Seeing this Pontiac 1000 in traffic the other day was almost as heartening as the warm spring weather we’re having. Did it come out of a twenty-year hibernation? Nah…just another old car in Eugene’s streetscape. Who else would notice but me? I was hoping to get in front of him so I could peel off a shot of the Pontiac Chevette’s distinctive front grille, but no such luck. I’ve shot at least one other 1000 (this ain’t exactly the only one in town), but it didn’t have an intact grille. Let’s check it out.
Shot this one a while back; looks like the grille was sort of slipping down behind the bumper. Nice.
And caught it again some time later, in my neighborhood, no less. Come to visit the ‘hood. By this time the grille was fully absent.
How perfectly Eugene: a red 1000 in front of a purple house. For those of you wondering about the title line referring the the “missing T”, it’s because the little Chevette clone sported the name T1000 in its first few years, and dropped it beginning in 1984.
Lest you be tempted to jump to any stereotypical assumptions, from the looks of the newspapers on the front seat, as well as knowing the folks who live in the purple house (it’s in my neighborhood), the driver is well educated, possibly an intellectual (of sorts, anyway). What better car for such a person than a red 1000, from a brand that doesn’t exist anymore. So many ways to interpret that. or maybe his grand-aunt left it to him. More likely, actually.
Nice hammock; a good place to read the related Chevette Scooter CC.
In Canada, this was actually known as the Pontiac Acadian in 1977 prior to being brought into the US and renamed this car as the T1000 later 1000 much like when Pontiac brought their Vega version of the Astre a couple of years before.
Worked with a guy who owned one of these as his DD in 91-92. Biggest memory is him being called to the parking lot because of it. About an hour after we started work it caught on fire. Have no idea why but it was under the hood so plenty of choices. Always actually liked the chevette and T1000 so I’m not throwing stones. He bought a truck after that so he was grateful for the fire. The guy was very big and tall so he felt sort of cramped.
A friend of mine bought a T-1000 in 1993 for (no joke) $1000. It was in great shape and he got two trouble-free years out of it. He sold it when they left Canada in 1995, and he got about what he paid for it. These weren’t common, and between them and the Chevette they’re a rare sight nowadays. An old lady in our building had a black Chevette up until about two years ago. Other than a bit of rust around the rear quarter it was in very good shape, and I’m sure it didn’t have a lot of miles on it. She’s driving a Subaru now.
My dad bought one of these new to replace a Pinto in 1985. With the alloy rims, as the only option he got, aftermarket chrome mudguards, and a hood protector, it looked somewhat sporty. It was scary slow on the highway. To maintain 55mph up a hill you had to go about 65-70 at the bottom so that by the time you reached the peak you would be around 50-55. It was so slow my brother chose to drive a 1971 Ford Maverick 200 cubic inch 6 cylinder instead of the T1000 because it had more power. They were smart only giving it a 4speed stick as a 5th gear would have only been used going down a huge mountain. It did achieve around 38mpg on the highway.
Even in 1982, the Chevette/1000/Acadian were amongst the least refined (and cheapest) cars you could buy new. Given somebody has kept this car on the road for over 30 years, they should be very rare anywhere. Regardless of the favorable climate. Given there are so many more desirable choices, since that time.
A classic, desirable auto, yes. But a car that was considered old school and obsolete when new? It must be somewhat for sentimental reasons. However frugal you are, it wouldn’t cost much to find a much more desirable car.
I wonder if ‘Jack and Diane’ or “Eye of the Tiger’ were playing on the AM radio, as you drove by? Or any other hits from the time. lol
Never seen one our Chevettes came from Vauxhall or Isuzu/Holden and probably werent much better though we did see the occasional hot one from Vauxhall but survivors are rare.
GM decided Pontiac should drop the body-designation prefixes in 1983.
T1000, J2000, A6000 became the 1000, 2000, 6000. Mercifully they went back to model names. I’m not sure why GM thought using internal “backstage” designations for the platforms as public model names was a great idea when most of the public knew during this era that GM was squeezing out blatantly badge-engineered versions of the cars.
The 6000 was never named A6000.
Indeed, the A6000 never existed, that car debuted as the 6000. I’m not sure if it came out in ’83 or if it was brought out that way in ’82 “ahead of the curve”. Also was the J2000 ever the 2000 or did it simply morph into the Sunbird when the J was dropped?
I never understood the logic of the numeric designations anyway. If the smallest Pontiac was the 1000 and the next size up the 2000, why wasn’t the next size up (the car that became the 6000) the 3000? The Bonneville would have been the 4000 and the Parisienne the 5000, if they decided to be consistent across the lineup (though Audi might have had something to say about that). Even if not, going from 2000 to 6000 made no sense at all.
That being said, I still semi-regularly see 6000’s, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a J2000 and even longer since I’ve seen a 1000.
Another hairbrained idea like G3, G5, G6, G8. I’m sorry but I prefer Grand Prix, Bonneville, etc. Was a horrible time to be a Pontiac/GM fan. Writing was on the wall.
True, but if you stayed in the larger sizes, they were still making some decent cars. My family had an ’86 Parisienne that was actually quite good, save for a vacuum gremlin that we never fully chased down (its only symptom was that the car would usually stall out at the first full stop after sustained highway driving. Always started back up on the first try, so really just an annoyance.) Not bad for a car that was 10 years old when we got it.
Pontiac could have been saved, no one at GM had the balls to stand up to the Automotive Task Force at the time.
