(first posted 9/30/2012) Nothing like seeing a car to jog the old memory banks. c5karl posted this ’67 Bonnie at the Cohort, and the lights flashed on: I “had” one of these. Not exactly owned, but an extended car sitting job, actually. Which is better than ownership anyway.
I can’t remember all the details, but a good old friend somehow needed me to babysit her boyfriend’s old ’67 Bonneville coupe while I was starting my tv career in the depths of the smog of San Bernardino in the summer of 1977. I was driving my rough-and-tumble Dodge A100 van at the time, and every Friday night I would head to Santa Monica to cool off in the fresh ocean breeze, as well as the Pacific’s water. I took the Bonnie one time, and what a contrast to the Dodge, even if it didn’t have AC. it became a regular weekend affair until it was broken up.
Unlike ten-year old cars today, the Pontiac was a bit geriatric already. No rust, of course, but the shocks were MIA, so a Dramamine was recommended before heading off. Slide-Tracking, not Wide-Tracking. But the 400 inch (6.6 L) Trophy V8 backed up by the Turbo-Hydramatic was still willing to impress with its classic GM smoothness and some decent hustle, when the secondaries were drafted for duty. Of course, it extracted its price at the pumps.
It was so wonderful to swoosh along I10 with all the windows down, and start feeling the first wafts of cool ocean air somewhere just east of downtown LA. The temperature would drop from 100 in San Bernardino down to the high sixties in Santa Monica, all within an hour’s drive (traffic permitting). One has to know the California climate to understand the phenomena. I can still feel that salt air in my nostrils, and the subtle throb of the big V8. What a way to start a weekend.
Paul, funny you should write this now as we are expecting offshore flow today and out here in Santa Monica the temperature is projected to soar to 87 degrees, though inland will be in the 100s, of course.
The whole Pontiac line in 67 was pretty special. My boss at the time had a new Grand Prix and I loved it. The concealed headlamps gave it a very different look. The 67 Catalinas were everywhere, and the Tempests and GTOs were in the final year of one of my favorite body styles. This one is in pretty miserable condition, I have to say. And safety-wise, those headlights and taillights are well hidden from a side view.
I commute from Pasadena (106 tomorrow!) to Torrance four days a week, so I am very familiar with the exact phenomenon you both describe. The change is noticeable enough in an air-conditioned car; I can’t imagine making that drive back in the afternoon without A/C this time of year, let alone in the pre-CARB era.
Yes, in the fall, the flow pattern shifts. i remember one time coming back from the high desert near Palmdale, and instead of the usual pattern, it kept getting hotter and hotter. By the time we were home in Santa Monica, it was 99 degrees, at 11 PM – Santa Annas.
Of course, this brings to mind my first car, a ’68 Cat. I have documented the problems I had with this car in other posts, so I won’t recap. But, I actually loved the looks and curves; there seemed to be a pride in design at Pontiac that just didn’t seem to be matched by any other carmaker. Yeah, they were discernibly GM, but Pontiac seem to pull off its own identity with just a bit more pinache.
Yup, Santa Monica has always been the place to be on a hot Southern Californian weekend. Sigh.
How could Pontiac designers top the 1965-66s? The 1967’s front end was clever (though not iconic like the 1965), the sides were a bit cleaner (if less interesting) and the back rather ponderous. Was the unusually high trunk opening worth it? Eh.
All in all the 1969 reskin strikes me as more interesting than the 1967-68.
I always thought the 67 was too Batmobile-ish in the front end dept, I like hte 68-69, 1970 jumps the shark with the bad nose, but 1965-1966 are the cream of the crop for full size Pontiacs.
Neighbor friends who lived across the street from us growing up had a white Bonnie of this vintage. It was in decent enough shape, but the white paint had long lost its shine by early to mid 70’s, then their older daughter decided to run a ball point pen over its sides one day.
I may have ridden it a time or two, but do recall they had it for several years, they, at the time we first met them, had that, and a ’66 Plymouth Valiant (navy blue), then the Plymouth was replaced with either a gently used, or new ’72 Pontiac Grand Am.
They eventually replaced the Bonnie with, I think the grandmother’s ’67 Caprice later in the 70’s. When we moved out of the neighborhood in 1985, they had a 1982 Caprice Classic wagon that they’d bought new.
