Let’s vary a bit from the vintage owner galleries of recent days, and let’s check out a few Pontiacs on the roads of yesterday. Unlike the images I usually share with folk posing with their rides, this gallery mostly has the cars on the roads. Either as the main feature or as an unintended backdrop. Sometimes even in motion.
As known, while Pontiac was a popular brand, it wasn’t as common as Chevy or Ford. So Pontiacs always stood out during my browsing, now being enough shots to make this short collection. As usual, very few of these indicated a date or location (noted when available).
We start with the lead photo, taken at Lake Mead in 1972.
Mt. Rainier National Park, WA.
Circus Hall Of Fame, Sarasota, FL.
St. Paul International Airport, Minneapolis, MN.
Cape Cod filling station, MA.
Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA.
Cape Cod filling station:
Take a look at the price of gas at 29.9¢ a gallon.
Today, it would be about $2.88 a gallon via the CPI calculator.
Just topped off at $2.79 a gallon yesterday.
That’s why cars have gotten bigger and heavier again. I miss the size (and height) that was the norm in the ’80s and early ’90s.
Just topped off at $2.79 a gallon yesterday.
And your car most likely got significantly better mileage than the 20-14 mpg that big Pontiac wagon got.
Most folks tend to grossly understate how relatively more significant fuel cost was for family budgets than today.
Pricing is relative for so many things both yesterday and today.
It didn’t seem as expensive when you could pay for gas with change instead of credit cards or paper money. A few bucks back then would buy a lot of gas.
Yep, the good old days weren’t always so good. At 3 bucks or so a gallon, gasoline in the U.S. is cheaper than it was when these Pontiacs roamed the road. Also, while these old Ponchos may have looked great, practically any new vehicle is faster, safer, more reliable and fuel efficient. And, with far less required maintenance. Not to mention rust issues, which are basically non-existent today. That ‘65 GTO is beautiful, but any garden variety Accord or Camry could eat it’s lunch today.
You are on the wrong web site.
Wouldn’t it be more fair to race a 1965 Honda or Toyota against the 1965 GTO? You are right though. Better to give the Honda and Toyota 60 years of engineering to catch up and make it fair.
My first car was a 1962 Catalina like the one towards the end. It was a great first car that could really move. Bought it for $200 in 1972 and it treated me much better than I treated it. Great learning experience for a 16 year old, though.
Regarding the first photo, I forgot how ugly those were.
I thought the same thing: the most extreme of the Wide-track Pontiacs of the era, the first at GM to move the wheels attractively closer to the side surfaces of the body, out of the wheel-well caves they had occupied since bodies began to be wider in the late ‘fifties.
It’s amusing to find that car designs we absorbed and took for granted when new, now can appear so aberrant to our eyes now !
Pontiac cars of the 1950’s and early 1960’s are often some of my favorite cars from GM.
I feel the full sized Pontiac cars of 1965/66 were the best styling that General Motors ever created.
But after 1967 i lost interest. I could never warm to the “Bunkie Beak” nose job that Pontiac stylists loved so much.
These pictures confirm my view that the 1967-1970 full-size Pontiacs (and B-body Oldsmobiles, for that matter) were ugly, oversized and bloated, especially compared to the relatively restrained 1961-64 full-sizers. Pontiacs bore the additional curse of the brand-defining beak, leading to some really strange front end treatments. By this time, Pontiac’s strength had clearly moved to the mid-sized segment, where the cars were a more rational size, styling not quite as extreme and the overall proportions much better.
Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA:
That’s just three to four blocks short of the beach which is in the far background.
Attempted to find a match in Google Maps, but everything is much different.
It is what I remember about Los Angeles in the 60’s. Other than the horrendous smog L.A. was almost the perfect place back then for a teenager.
It’s Santa Monica between 4th and 3rd Streets. The Europa store on the south side is the beginning of the Santa Monica Third Street Promenade today. It was a Barnes and Noble store for years but has sat empty for many subsequent years.
Very nice and especially the two 1954 Pontiacs, my ’54 Super Chief Coupe was a wonderful care .
Paul makes a very good point ~ gasoline was under $.30 cents the gallon but fuel economy was close to 10 MPG on the average American vehicle not owned by an Enthusiast or Mechanic who’d always keep it sharply tuned .
Part of why I bought my first VW Beetle at 15 and have loved the good fuel economy ever since .
I wonder why so few care about the many 1980’s imports that easily got 35 + MPH when well maintained .
-Nate
Possibly a ’60 Valiant just above the Pontiac’s B pillar in the last shot. And what’s that at the curb, just to the right of the Valiant ? A Lloyd ?
Beautiful pictures. Also, Pontiacs of the 70s are very special to me. In 1976, my first car as a Junior at King City High School was a 1971 Pontiac T-37 with 350 V8. I drove it through college in Salinas, Monterey and San Luis Obispo, and into the beginning of my career at Underwriters Laboratories in Santa Clara, CA. Made the mistake of selling the T-37 around 1989 or so.
I like the slanted back grille of the ’61 in the fourth photo. I always thought that it was odd that Pontiac abandoned the split grille theme in 1960, after establishing it in 1959. The ’60 convertible looks nice in profile. By ’61 the split grille was back, though the beak became a little too prominent in some later designs.
The 62 in the black and white photo was actually a Cheviac not a real Poncho.
Even so they were always considered a step above Chevrolet when I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s.
“The burgundy “65”, is my fav here! The pristine white, convertible is a looker too!
Even the sedate, green “Falcon” @ the curb looks new.
Minor correction, the Wilshire Blvd. shot is Santa Monica. Had to check to see if my grandmother wasn’t tooling around in her ’63 Dynamic 88, Wilshire was one of her old haunts. Photographer probably just missed her.
Nice pictures!
Alwsys a Debbie Downer in these posrs. On the other hand, no one is going to want to look at old pictures of Accords, Camrys and look alike SUV’S years from now. Those days are long gone. The landscape of vehicles today is so boring.
We had a 54, I liked it. Next one was a 64, Catalina 2dr 389, had fun with that one. Talked parents into putting Fat Red Stripe Tires on it. We had a VW Bug also.. Mid 70’s I bought a 67 Firebird 400 4 Speed, then got a 68 GTO 400 Auto for my wife to drive..But my 1st car was a 62 SS Impala. Just bought another Camaro in Vivid Orange, a new 2023.
I belive a 65 Pontiac Catalina in the snowstorm in Chicago on Dempster in Skokie, Ill. Notice the price of hamburgers at McDonalds. Also International Wanzer Milk Truck owned by Northshore Milk Distributor, Charles Chernawsjy.
My first Pontiac was a 1970 GTO. I can still here my friends mother yelling “Is that Mike Donahue? You tell him I’m calling his mother”! as I was peeling out of their driveway….