Here’s a menacing creature, tightly wearing its dark tailored suit, and ready to push lesser creatures out of the way on looks alone. Finally, a colonnade GM body had crossed my paths, and in Pontiac version nonetheless. Its controversial styling was there to be captured by yours truly, in all its glory under San Salvador’s unrelenting sun. Windows were down, doors were open. No one was nearby. It seemed too easy. Was there a trap of some sort?
Those who have read previous posts of mine, know that I’ve gone through just about every kind of situation with my ‘finds.’ In some, street guards have sternly warned me to stay away. In others, owners have offered me ‘sweet deals’ in their soon-to-be-valuable junked possessions. A few have chewed my ears off, by retelling not only their car’s backstory, but also details of their first communion, family quarrels, and all kinds of other useless personal minutiae. You know, it’s Latin America. A casual meet is a chance to become amigos.
And on this occasion, here was this Pontiac, windows open, in a residential street with plenty of movement. And this is not a safe city. Yet, no one was around. What was the deal? Did the car belong to some John-Wick-type and all agreed no one was to approach it?
Something was off with this encounter. But it was too tempting to resist.
Not only was the scenario wrong, but the car itself also looked menacing; with the shape, color, and detailing of some dangerous creature. For starters, it’s a 1973 Pontiac LeMans Sport Coupe, the first year of the A-Body colonnades. This particular Sport Coupe came with a 350 V-8 engine, carrying 175HP and 280 lb-ft of torque; and could go from 0-60 in 9.5 sec. A pretty good performer in the early ’70s. And in regards to handling, as it’s been mentioned previously at CC, the colonnades were Detroit’s finest.
Let’s take a look inside. The floor shifter makes me think this Sport Coupe was sold locally back in the day. Automatics were a no-go over here for the longest time, and it wasn’t until the last decade that they were reluctantly accepted. If you wonder if this is a 3 or 4-speed manual, I’ve no way to help you. There’s no indication whatsoever on the shifter, or anywhere else in the car.
Besides the nifty manual, the image also shows the GM cost-cutting plastics of the period. Yes, it’s an old car, but I’ve never seen plastics degrade in such a way in anything but a GM product. Finally, for those with keen eyes, you’ll notice the back seats have been removed. Which is just as fine on a colonnade. Why pretend to be a 4-seater when this baby is really about the front occupants?
And the louvers? These are either the coolest invention in automotivedom, or an annoying useless gimmick. Dismiss them you may, but these gimmicky bits became rather influential, as some overstyled ’70s Datsuns prove.
The colonnades have appeared at CC quite numerous times, with the ’73 LeMans making at least one previous appearance. In general, the colonnade is one of GM’s most polarizing designs. Are they extroverted and somewhat overdone? Yes. And the LeMans Sport Coupe makes those points all too clearly. And in the practical sense, are the colonnades somewhat absurd and impractical? Absolutely. Lots of sheet metal to carry two adults in comfort, with many penalties in the back. All part of 1970s trends. But in retrospect, it was almost inevitable that such cars would eventually happen.
When GM started with yearly updates back in the day, it was clear that fashion was going to be the company’s calling car. Buyers would wait for the new automotive season, expectant of the new wardrobes sheetmetals that would debut. Anyone fashioned streaks? Pontiac was the one for you then.
Conservatively engineered and nicely tailored were the tools that sent GM to number 1, and the company found in Harley Earl and Bill Mitchell an outstanding team of suit makers.
And the best tailored for a while was Pontiac, enjoying some of Bill Mitchell’s finest work. Any Joe Schmoe looked like money at the wheel of a Mitchell-styled 1960s Pontiac.
Now, the trouble with fashion as your sales tool is that sooner or later, it turns into an exercise on its own. And it was inevitable that at some point we would all become fashion victims. Low, longer, and wider was a pretty cool concept, but humans have -you know- a certain height. The mantra had a natural and unavoidable limit.
And the colonnades were definitely a fashion statement, perhaps to the point of being victims of it. Not that being a fashion victim is that bad a thing. We’ve all gone through some questionable periods in our youth, and even some pain and discomfort to look ‘cool.’ Fashion in the automotive world? Who wasn’t for it?
The colonnades were conceived in the late ’60s, as a previous post at CC detailed. Now, by that time Mitchell and team were breaking away from the clean flanks they had tailored in the early ’60s; and sculpting was coming back with a vengeance. Also, like much of the rest of Detroit, GM’s studios took inspiration from themes that harkened back to the ’30s and ’40s. Of course, stretched, lowered, and widened for the ’70s.
The ’73 colonnades were the result of these explorations, and in the LeMans they show in earnest; the pronounced sculpted fenders, the sloping trunk, and the bulging sides. It was perhaps too much, and even Mitchell has been quoted as saying that Pontiac’s colonnade ‘looked like a Tucker,’ which no one thought was a compliment. In the real world, dealers complained the model didn’t seem to have a trunk, amongst other quibbles. Soon enough, the colonnades would turn more generic in later iterations.
