Our last Rare Ride was a Pontiac 6000 with some serious B&B appeal, what with its special gold alloys and transverse all-wheel-drive witchcraft. In light of this old Pontiac lovin’, I found another one for you today.
This special edition vehicle was practicing #branding before either #, or “branding,” were things you’d put together for your latest Twitter communiqué.
Currently listed on Louisville Craigslist is this special edition Grand Prix. As you can tell from the photo above, this Grand Prix is Pepsi-themed, and is also 258-themed, or maybe just numbered.
According to the listing copy, Pepsi commissioned these special edition Pontiacs in 1989 as part of a store contest. There’s no further detail about said contest, and I couldn’t locate anything online. We’re dealing in obscurities today.
Just 500 Pepsi Grand Prix examples were made, and the special features should be immediately apparent! They include the red and blue striping, the Pepsi logo just below the B-pillar, Special Edition script, and white directional saw blades (which are of course excellent because we’re talking Pontiac wheels).
The front end features more Pepsi branding, as well as some script to tell oncoming traffic that you’re both important and carbonated.
The interior features absolutely nothing unique. The standard fare of gray plastics and quirky Pontiac button placement are all you see. It looks reasonably well kept, and mostly free of the stains you’d normally see on a car of this vintage.
The same goes for the unrelenting grayness of the rear seating, where there’s a center console to store your Crystal Pepsi.
This Grand Prix was driven only occasionally over its long life, clocking 64,000 miles. And though it looks like it could use some paintwork, the asking price of $1,600 makes this our cheapest-ever Rare Ride. So go get yourself a coooold pop, and make this Pepsi Pontiac your own.
[Images: Craigslist]
$1600 Isnt bad for something in this shape, never mind the Pepsi tie-in.
Whats with the funky screen beside the HVAC controls?
If we’re looking at the same thing, those are cassette (tape) holders. (tapes without the case, that is) There are two of them stacked. The player slot is beneath them above the control buttons.
An old car with the original radio, how refreshing!
At Notwho:
As a kid we did that videogames frequently, it was pretty cool thinking you were hitting 250+!
I love original radios too. I still have the original C33 cassette radio in my E36 M3. I put good speakers in the original holes and set up a Bluetooth system through the CD changer port in the trunk. Sounds great and looks vintage. No reason to get rid of these OE radios. They just make the car, especially on this weird 1980s Pepsi Grand Prix!
I just leave them both for cosmetics, and because most aftermarket radios feel cheap.
My biggest fear with custom radios will always be the custom wiring.
Yup, and aftermarket radios become dated very fast, both in appearance and features. So why bother? Another option is to install a newer OEM radio that uses the same harness and fits in the same opening. But I’m not sure you could do that on this car. I think this radio is pretty specific to these early W-body Grand Prixs.
It looks an awful lot like the first car I bought after school, a 1988 that I paid about $2500 for. Only big different I see was the shifter was on the column on mine. I guess it wasn’t sporty enough.
My favorite trick was that it had half a digital dash, so I’d be with friends and flip the switch from mph to kmph to show them how fast it would accelerate. :-)
too bad it’s so far away from- would be a great and somewhat comical 1st car for my son.
Did he make you mad recently?!
no, but he will.
btw- whats with no cup holders in a pepsi car?
Probably on the glove box door, some of those super effective ones.
Heck, that ain’t a bad looking car for $1600 no matter how you slice it.
Plus…
BUCKET REAR SEATS!
ATTACHE-CASE STYLE COMBINATION LOCK ON GLOVEBOX!
PONTIAC EXCITEMENT!
I forgot about those locks. Man, how stupid.
GM had a whole list of dumba$$ interior features back in the ’80s. This one’s my favorite:
http://www.2040-parts.com/82-88-pontiac-firebird-overhead-console-dome-map-light-rare-82-92-camaro-console-i858968/
It was the overhead console on Camaros and Firebirds, complete with “calendars” and reminders you set with a thumbwheel. One was called “CELEBRATION.” Yee hah.
And the swiveling radio head on Camaros / Buick Somersets. Yeah, that’ll never break.
But I like those rear buckets, though. Heck, you have to buy an Aston Martin Rapide to get those nowadays.
This awesome special edition also comes with equipment like:
STEERING WHEEL
GASOLINE MOTOR
WINDSHIELD
It’s…DRIVEN!
(Wait, wrong late ’80s ad tagline…)
It’s no 7-Up Mustang…
There’s one I could do as well. Much more common.
Another sweet find.
To bad I prefer Coke over Pepsi.
