Rare Rides: Kneel Before a Richard Petty Pontiac Grand Prix From 1992
There’s a bit of a history with Rare Rides entries featuring Pontiac models. First was the awesome all-wheel drive 6000, with a Pepsi Edition Grand Prix following on its heels just three days afterward. Now, three months have elapsed since we last saw a Pontiac on these pages — far too long!
Bend the knee, for the Richard Petty Pontiac Grand Prix SE has arrived.
The NASCAR-inclined among you are already aware of Mr. Petty’s successful NASCAR career. Coinciding with his retirement after the 1991 NASCAR season, General Motors decided to do a very special limited run of Pontiac Grand Prix models in his namesake.
Limited to the 1992 model year only and a 1,000-unit run, each Richard Petty SE featured some special cues and badging, like rare Pontiacs are wont to do. Buyers chose from red, white, or blue paint ( and all examples were powered by the 3.4-liter DOHC V6 engine.
Unique trim surrounded the exterior, where you’d find a special spoiler on the trunk. Also on the trunk, Petty’s signature.
Some color-keyed lace alloys prove once more how awesome Pontiac wheel designs could be.
The Grand Prix’s interior didn’t receive as much attention as the exterior. Never fear, all examples got the ever-useful combination glove box lock. Perhaps making this particular example more unusual, there’s a manual transmission putting all horses to the front wheels.
Over on the passenger’s side of the dash, special “appreciation tour” badging is found. Richard Petty himself signed this one, which (after some research) we can conclude was not a standard feature.
Petty is presently owner of a NASCAR team, and his name has been in the news recently due to some inflammatory comments he made surrounding NFL anthem protests. In fairness to the seller, the car was listed before Petty made said comments. Current ask is $10,000, but surely there’s some flexibility there.
Maybe we’ll contact the seller later to offer some photography tips.
[Images via seller]
Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.
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If I throw in an extra quarter will the owner take it to the gas station and vacuum the interior? It drives me crazy to see cars for sale where the owner was too damn lazy to clean the car decently for sale. Makes me wonder how much attention he paid to mechanical maintenance.
Looks like all it had was 210 horsepower, which was good for the early 90's but piss poor for a 3.4 liter V6 today