Parallel to the auto world, there was some fascination with the ’30s and ’40s in mainstream media. The Front Page and The Sting, were amongst many films set in that classic era, retelling the period to new audiences. Then, films like The Godfather, Chinatown, and Cabaret explored the good ol’ ’30s and ’40s, but with their dark underbelly exposed, perfectly fitting the mood of the ’70s.
Fashions come and go, and if in the ’60s Pontiac had been GM’s Golden Boy, by ’73 the brand was falling out of favor. In ’74 Oldsmobile would surpass it in sales, and Pontiac would never really recover. Yet, this ’73 Sport Coupe still carries some of the coolness the brand once exuded.
With this CC I fulfill a pending goal of mine; to find an old Pontiac. In old San Salvador images, Pontiacs appear sporadically and I knew for a fact, they were sold for a number of years. Yet, none seemed to survive. And I mean to say, I wanted to find a REAL Pontiac. Not some putrid Matrix-derived Vibe, of which there are quite a few.
Finally, as luck would have it, this LeMans Sport Coupe appeared. And there must have been some kind of blessing, because for once I took the shots, no one approached me, and I left as if nothing. No John-Wick-like dude came to pound me into oblivion.
Of course, the ultimate fashion victim was Pontiac itself, which couldn’t keep up with the changing times. I won’t deny it, the death of Pontiac kinda hit me in 2008. Then again, if there’s one thing that is certain in this modern world, is that everything is a fad. We may yearn for permanence, but in the eyes of the market and media, all is short-lived and disposable.
Kind of odd for me to worry, in ’08, about a brand that had for years only released underwhelming products under the “We Build Excitement” banner. But still, the fashion runway Pontiac put on in the ’60s left indelible marks, and most of its legacy resides in those few years. It’s more than can be said of many other brands. In the end, this colonnade may provoke admiration or disdain, but one can’t deny that it carries a lot of fashion and Pontiacness in its forms and execution.
Further reading:
Curbside Classic: 1973 Pontiac LeMans – A Strong Start To A Weak Finish
CC Tech: 1973-77 GM Colonnade Chassis Design – Corner Carving Through The Brougham Era
Curbside Classic: The Colonnades Of Melbourne Part 2 – 1975 Pontiac Grand Am
The plastics didn’t fail because they were cheap. They failed because they weren’t very good.
And they weren’t very good because they were “cheap “.
Flexible plastic body panels were a new technology. Piston rings, CV joints, and valve seals went through the same evolutionary process and are better and cheaper (adjusted for inflation) than ever.
Three on the tree was standard on the 1973 Le Mans, with a floor shifted 3 speed and floor shifted 4 speed optional, as well as Turbo Hydramatic. Here in the U.S. the overwhelming number had the Turbo Hydramatic.
The Le Mans was probably the least successful Colonnade as it had internal competition from the Grand Prix, something Cutlass and Regal didn’t have to worry about. If you went to the Pontiac showroom looking for an intermediate 2 door coupe, the glamorous Grand Prix was the way to go.
I was all set to argue with you, but a look at the brochure says you’re right. In my memory of Colonnade cars, if the shifter was on the floor, it was a 4-speed. But the brochure (probably) does not lie.
Can you exchange the front bumper with one from a 73/74 Pontiac Grand Am?
The vestigial pontoon fenders struck me as weird back in the day. They are still weird to me today.
They may have done better if they had used the knife edge trunk lid on the rear deck on a smaller car, if not the Firebird, then the Astre or the Ventura. As it was, this Knife Job car is on my list of the most ugliest ever. Disproportionate. Poorly styled. Was the trunk supposed to mimic a toboggan hill or a kids slide? In contrast with the other colonnade coupes, this was the poorest styled of them. The trunks were small in capacity on all of them, this must have had the least of the smallest.
It was intended to have sculpted close fitting bumpers like the 72 Torino when it was designed (for 1972 production). The railroad iron pretty much wrecked it. GM was lucky that the formal coupes hit the market straight in the gut.
Interesting, I like it .
Quiet menace .
-Nate
Most excellent find, Senor Baron! These Pontiac coupes were undoubtedly the purest expression of Mitchell’s styling preferences of all the Colonnade coupes, for better or for worse. I was quite blown away by them when they arrived; I remember it very clearly. of course the Grand Am was the most psychedelic of them, and a friend and I oohed and aahed over the first one that showed up at the dealer in Iowa City.
Of course that was all in the realm of art and abstraction; in that year of 1973, the Audi Fox (80) was what I truly lusted over. It was of course the polar opposite of the GA, but that only made the bizarre Pontiac more fascinating as an art object, even if its interest was very short lived (for me).
