Posts from ‘Pontiac’
1973 Ford Pinto
Most automotive styling affectations were born of functional vehicle features. Real wire wheels, for example, lead to the faux-wire hubcaps that were so common in the Eighties, especially on Buicks and Oldsmobiles. Likewise, the vinyl and landau roof craze of the Seventies and Eighties was born of the landaulet and carriage-roof vehicles from decades earlier.
What Was Radial Tuned Suspension?
One of the wonderful side effects of technological progress is the wake of marketing silliness that follows so closely behind. It makes sense that any improvement to a consumer-oriented product would be fodder for advertising and promotion, but oftentimes those improvements quickly become industry norms—and the initial hype surrounding them sometimes proves embarrassing in hindsight.
There’s almost no glamour to be found in flying these days. The events of September 11, 2001, certainly complicated the process of getting through an airport and onto a commercial flight, but even before that horrible day, flying was becoming more of a grind than an adventure for most travelers. We’ve all heard plenty of jokes about airline food…
1981 Fiat Spider Turbo
It’s a fairly simple concept: You force more air into an engine to improve volumetric efficiency and thus increase horsepower. Turbocharging is so common these days that cars are very rarely named or badged as turbos. Every single 2020 Ford Escape, for example, is turbocharged.
1970 Plymouth Sport Fury GT
If you’re a diehard fan of vintage American performance cars and race cars, it would behoove you to make it to Rosemont, Illinois the weekend before Thanksgiving. That’s when the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals takes over the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, filling the main show floor with a dizzying array of muscle cars, race cars, Corvettes, street machines, and auto-oriented collectibles and memorabilia.
1938 Graham
Though American automobile industry was fully established–and thriving–by the time the 1920s rolled around, the auto business was still relatively young when the Great Depression settled upon the nation at the tail end of that free-wheeling decade. After an extended period of economic growth and prosperity, carmakers found themselves needing to retool their carefully crafted advertising to cope with the new realities of severe economic turmoil.
1988 Lincoln Town Car
Fans of classic TV Westerns likely recall the show Have Gun – Will Travel as one of the darker, more moralistic shows of the genre. The half-hour drama packed a lot into each episode, and usually included a pathos-filled final scene that likely left many viewers wondering if the bad guys might have been taught a lesson in a slightly less troubling manner.
Like it does every October, the Mecum Auctions road show rolled in to the Schaumberg Convention Center in Schaumberg, Illinois, late last month. As usual, the Mecum Chicago event boasted its share of big-ticket, six-figure classics—the top seller of this year’s show was a rare Calypso Coral 1970 Ford Mustang Boss 429 (pictured below) that went for $275,000.
Forgotten Concept: Pontiac Salsa
Pontiac Salsa Concept
This is an installment in a series of posts looking back on show cars that we feel deserved a little more attention than they got. If you have a suggestion for a Forgotten Concept topic, please shoot us a line or leave a comment below.
2005 Pontiac Bonneville GXP
There are a handful of cars that really put General Motors’ Pontiac division on the map–memorable, exciting vehicles around which the Pontiac brand forged its image of sporty, near-luxury substance–and one of those was the Bonneville. The Bonneville name was first applied to a pair of Pontiac concept cars introduced at the 1954 General Motors Motorama. The moniker was first applied to a production model in 1957, when it became a topline version of the Star Chief convertible.
