Foden Alpha posted this at the cohort, along with this comment: Saw this on my way to work yesterday and thought, “I’m in luck! I found a Chevy Chevette.” But on (my way) home this morning, it turned out to be a Pontiac Acadian. You sound disappointed; aren’t these far less common than Chevettes? In the U.S., the T1000 certainly was. I’ve bagged only two here so far.
Oh wow, it’s “sportier” as a Pontiac!!!
Just as the Bobcat was more ‘luxurious’ being a Mercury.
BTW: It was T1000, not 100, after a few years was just ‘1000’. Those numeric names sure made Pontiac an equal to BMW!
Whoops; I guess I was denigrating it even further with that. T10, anybody? Or T1, like an Audi.
Cavalier Type 10 Convertible… Why type 10 ? I always wondered about that.
T10 as in S10, T10? 🙂
Like Ferraris have to be red, Chevettes have to be Turd Brown
Always assumed Pontiac was gunning for Audi with their nomenclature, not BMW. They tried it in the 80s….didn’t work. Then they tried it again in the aughts. Didnt work again.
My favorite one of them remains: the G6V6.
“G6V6” wasn’t a model. G6 with a V6.
True dat; but still, every time I see one, i still say it out loud. “G6-V6”. Because that’s what it says on the trunk.
There’s two feet between the G6 and the V6 badges.
Fair enough.
G6V6.
Now I want a G6V6 AND a Gran Torino Sport Sportsroof in my collection of cars with odd names.
How about the MGMGBGT or the BMWX5xDrive35i?
Don’t forget about the BMW X-Drive 48i M-Sport.
Or the Seville STS (Seville Seville Touring Sedan).
Another favorite of mine: Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais International Series
I think my favorite may have been a concept car created by Zagato in 2007: the Diatto Ottovù Zagato.
I regularly see references to the Mazda Mazda3 and Mazda Mazda6.
Even better, the MGMGBGT2+2
MGMGBGTV82+2
I fold. 🙂
So…many…consonants!! Love it!
I laughed the first time I saw an Eldorado Touring Coupe with the “ETC” on the back. Maybe there should have been a special “et al.” model! There was also the Eldorado Sport Coupe starting in about 2000, with an “ESC” logo. They could have had a CTRL ALT DEL version too 🙂
Or an AIP, or a DBA…I could go on.
I can’t help but think “Cadillac Etcetera” when I saw the Cadillac Etc! It’s not quite as funny as the Toyota TeRD edition trucks though.
Pontiac was the carline with too many acronyms. My 6000-STE (Special Touring Sedan) came with ARC (Automatic Ride Control – self levelling rear air shocks), SWC (steering wheel controls for the radio), ERS speakers (Extended range Speaker – basically crap speakers with a crap tweeter) Mine did not have ABS, but did have DIC (Driver information Center).
I recall reading in the WSJ back in the 80s about this same issue. They related a story from a Pontiac salesman about a lady who came in and wanted to look at a Gooole. He finally figured out that she meant a 6000 LE. From then on, the car was always a Gooole to me (or its upmarket sibling, a Goooste).
Hahahaha!
Still lookin’ for a 6000-SUX.
or the G000SE, named after the Top Gun character
I think the “GOOOLE” story is likely an urban legend (like the “710” cap), but funny nonetheless.
The king of acronyms, of course, is Porsche. PASM – Porsche Active Suspension Management; PDCC – Porsche Dynamic Chassis Control; PCCB – Porsche Ceramic Composite Brake; PDAS – Porsche Dynamische Allrad Steurung; and of course, the venerable PDK – Porsche Doppelkupplung.
Don’t forget “RTS” in the seventies for “Radial Tuned Suspension.”
The very early Acadians were always a bit rare but these later ones like this, in Western Canada at least, the mix seemed to be 60-70% Chevrolets and 30-40% Pontiacs. A great number of the survivors do seem to be that brown colour.
