Pontiac was dead in 1976. Just took a long time for the obituary to be posted. Great cars before then but after Peeeeyou. Tim
I care but let me tell you my Pontiac story in 1964 I bought a 1963 Catalina that was about a ten thousand mile car 389 tri power 4 spd. 4.10 gear. It had been raced per the car dealer I bought it from. It was my daily and my race car. trouble free as an anvil except for the nasty habit of shearing off ring gear bolts on deceleration. Anyhow in 1966 I sold it to a kid in my car club who was three years younger than me. After I sold it I bought a 421 engine and the kid wanted it so we put it in the Catalina. Well kids dad dies he kinda falls apart starts runnin with a gal from the south she wants him to marry her and head back to Arkansas. They leave here with Catalina on trailer. later I try to contact him but trail goes cold in Arkansas. About a month ago I get a tip where he might be start looking on intertubes and find a guy that has same name and is right age even has phone #. I call and get his third wife she is suspicios but finally gives him phone. I give him first name and there's silence then last name and he just sucks in air. Anyhow I tell him how I've tried to get in touch but just couldn't find him. He says he tried to find me but thought I must have moved actually he forgot how to spell my last name. Anyhow I tell him I often think about the old 63. He says so do I when I look out the window. I'm speechless I say you've still got the old girl and he says bet your ass. Folks somewhere in Alabama is a 3 owner 1963 Catalina Hardtop that has been raced by all three owners the last one has had it for 46 years!
what was some of the best ET's in the 1/4 for show room floor pontiac's back in the day ??? my better half ran 13.80 in her 4 door o/t 2010 g8 gt. with the tractoin control- and the air on. seems like the chevy motors picked up the pace some. ??? loved them PONTIAC'S !!!
There was a big long thread on this subject back when Pontiac was shut down. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=357035
My buddies original Super Stock Firebird still wearing its 70's paint and wheels (picture was taken in 2011)
WOAHHHHH.....(screeeeech) I may be misunderstanding the comment, so forgive me if I am out of line: 1: GM has already paid the bailout back. 2: Pontiac went from background (early '50s) to THIRD place in national sales, only with Ford and Chevy in front. Knudsen, DeLorian and others made the amazing Pontiacs dominate from the beginning of the '60s. Pontiac was not only profitable after '58, they were at the top of the stack.
Yea, AND they sold a ton of cars through the 70's and, while less so, the 80's and 90's. You couldn't turn around in my part of the country without running into a Grand Am. (Love 'em or hate 'em, they sold well...)
My first Pontiac was a 215cid '65 Tempest sedan. I loved that car. I have a '62 two-barrel 389 & Jetaway Hydramatic lounging next to an engineless '55 Chevy truck right now. It has crossed my mind MANY times to do the right thing and combine the two.
"Nope, not a generic clone of every other car on the track with an identical c.i.d. motor. And it's not ran by a giant corporation that blankets a bunch of other cars" I'm confused?? Are you saying that Pontiac wasn't owned by GM and that GM didn't have a 1000 other Fender badges to it's name? ": Pontiac went from background (early '50s) to THIRD place in national sales, only with Ford and Chevy in front" .. but at the track they were most often sitting in far worse places than THIRD.
Railroad enthusiasts call an extinct rail line a "Fallen Flag". The auto industry has too many Fallen Flags to list here, but we still celebrate the glory days of Studebaker, Nash, Hudson, Packard, Kaiser-Fraser, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Mercury, Plymouth and many more that are gone today. Better to remember them for what they were, rather than what they became. Inevitably, as the auto industry consolidated into just a few "winners" the practice of "badge engineering" took the soul away from the individual brands anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if the remaining big three just eliminate all sub-brands and market cars with just ID acronyms and numbers. Do any Cadillacs today even have model names anymore?