I really like the character of this one; I’m not sure I’d like to meet it on a dark night on a back street in San Salvador.
Funny you mention the Audi Fox. I too had a small lust for the Grand Am at the time. But I graduated university in 73. When Introduced. was still in “starving Student” status. The Wuro high greenhouse Fox is what really got my attention. Plus the first gas crisis in Autumn of 73 made me decide it was time to trade my 68 Cougar XR7 on something with better gas mileage. Parktown Porsche Audi in St. louis gave me a good deal in Spring of 74. A burgundy 74 Fox saloon was my first brand new ride.
Your writing and of the author are wonderful. Thank you
I have one of them too although it’s a Grand Am.
Oops more pics here
Even during the colonnade era (at least for the first year 1973 car), Pontiac was still playing the ‘almost a GTO’ game with the LeMans Sport Coupe.
The only problem was, the intermediate-sized GTO was virtually dead (the final nail would happen the following year with the Ventura version). So, looking like a GTO just didn’t do it in 1973.
A pity, because, although my preference would be for the Buick Gran Sport, this not-a-GTO isn’t that bad (especially with the rare, manual floor shift). At least better than a Malibu or Cutlass of 1973-75 vintage.
Ahhh, Pontiac under F. James McDonald. GM company man, and eventual board member and chairman. Pontiac under Delorean had been focused. But under McDonald, Pontiac was kind of everything. Just within the A body range, you had a GTO, a LeMans Sport Coupe, a regular LeMans coupe, a Grand Am and a Luxury LeMans. Plus the Grand Prix, of course. And that was just the 2-door models. Was it a luxury car? A sports car? A mid-sized family car? It was all of them – just none too successfully.
I am on record as liking these a lot – but only after the styling changes for 1974. I never warmed to these 73s. But what a great find, especially in your area!
I guess that it took Bill Mitchell a couple of years to flush the Riviera Boat Tail toxins out of his system. I think there was a GTO package available on this platform, though I always preferred the Grand Am, with the shaker hood and spoilers. The big bumpers kind of spoiled the look, but it still managed to look quite dramatic, which was it’s mission in life. All looks, with mediocre function.
My aunt had a 73, bought new, in GTO spec. Yellow with brown interior. Vinyl seats and honeycomb wheels. I don’t recall whether it was auto or manual.
My aunt’s boyfriend was a mechanic who raced at the local dirt track on weekends. Last I saw of the GTO he had it busted up and hollowed out, sitting on a trailer and looking as if it were headed to a demolition derby. It could not have been more than four or five years old.
I liked that car a lot. The louvered rear windows, the tail light treatment (which for my money looks much better than the design that succeeded it) — it worked for me as a child, and still does. That they are rarely seen anymore adds to the appeal.
Might this Pontiac be more aerodynamic going backward than forward? Everything ahead of the B-pillar looks fine; the rest, not so much.
It’s a square block followed by a fin or bird shape. A more squared look out back would have matched the front, even if they had used a character line to define the top of the trunk lid they settled on.
Even a dolphin was not as fin shaped as this.
My mother had a ’73 Luxury LeMans, which was our main family car when I was a kid. I can verify that it did, in fact, have a trunk, because ours leaked…badly. You could hear the water sloshing around in it after a rain. This eventually led to the trunk floor rusting badly.
When we traded it in, my father pulled up the trunk mat and spray painted the floor, in a not-very-successful attempt at masking it.
I didn’t like the car much at the time and thought it was rather dumpy compared to the dashing Oldsmobiles, however now, that back end looks pretty rad to me.
Neighbor on the “second floor” had a beautiful, blue, “75 Lemans coupe”!! She traded a “68 Buick sdn” for it.
That “Pontiac” was a”looker”!
Had a 77 lemans sport in tripple blue with the rally wheels. I though it was a good car comfortable and not a bad performer for a mid 70s gm.
Years ago I had a 1975 LeMans sport coupe. I preferred the rear end layout of the 75 to the 73 (I think the 73’s tail lights are hideous).
Sadly it got wrecked back in 2000 or 2001, lady pulled out in front of me and I couldn’t get stopped in time. Frame survived but never could find a complete front clip to repair it so it ended up going to scrap after hauling across the country twice… I got tired of moving it.
My first NEW car was one of these 1973 Pontiac Sport Coup. The fins on the back side windows really improved the looks. Mine was dark brown with white interior. I had gold ( GT) stripes put on it. I ordered it when I graduated from college. Loved that car but it was no match in styling to my previous Pontiacs (60 Catalina bubble top, 65 GTO convertible and 66 LeMans 2drHT.
I do love the illustration of the Catalina in front of Arnaud’s in the French Quarter.
No Catalina the last time the Google car passed. But perhaps the Chevy pickup is as close as we get nowadays.
sorry, here’s the picture.