. On the sales floor was a new Town Car where this style of top was installed, plus they had added the Mark series trunk lid design with the spare tire look. The dealer was asking something like $4-5000 extra for those “upgrades”!