The quote about "generic clone" is about NASCAR today. If you read the entire paragraph you will notice it is about the difference between NASCAR in the '50s and '60s versus today. In my Pontiac ramble chose to write an opinion that included NASCAR because of how cool the picture of Fireball Robert's car looks, and because I wish the cars were actually "stock" cars as they used to be. (Basically, the paragraph you are quoting out of context refers to the picture it is under, not NASCAR today) Not that it really matters, but Pontiac dominated NASCAR in the early '60s. Just look it up! And yes of course Pontiac was a division of GM. It, like Olds, Buick and others also had completely different engines and completely different engineers. Again, I am only waxing sentimental... I wish Pontiac had lived past the early 1970's.
[Pontiac is announced to be no more, just as Oldsmobile was a few years ago. The economic recession (putting it easily) is of course reasonable as to why. And who really cares? I mean, Pontiac wasn't true Pontiac after 1979, when the Pontiac-specific engines finally died. Golly molly, I secretly think that Pontiac's lost their beauty closer to 1970.] [/QUOTE][/QUOTE] The "Pontiac specific" engine carried on through the 1981 model year as a low deck, lightweight version of the one introduced in 1955. It was available (depending on the model) in both 265 and 301 cubic inch versions. They were shadows of their older siblings, but true Pontiac V8 engines did exist after the 1979 model year. I own an '81 Grand Prix LJ that my mother bought new and it is powered by one of the last 265 engines built. By the way, those last original layout Poncho motors were assembled in 1978 and stockpiled (all 10,000 of them) for availability in the 1979 Trans Am and Formula Firebirds.
Crap, you are correct. I did more diggin' and realize that though they claim to have paid 'the bailout' back, it is only a specific portion of the structure. GM says they paid it back, but that is not fair because it implies ALL of the assistance they received. And that has NOT been repaid. I stand corrected!
to keep this going here,s 2 of my pals car.s the 48 was larry,s 48 pontaic 2 tone green called the color of monery a funny story larry went to a local air brush painter how much would he want to paint a 100.00 bill the painter said 300.00 dollar so larry went to the bank and got a new 100.00 bill and had it put on the fender before the clear vinny,s is a 32 coupe nickname the gto stands for GodThatOld
I am not and did not take things out of context now or in that post but if you you think that just because pontiac eventually triumphed in ~'62/63 season somehow equates to "Dominated in the 60's" then you are ignoring the Hudson, Plymouths, Chrylsers, Dodges and Mopars that actually and really did "dominate over most of the other ~35 years surrounding Pontiac's haphazard lucky streak. -Honestly, more than anything Mopar dominated over and above all. Simply saying that Pontiac dominated NASCAR in the 60's is at the very least misleading the forum . <table class="wikitable sortable jquery-tablesorter"><thead><tr><th title="Sort ascending" class="headerSort">Season</th> <th title="Sort ascending" class="headerSort">Driver</th> <th title="Sort ascending" class="headerSort">Owner(s)</th> <th title="Sort ascending" class="headerSort">No.</th> <th title="Sort ascending" class="headerSort">Manufacturer</th> <th title="Sort ascending" class="headerSort">Starts</th> <th title="Sort ascending" class="headerSort">Wins</th> <th title="Sort ascending" class="headerSort">Top 10s</th> <th title="Sort ascending" class="headerSort">Poles</th> <th title="Sort ascending" class="headerSort">Points (margin)</th> </tr></thead><tbody> <tr> <td align="center">1949</td> <td>Red Byron</td> <td>Raymond Parks</td> <td align="center">22</td> <td rowspan="2">Oldsmobile</td> <td align="center">6 (8)</td> <td align="center">2</td> <td align="center">4</td> <td align="center">1</td> <td align="center">842.5 (117.5)</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">1950</td> <td>Bill Rexford</td> <td>Julian Buesink</td> <td align="center">60</td> <td align="center">17 (19)</td> <td align="center">1</td> <td align="center">11</td> <td align="center">0</td> <td align="center">1959 (110.5)</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">1951</td> <td>Herb