Great car. This one reminds me of one I missed at a gas station last year. It pulled out before I could get parked and get some shots off. A white 67 Ventura 2 door with fender skirts. It had the most lovely open exhausts and I sadly watched it burble off down the street. I love these 60s Ponchos. What a great dash.
When I worked in San Francisco in the summer of 1980, it was not uncommon for the temp in downtown SF to hit a high of 56 F (13.3 C), while a half hour away inland, it could well be over 100 F (37.8 C) in Walnut Creek. These temps held true whether you drove a Pontiac or not.
If the 60’s tooling costs were high like now, the ’65 look would have been around til 1970. Can anyone imagine?
Wow. What a car. Love the character. A beater, but not too bad, and without the hubcaps is a plus. A hooptie-mobile/garbage can bruiser if there ever was one. With the looks of the right front lower valance, it may have taken a few cans out already.
The ’67 is one of my favorite Pontiac front ends. Not only did the pastor at the church I grew up in have one (when it was about 10 years old) but it was featured in “My Three Sons” and “Family Affair” (both wagons) and probably in I Dream of Jeannie, too, which was a “Pontiac show”. So it was a very familiar face to a rerun-watching ’70s child.
For “My Three Sons”, in the earlier seasons they used Chevrolet as a car sponsor but they switched to Pontiac later in the series. http://www.imcdb.org/movie_53525-My-Three-Sons.html
Boy, oh boy, that thing is a true “bomb”.
Sad to see such a once-beautiful vehicle be allowed to look like that. I assume it still runs, but I certainly wouldn’t want to be seen in it whether as a driver or passenger!
It does bring back a memory, though; my great-uncle bought one of the most stripped-down, 1967 four-door full-size Pontiacs sedans I have ever seen. Not even a cigarette lighter! I didn’t know these were available more bare than a Biscayne! It did have that overhead cam six, which I lusted after!
I recall visiting one day when his son’s family was in town and the grand daughter asked if she could have the car when he died! All conversation stopped in its tracks, as none of us could believe the audacity of such a comment! At 16, even I wanted to smack her from here to next November! An embarassment to all! Not a good thing to remember, but there it is…
When he died in 1984 at 92 yrs. of age, he and his wife had been in a retirement facility for a couple of years and the car was long since history, it was his last car, and I don’t believe the grand daughter got it, either!
Too bad, his son worked for Stewart-Warner in Muncie, IN!
Micro-climate adequately describes the climatological differences encountered when trekking California, especially when traveling to or away from ocean proximity to an inland area.
In the San Fran Bay Area you could depart an inland valley with 100-degree heat and in minutes shiver in the 60-degree relative cold when within 10 miles of the mighty Pacific ocean with its upwelling currents bringing cold deep water up to the surface where the prevailing westerlies grabbed the chill and deposited it upon the land confronted.
Home of the ravenous Great White shark and other deadly creatures such as the typical vehicle driver and sundry neer-do-wells.
Caldecott tunnel was an oft-used portal that often resulted in major climatic changes after traversing the hole-in-the-hill boldly situated in close proximity to the Hayward Fault zone.
Cool car. The 1967 Canadian Pontiac, didn’t got the Grand Prix but inherited the hidden headlights of the Grand Prix that year for the Grand Parisienne. For the illustrated cars in that brochure, seems then Art Fitzpatrick and Van Kaufman got some good imitators.
Regrettably, the six-year-old 1967 Bonneville coupe I inherited from my grandparents at age 17 was almost immediately the victim of a chain-reaction hydroplaning crash on the Mass Pike while driving to college. Bias-ply tires and drum brakes all around, of course. Luckily no injuries, and the car remained drivable – it was donated to a community college body repair class. A lovely car it was, with a/c, brocade bench seat, fender skirts, and, in their final year, reflective (chrome-plated?) interior moldings above the side windows and on the A-pillars.
The ’67 front end was really just a clever reinterpretation of the ’66 tail, wasn’t it? The ’68s were just grotesque by comparison.