A high percentage of the later ones (with the monochrome bumpers) seemed to be in this shade, a lighter “champagne” brown, or dark blue.
Another familiar car but a bit different,we got the Vauxhall Chevette and a few Opel Kadetts which were much more scarce.The Chevette was one of the Vauxhalls that had a reputation for rusting badly,it’s years since I saw one.
I actually saw a Pontiac G3 today. Honestly, I’d be less embarrassed behind the wheel of a T1000.
It really was a long, slow death for Pontiac.
+1
Lots of H8 in here today!
Was that the step-up model from the G6?
I see what you did there..
How come in 1971 the base LeMans was the T37, but by the 80s this little Chevette clone was the T1000? It must have been inflation.
That’s pretty funny!
Wasn’t the T-1000 the liquid-metal bad guy in Terminator 2?
First thing I thought of
T1000 was to go with the 1982 J2000 [Cavalier] and F3000 [’82 Firebird nearly was renamed]. The 6000 was supposed to be A6000.
One of many ‘image changes’ for Pontiac after its 60’s hey day. Shown in the 1980 Turbo Trans Am ad was tagline “More Pontiac to the Gallon”.
In Chicago, where GM brands had strong images, the T1000 was a hit, since we had large group of Pontiac stores. To average young 1981 buyers, not yet into imports, it was “a baby Bonneville”! Yes, it sounds dumb, but GM loyalists I grew up with used to say stuff like that!
I’ve heard A6000 before, but I can’t find confirmation that it’s anything other than GM or internet shorthand. This is the first I heard of the Firebird possibly getting renamed.
That whole naming scheme was bizarre. The platform prefix was very short-lived. The T1000 debuted in 1981, and the J2000 came out as an early ’82. The 6000 debuted in the fall of ’81, the J2000 became the 2000 for ’83, the T1000 lost its “T” for ’84 and the 2000 became the Sunbird for ’85.
84 had the 2000/Sunbird according to the manual from Sis’ 84 Sunturd. It had the 2000 badge on one side of the trunklid, and a Sunburn badge on the other side.
Not one of my favorite cars, but respectable for the amount of crap it went through.
I thought it was the A6000 it’s first year, no?
That doesn’t sound right about the FBird though. It was the Fiero (2M4) that was supposed to be the P3000, or possibly revive the old Banshee name Pontiac used on some concept cars.
Was never named A6000.
I recall that it was being referred to as the A6000 right up to introduction. It seems that it was an 11th hour change.
I think the Pontiac J-body name sequence was:
1982 – J2000
1983 – 2000
1984 – 2000 Sunbird
1985+ – Sunbird
Right…was never named A6000 🙂 no where in any automotive parts catalogs will you find an A6000.
That makes sense about the Fiero since I’ve heard it referred to as the P-car.
G6 GT V6?
GM of Canada had some neat Pontiacs, this was not one of them.
I preferred this Acadian:
http://www.oldcarbrochures.com/static/Canada/1962%20Acadian%20Brochure/dirindex.html
Technically, the above wasn’t a Pontiac even though sold at Pontiac dealerships. Acadian was it’s own brand in these years.
Twenty years ago, a friend of mine bought a white two-door ’81 Acadian with the 4 speed stick. It was in nice shape, especially considering that it was here in Canada, and he drove it off the lot for $1200 cash. He kept it for two years with few problems, and sold it for about the same money when he moved to Germany. I rode in it a few times – the Pontiac nameplate didn’t make it a better car than a high school buddy’s ’76 “Shove-it”.
Poster car for the Decade of Reduced Expectations?
In 91 and 92 I was fixing air conditioners for a large hotel in The Woodlands. The other air conditioning guy drove one of these Pontvettes. I was going to a job in one of the rooms one day when I saw smoke in the parking lot. I drove over (golf cart) and saw smoke coming from burned paint on the hood of his little wreck. I called the fire department and him on the radio.