Thomas</td> <td>Self-owned</td> <td align="center">92</td> <td rowspan="3">Hudson Hornet</td> <td align="center">34 (41)</td> <td align="center">7</td> <td align="center">18</td> <td align="center">4</td> <td align="center">4208.45 (146.2)</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">1952</td> <td>Tim Flock</td> <td>Ted Chester</td> <td align="center">91</td> <td align="center">33 (34)</td> <td align="center">8</td> <td align="center">25</td> <td align="center">4</td> <td align="center">6858.5 (106)</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">1953</td> <td>Herb Thomas (2)</td> <td rowspan="2">Self-owned</td> <td align="center">92</td> <td align="center">37 (37)</td> <td align="center">12</td> <td align="center">31</td> <td align="center">12</td> <td align="center">8460 (646)</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">1954</td> <td>Lee Petty</td> <td align="center">42</td> <td align="left">Chrysler New Yorker</td> <td align="center">34 (37)</td> <td align="center">7</td> <td align="center">32</td> <td align="center">3</td> <td align="center">8649 (283)</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">1955</td> <td>Tim Flock (2)</td> <td rowspan="2">Carl Kiekhaefer</td> <td align="center">300</td> <td rowspan="2">Chrysler 300</td> <td align="center">39 (45)</td> <td align="center">18</td> <td align="center">33</td> <td align="center">18</td> <td align="center">9596 (1508)</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">1956</td> <td>Buck Baker</td> <td align="center">300B</td> <td align="center">48 (56)</td> <td align="center">14</td> <td align="center">39</td> <td align="center">12</td> <td align="center">9272 (704)</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">1957</td> <td>Buck Baker (2)</td> <td rowspan="4">Self-owned</td> <td align="center">87</td> <td align="left"> </td> <td align="center">40 (53)</td> <td align="center">10</td> <td align="center">38</td> <td align="center">6</td> <td align="center">10716 (760)</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">1958</td> <td>Lee Petty (2)</td> <td align="center">42</td> <td align="left">Oldsmobile</td> <td align="center">50 (51)</td> <td align="center">7</td> <td align="center">43</td> <td align="center">4</td> <td align="center">12232 (644)</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">1959</td> <td>Lee Petty (3)</td> <td align="center">42</td> <td align="left">Plymouth</td> <td align="center">42 (44)</td> <td align="center">11</td> <td align="center">35</td> <td align="center">2</td> <td align="center">11792 (1830)</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">1960</td> <td>Rex White</td> <td align="center">4</td> <td rowspan="2">Chevrolet</td> <td align="center">40 (44)</td> <td align="center">6</td> <td align="center">35</td> <td align="center">3</td> <td align="center">21164 (3936)</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">1961</td> <td>Ned Jarrett</td> <td>W.G. Holloway, Jr.</td> <td align="center">11</td> <td align="center">46 (52)</td> <td align="center">1</td> <td align="center">34</td> <td align="center">4</td> <td align="center">27272 (830)</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">1962</td> <td>Joe Weatherly</td> <td rowspan="2">Bud Moore</td> <td align="center">8</td> <td rowspan="2">Pontiac</td> <td align="center">52 (53)</td> <td align="center">9</td> <td align="center">45</td> <td align="center">7</td> <td align="center">30836 (2396)</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">1963</td> <td>Joe Weatherly (2)</td> <td align="center">8</td> <td align="center">53 (55)</td> <td align="center">3</td> <td align="center">35</td> <td align="center">6</td> <td align="center">33398 (2228)</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">1964</td> <td>Richard Petty</td> <td>Self-owned</td> <td align="center">43</td> <td align="left">Plymouth Sport Fury</td> <td align="center">61 (62)</td> <td align="center">9</td> <td align="center">43</td> <td align="center">8</td> <td align="center">40252 (5302)</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">1965</td> <td>Ned Jarrett (2)</td> <td>Bondy Long</td> <td align="center">11</td> <td align="left">Ford Galaxie</td> <td align="center">54 (55)</td> <td align="center">13</td> <td align="center">45</td> <td align="center">9</td> <td align="center">38824 (3034)</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">1966</td> <td>David