My across-the-street neighbors back in the ’60s bought a new Pontiac every two or three years. In 1967, they traded a yellow ’65 Catalina coupe for a gold metallic new Bonneville convertible with a tan top. With that extremely long rear deck and fender skirts, it was the epitome of speed and class. Of all the Pontiacs they had in those days, that ’67 was the one I liked the best. Fifty-one years later, I’d still love to take one out for an evening drive with the top down.
I was only 2 when this car was new but remember seeing them around and wondering why it, along with the ’67 Plymouth Fury and many others of the era, had such angry looks on their faces
Those shocks were none too shocking when new, if our ’68 Catalina was any indication. But I cannot recall ever driving a car with a smoother power train that the Pontiac 400 coupled with the GM Turbo-Hydramatic. I compare the new, multi-gear automatics with that one and remain unimpressed.
My roommate in the Air Force had a ’67 Bonneville, although his was a four door hardtop rather than the two door in the article. This was circa 1977 and the ten years on the road had not been kind to the old Pontiac. The previous owner had flat towed the car behind a UHaul from Alabama to California and this had resulted in a severely pitted windshield, especially noticeable if driving into the sun. I borrowed the beast a few times when I was between cars, the first time I started it up the instrument panel was aglow with multiple red lights. When I reported this to my buddy his response was, “it has been that way since I got it and it hasn’t died yet”; if that was good enough for him it was good enough for me.
I have fond memories of the California climate. I was stationed midway between Sacramento and the Bay area and you could notice the change in temperatures as you drove. The nearest town to the AF base (Fairfield) was close enough to the bay to have an almost coastal climate. The next town east along I80 (Vacaville) was far enough inland, and behind a range of hills, so that it would typically be 12-15 degrees warmer there than in Fairfield. That inland heat was a dry heat and one had to be really careful not to get dehydrated; unlike in humid areas the perspiration dries almost immediately and you don’t realize how hot it is.
My wife learned how to drive on her grandparents ’68 Catalina. I wonder how many folks wound up with one that was passed along to the younger generation?
Looking at these pictures again I am struck by how far and fast Pontiac fell between 1967 and 1969, the year my grandma bought her new Catalina sedan. This 67 has so many visual details that delight. The 69 was dull as a stone, both inside and out, in comparison.
Pontiac seemed to hit a brick wall about then. And their market share did too.
That would place him in charge of Pontiac during the design period where design hit the wall, if design is usually a couple of years prior to the model’s release. A lot of these leaders are at the right place at the right time, and a lot of them ride out their successes long past the expiration date. Lido comes to mind for the most egregious of them, but perhaps DeLorean and the youth movement was maturing faster than the brand did.
I remember the visual appeal of these cars when the brochures came out. It was the same year as Expo 67 and spirits and excitement were high. These cars were quite different than their predecessors in my eyes and left a lasting impression. The downward swoop of the taillights, the ‘half grille half hood’ appearance on the nose together with the beak. Very prominent design features.
Now looking at this car again, I noticed the crease from the trailing edge of the doors to the rear fender. That crease would reappear on the 73 Cutlass. And all these years I thought Olds came up with that themselves!
The mid 1960’s were GM’s heyday of two door fastbacks. Starting with a more subtle 65 Chevy then morphing into the 67-68 curvaceous design. All the full size cars were treated to those swoopy tops. I think the Olds Delmont was probably the best looker.
Ah yes….I’m a big 65 Olds fan. Imagine that their engineers were able to pull off a new frame, new body, new engine and a new transmission all in one year.
Love that car. Any big 67 GM car is great, but that year, the Pontiacs were the most interesting-looking by far. That wide and rather aggressive mug kinda reminds me of Charbonneaux’s 1954 Salmson roadster below (or, as pointed out above, the 1955 Lincoln Futura / Batmobile).
Wow. I had one of these for a while, too. Not much better condition. I remember finding the owner’s manual and seeing it was originally bought ten days after my birth. Decent old sled with a 400. I liked my ’71 Fury better if we’re talking full-sizers.
I lived in La Mirada back in the day, inland enough that it got to needing AC. I’d drive to Corona del Mar to hang out and cool down, or sometimes nearby New Porsche Beach.
God the air inland was dirty! Smelled of exhaust, visibility a few miles…
Love the car. Only a mother could love that face.