I have mentioned my Olds Starfire burning up and then his Pontiac. Of note is the fact that I was relieved to rid myself of my fever blister of a car.
By the time the fire department was done his car was a burned hulk. I had to note that he seemed just as relieved to be rid of it as I had been. Sometimes a bad car is like a bad marriage and you don’t know what a relief it is to be done till she moves out or the car burns up. Well, that’s the limit of my knowledge of the Pontvette T1K.
While we are on the subject of goofy GM car names, was yours an Oldsmobile Starfire Firenza GT, by chance? (PS not 100% sure about the GT part).
I know those cars too, my sister had a 77 Skyhawk, dreadful car. It didn’t burn up like yours, but just about everything else that could go wrong, did.
No there wasn’t anything special about this car. It was a demo when I bought it and for the 1+ year that I owned it the transmission was replaced and while I was deployed the wife said they replaced the engine. I thought the warranty was the best thing about the car. It fixed cars and gave loaners. It ran out and the car broke again. I wrote letters, they fixed it, and we then traded it. The 78 AMC Concord that we replaced it with was a much better car.
We couldn’t ship two vehicles back from Guam (Navy) so I kept my 81 Datsun King Cab and we sold the 78 Concord. We couldn’t make a wrong decision there because they were both good. The best decision was dumping that fever blister 77 Olds.
We later bought an Olds (82 cutlass) and the V6 in it really wasn’t so good either. GM had gone pretty far downhill IMO if you weren’t buying a V8. Still true in 2002 when I bought a POS Saturn Vue (first year). The exception was the string of Saturn S Series my family owned. Fresh start and good cars. The general couldn’t stand success so they became Opels.
The Borg-Warner T5 5-speed was available in these cars starting in ’82 but hardly any were so-equipped. It boggles my mind because these suckers are so low-geared to begin with. Axle ratios were 3.36 or 3.62 depending on options and with the dinky 13-inch tires, these things were screaming just keeping up with traffic.
I never got the ’82 I used to have over 60mph for fear the engine would explode. It was a great car around town though and it never let me down.
Weren’t the Pontiac Acadian and T-1000 sold alongside each other in Canada for a short while with the Acadian being the lower priced alternative?
Strangely enough, yes.
GM still made and sold the T-Body well into the 90’s down in Central/South America. Go here http://www.mercadolibre.com. pick your country. Here’s my favorite country to Chevette shop at http://listado.mercadolibre.com.co/CHEVETTE
This works for just about anything. You might want to use a translator if you’re unfamiliar with spanish.
I always wondered why they didn’t adapt the 4-door sedan body for North America.
I bought one of these as my 1st car brand new in 1987. The main reason was price and reliability. Mine was a 2 door automatic two-tone grey on silver hatchback. It was the up-level version, had sport mirrors, upgraded cloth seats, am fm stereo radio with rear speakers and even a cargo cover. Enthusiasts laugh all you want. I drove that car from 1987 until 1995, when I got rid of it, it had almost 400,000 km`s on the original engine and transmission. That car never broke down on me and always started in the harsh winter temperatures. Sure that car was basic transportation at it`s best, but with decent tires and rear wheel drive it was kind of fun to drive. I miss the simplicity of this type of vehicle where you could do repairs yourself and buy parts almost anywhere. Sure, at this point in my life I have become accustomed to power windows,locks,keyless entry etc. But when I see a Chevette or Acadian still out there it make me fondly remember my 1st car.
This enthusiast won’t laugh because he likes his (dirty) Vette 🙂 They’re often the butt of jokes but they last a very long time when given reasonable care. My old red ’82 had a ton of miles on it and still ran great when i finally sold it.
the real prized ones are the slowly diesels, Isuzu made those dsl engines. i may be wong though.
gm cohoots with isuzu then.
You’re right — the Chevette diesels had isuzu engines. A friend of mine had a champaigne colored ’84 4-door diesel for years and it averaged 52mpg. He said it was an excellent car.