How about a Tim Horton’s edition Panther?
https://www.google.ca/search?q=tim+hortons+rcmp&safe=off&rlz=1C1GGRV_enCA752CA752&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjwndnTt__UAhUE8mMKHZT6CkMQ_AUIDCgD&biw=1522&bih=722#imgrc=UEkVoN9rb7D0MM:
Does Tim’s fund the police, and deserve advertising?
@Corey Lewis – An RCMP constable thought it would be funny to play on the cliche of police and donut shops. He did a great job on the sticker. The RCMP brass were intensely pizzed off by this prank. They never did find out who did it which was fortunate for the prankster.
Ha. Very nice.
If it were all blue with Pepsi branding, maybe. Google Concorde (the plane) Pepsi.
I knew someone who won a Pepsi Grand Prix 2-door coupw.
He said Pepsi gave away 50 cars in the 50 states, and his was one of them.
It had Pepsi advertising logos on the sides, I remember these being larger than what appears in the photos. He said one of the conditions of winning was the Pepsi advertising had to stay on the car.
When I bought my first new car in 1991, I bought a 1990 4-door Grand Prix sedan, primarily because I liked the Pepsi car I saw.
Excellent – did he keep it for a long time? I’d love to see that “no remove ads” contract.
Would be hard to paint, you’d lose all the Pepsi treatment in the process as I’m sure NOS isn’t available, and that’s the “value” in this particular GP.
Yeah, you’re right.
This is a good S&G car for some sick individual out there.
Wait, are you saying those aren’t hubcaps?
Hubcaps don’t have wheel weights. ;)
“white directional saw blades” aren’t actually directional, just asymmetrical. All four are the same, so they look different ways round on either side of the car. That is something I thought only Citroen had dared, with the BX Chamonix.
Not as nice as the Mercury Mountain Dew Montaineer.
This may be the least special “Special Edition” ever.
Also the Lexus RX330 Thundercloud Edition.
I would rather have the 6000, but I really like the interior on this one. Much better than the blocky 6000.
And that rear seat/console. Love that. I would like to find that in a junkyard, would be a nice addition to some future coupe I’ll come upon.
Is this 3800 powered? I need a cheapish car to rack up comfy highway miles on so naturally I am thinking of joining the church of the 3800. This looks like a good car for the price.
Nope. 3.1L.
“The interior features absolutely nothing unique.” Spoken like someone who’s probably never sat in one of these, Corey. In the fifth picture down, you can make out an oblique view of the crazy power seat controls. The 5th-gen Grand Prix, at least in certain trims, had adjustable seat back bolsters, so that you could make the front seats hug you (or squeeze you or crush you, if you preferred). That would be a rare feature in 2017, let alone in a 1987 design.
And while not unique, the rear buckets are an atypical feature for a mainstream car.
As noted for many of these late-’80s/early-’90s vehicles, the seat cloth is of a markedly better quality than its 2010s analog.
Addendum: The timing would be wrong, but I’d like to think this car originally was purchased with Pepsi Points (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsi_Stuff).
That sentence has nothing to do with Pontiac’s *normal* button placement, and everything to do with the lack of Pepsi accouterments on the interior.
Are you flaming me? I honestly can’t tell.
– You said “interior” in that sentence. You didn’t qualify it in the context of Pepsi badging. Apologies if I misinterpreted that, but my reading of the sentence was pretty darn reasonable.
– Regarding *normal* button placement, I didn’t say the location was abnormal, I said the controls themselves were crazy (or at least one of them was). What other mainstream 1989 cars had power adjustable wing bolsters from the factory? They’re may’ve been some, but I sure didn’t see them at the time. It’s one of the defining characteristics of that car, perhaps *the* defining characteristic.
“The interior features absolutely nothing unique.”
Nothing unique. Every Grand Prix was like this. There’s no placard, extra buttons, Pepsi logos, etc.
Steering wheel is upside down. I’ll pass.
I think I’ve seen you on every used cars for sale Facebook group.
Yep – I’m that guy.
I’ve always had a soft place for Grand Prixs, even though GM and American cars in general were avoided in my family like the plague. I’ve always been curious though: is that an odometer above the glove box? I’ve also thought it could be something like a suitcase lock, but that’s something I didn’t think the General would provide.
Thanks for sharing this one with us Corey! Like others have noted, not a bad price for the car in it’s current condition.
Clemens Markets which was a local supermarket chain based in Lansdale, Pa. gave away one around this time. They had it sitting outside their store. I remember a 65 year old lady won it which annoyed this high school student.