#pontiac

Rare Rides reviews another Pontiac today. And much like the recently featured Bonneville, it’s large and in charge, from the Seventies, and has two doors. Let’s see how much horsepower the 1977 Can Am gained through stickers and spoilers.

Have you ever wished for a very luxurious coupe for grand touring purposes — one with an unconventional engine placement and the underpinnings of an economy car?

Well, we’ve got a car for you: the 1988 Zimmer Quicksilver.

Pontiac is one of the most featured marques of the Rare Rides series, and to date there have been seven of its models represented here. Today’s Rare Ride was in showrooms the very same time as the odd and short-lived Sunbird Safari Wagon, but was intended to entice a much more traditional customer.

Let’s have a look at the upright and respectable Bonneville coupe.

Since starting doing this goofy car-writing-online gig 13 years ago last month, I have documented the demise of 2,073 discarded vehicles in excruciating detail. During that time, I have walked right past thousands and thousands of allegedly interesting cars and trucks (sorry, BMW 3 Series fans, but I’ve been trying to make it up to you in recent years) in order to obsess over my very favorite kind of junkyard machines: little– known examples of puzzling badge engineering. That means that when I see the South Korean Pontiac LeMans in a junkyard, I photograph it.

Here’s a low-mile, first-model-year LeMans sedan, found in a Denver car graveyard last spring.

A special day has arrived here at Rare Rides. Our subject is modern, sleek, and the Cadillac of Minivans. That’s right, it’s Van Time with the Oldsmobile Silhouette.

Steph brought us news on Friday about Hummer’s imminent return. In an about-face from the gas-guzzling image it cultivated fifteen years ago, earning it scorn and ridicule from the wheat-n-grain types, the name is going to be appended to an electric pickup.

Sure, it isn’t going to be a standalone brand, instead as part of the GMC fold and perhaps even as “Hummer by GMC”. The latter spawns images of “Chrysler TC by Maserati”, but nevertheless. Our question for you today is this: which of GM’s purged brands would you bring back, should RenCen suddenly hand you the levers of power?

No, this isn’t one of those “one weird thing” clickbait-style posts. You know us better than that.

This morning, we’re asking about weird cars you enjoy finding in any condition. You know what we mean: the cars that appeal to you (probably only you) when they randomly appear amongst the detritus of life.

Given that lead photo, you know where the majority of my Kryptonite is found.

Since The General built cars on the J Platform from the 1982 through 2005 model years, I still see numerous examples of the J during my junkyard travels. Most of those are late-production Cavaliers and Sunfires — not so interesting — but today we’ve got a genuine high-performance Sunbird bearing one of the most important words of the 1980s: TURBO!

The Great Recession of 2009 wasn’t kind to many automakers, a few of whom were forced to jettison brands like the crew of a sinking boat heaving cargo overboard. With a decent level of consumer confidence and continued cheap gas, things are looking up — even as they’re looking down (January results were less than favorable for a few).

Imagine for a moment you could conjure the ability (and the funds) to revive a brand that’s recently departed this landscape. We have four from which you can select — and a brand new way for you to vote.

More pre-1960 vehicles than one might think show up in the big U-Wrench wrecking yards; you won’t find a ’55 Chevy coupe, but I’ve seen Nash Metropolitans, a ’55 Buick, a ’49 Dodge, a ’58 Edsel, a ’53 Willys, and a ’50 Studebaker in recent years, and that’s just a small sampling. Today’s Junkyard Treasure is a ’53 Pontiac Chieftain sedan in very solid condition, photographed in a Denver-area self-service yard last week.

You’ve seen all of today’s contenders before on the roads, likely more times than you can count. Forgettable because of how middling they were, hundreds of thousands were sold.

Which one would you actually buy with your own money?

Today’s Rare Ride is what happens when you take the generally British idea of a shooting brake and combine it with some designers in Michigan who had big ideas.

It’s the 1985 Trans Am Kammback Concept. It’s real, and it is spectacular.

Three hatchbacks from 2010 (we might call them crossovers today), all of them about to disappear for various reasons. All three promise utility for their owners, and all provide four driven wheels. Thinking with your 2010 hat, which one do you take home?

Guilty pleasures. Look, we’ve all got ’em. No, not those. I’m talking about cars and trucks we like … that we’re not supposed to like.

Oddballs? Weirdos? Flat-out strange? Let me give you an example.

Thirteen years after the final Grand Am rolled off the assembly line, examples of Pontiac’s N-Platform-based sporty commuter remain very easy to find in American wrecking yards. For the second-generation N-based Grand Am, which debuted for the 1992 model year, the wretched Iron Duke engine went away, replaced with various pushrod 60° V6s and the Oldsmobile Quad 4 engine.

Here’s a ’94 SE Sport Coupe, complete with single-cam Quad 4 and five-speed, in a Colorado wrecking yard.