Pearson</td> <td>Cotton Owens</td> <td align="center">6</td> <td align="left">Dodge Charger</td> <td align="center">42 (49)</td> <td align="center">15</td> <td align="center">33</td> <td align="center">7</td> <td align="center">35638 (1950)</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">1967</td> <td>Richard Petty (2)</td> <td>Self-owned</td> <td align="center">43</td> <td align="left">Plymouth Satellite</td> <td align="center">48 (49)</td> <td align="center">27</td> <td align="center">40</td> <td align="center">18</td> <td align="center">42472 (6028)</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">1968</td> <td>David Pearson (2)</td> <td rowspan="2">Holman-Moody</td> <td align="center">17</td> <td rowspan="2">Ford Torino</td> <td align="center">48 (49)</td> <td align="center">16</td> <td align="center">38</td> <td align="center">12</td> <td align="center">3499 (126)</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">1969</td> <td>David Pearson (3)</td> <td align="center">17</td> <td align="center">51 (54)</td> <td align="center">11</td> <td align="center">44</td> <td align="center">14</td> <td align="center">4170 (357)</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">1970</td> <td>Bobby Isaac</td> <td>Nord Krauskopf</td> <td align="center">71</td> <td align="left">Dodge Charger</td> <td align="center">47 (48)</td> <td align="center">11</td> <td align="center">38</td> <td align="center">13</td> <td align="center">3911 (51)</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">1971</td> <td>Richard Petty (3)</td> <td rowspan="2">Self-owned</td> <td align="center">43</td> <td rowspan="2">Plymouth Satellite</td> <td align="center">46 (48)</td> <td align="center">21</td> <td align="center">41</td> <td align="center">9</td> <td align="center">4435 (364)</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">1972</td> <td>Richard Petty (4)</td> <td align="center">43</td> <td align="center">31 (31)</td> <td align="center">8</td> <td align="center">28</td> <td align="center">3</td> <td align="center">8701.4 (127.9)</td></tr></tbody></table> . . -Ok, maybe I'm missing something here, How about you point out were Pontiac "Dominated NASCAR in the 60's" or the 40, 50's or 70's for that matter? I mean I like Pontiacs as much as the next Hemi owner but... either me and/or Mopar Racing have been led down the garden path for 60 plus years of NASCAR racing/history or GM and Pontiac have somehow been able to re-write history (again?) ?? (-that wouldn't surprise me)
My bad. I did say EARLY sixties, though... can I count '62 and '63 as that? The whole point was that it causes me to make a double-take when I think Pontiac actually was that successful for one little window in time. My post about Pontiac pays homage to a car manufacturer who was boring, but then turned around and had an amazing blip of success. (And I sure like 'em!) Where I thought you quoted my post out of context was your reply #44. Again, I was just thinking of the difference between a NASCAR car today versus one in the '60s.
^ ^ ^ That bottom one wasn't a Pontiac! That was a Toyota Matrix with an arrowhead in the grille. ^ ^ ^
I care, my older brother ran an X fuel dragster with a Pontiac four in the early 60's at MoKan where they hold the HAMB Nationals. I learned to drive in a 63 Tempest, my wife has had two Grand Prix, an 04 GTO and has a G8 GT, we really like Pontiacs, that's all she has driven for the last 20 years. I think they should have kept the Pontiac and dumped Buick, that should stir something up..
Two of my three favorite brands are gone. They haven't came out with anything worth a damn in 50 years anyways. And quit stinkin' this thread up with Fireturd pictures.
I'm gonna miss pontiac too. I've been kicking around a 53,and just looked at a nice 66 long top garage kept. Anyway liked the old pics and ads. thanks for posting them.
Rude to the Poncho guys with Firebirds, but that really got me laughing! (I don't mind the '67,'69 and even '69s). As far as two of your three favorites are gone, could it be Buick, Olds and Pontiac? They are mine, anyway... Crap, I sure would like a '50 Pontiac fastback right about now. I also miss my '55 hardtop.
I couldn't resist a picture of my brother's GTO (that now actually runs) next to my Le Mans. I guess they are one year too new for the HAMB...
The Jalopy Journal