I’ve heard for a long time that Pontiacs were especially popular in Canada. Buick was spared because of China, why couldn’t have Pontiac been spared because of Canada? They’re our biggest trading partner and one of our oldest, most loyal and stoutest allies. We can keep a car company to feed the “growth” market in China (with our see-saw political relationship), but one to service an old friend (and keep production and choices up) was sacrificed to popular opinion about how GM should be run. Hmmm….
I was a little bummed when Frank Stronach (Magna International) wasn’t able to put together a deal to buy Chrysler. The idea was that he’d base the “New (Magna) Chrysler” in Canada as a distinctly Canadian company. I’d hoped he would have approached GM about Pontiac, but maybe he decided that running an international Tier 1 auto supplier was enough.
The final lineup was actually very good. If the G3 had been less of a turd, it too could have stayed, but a division with the G5, G6, G8, Solstice and Torrent, developed properly as time went on, would have been viable. See the current Chevy lineup as evidence that all of these models have gotten better. (Well, the new Malibu could be doing better, I guess)
It would have been good for us and our Canadian friends.
The Pontiac was always popular in Canada, where it was seen as a substantial jump up from a Chevrolet, at least in the ’50’s and 60’s. The Matrix clone they were selling was very popular in Canada.
Problem is Canada’s market is just too small for GM to keep a whole product line for it. With the Auto Pact and later NAFTA, it makes much more sense for car companies to market the same models in Canada as they do in the USA, which is the case for most of them.
I think from an automotive marketing standpoint keeping Buick for China was a better decision than keeping Pontiac for Canada…..1.3 billion vs 33 million
“The final lineup was actually very good.”
Um… really? The G3, G5, and Torrent were STRAIGHT rebadges/grille modifications of equivalent Chevrolet products, and frankly were some of the laziest in GM’s history. Equivalent to the T1000 vs. Chevette.
The G6 at least had unique styling, but it too was a re-bodied Epsilon Malibu. No differentiation in actual substance. The G8 and Solstice were Pontiac’s only “unique” products in years, and they both sold to rather small niche markets. Not really enough to warrant an entire automotive brand.
Pontiac as its own true brand was dead decades ago, GM just needed an excuse to put it out to pasture. Regardless of the quality/competitiveness of the final cars, it had no reason to exist.
“Pontiac could have been saved, no one at GM had the balls to stand up to the Automotive Task Force at the time.”
Indeed they lost their balls and negotiating rights the second they held out their hand. At their closure Pontiac had maybe 2 vehicles worth continuing, with the G8 being one of them.
What they should have done is roll Pontiac into Buick/GMC dealerships, where they could have keep the brand alive with the G8 and a new Firebird based on the Camaro. There was no need for a full-line Pontiac company to continue though…
The decision to end Pontiac was made by GM in August of 2008, before the Task Force was formed.
In response to everyone’s replies, please know that I posted that in a fit of pique; regardless of everyone else’s opinions, I’m still disappointed that Pontiac was cancelled (obviously)…
As much as I am an automotive sentimentalist, I too realize that with GM bleeding at the end of the 21st Century’s 1st decade, that from a business point of view, it made sense to axe Pontiac. Yes, Buick survived because of China, but that is a burgeoning car market and Buick still had some cache – albeit in the Far East. Pontiac was too much of an overlap even back in the ’70’s where its products could either be up (Oldsmobile/Buick territory) or down (Chevrolet). The Sloan ladder way of business and pricing for GM cars really died by the late 1980s . . . .
I don’t mind Pontiac naming a car G8 and dropping the Bonneville, especially since you could get a G8 with a 6.2l V8 with over 400hp mated to a 6 speed manual trans. It was a true honest to God muscle car that seated 5 comfortably. Based on the Holden Commodore.
Again, I prefer my Pontiacs to be Pontiacs.
Back in the day Car and Driver said the 6000 was so named as it sounded “1000 better” than the Audi 5000…..
J2000 –> 2000 –> 2000 Sunbird –> Sunbird
The 3000 (or P3000) was the original name for the Fiero. Banshee was also considered.
I always figured Pontiac had set its sights on Audi (5000 and 4000).
Later, in the 2000s, they did it all over again with the G4, etc, which was also a clear knock against Audi.
That takes care of 3000. Maybe 4000 and 5000 were reserved for possible future use for successors to the Phoenix and Firebird? In the traditional Pontiac lineup, they would have typically been thought of as slotted in between the Sunbird (2000) and LeMans (predecessor to the 6000). I guess the Grand Prix would have been the 7000, the Bonneville the 8000, and the Parisienne the 9000 — although I’m sure at the time this numering system was conceived, there wasn’t intended to be a B-body in the lineup.
Or perhaps Pontiac was concerned about trademark issues with Audi over the use of the “4000” and “5000” names?
When the FWD “A’s” were introduced in the late summer of 1981, I do recall the press and even Pontiac pre-release promotions calling the car the A6000 . . . although the first one in the flesh I saw ( I believe, around August of ’81 at then Mike Salta Pontiac in Honolulu) was a base series simply badged “6000” . . . sharing showroom space with what a buddy of mine and I thought was ludicrously priced (at MSRP $9200.00), a J-2000 (not even full boat).
IINM, the ’82 model year FWD A-bodies got a late introduction, a bit after the rest of the 1982 model year cars had gone on sale. Pontiac presumably decided to drop the letter prefixes in between the point in time when the rest of the 1982 model lineup was finalized and when the new A-body lineup was finalized. The other models with letter prefixes then lost them for the 1983 model year.
EDIT: I thought the T1000 and J2000 both lost their letter prefixes for the 1983 model year, but Paul’s article says that the T1000 didn’t lose it until 1984, and Wikipedia agrees (even though it confirms that the J2000 lost its prefix in 1983). So each of the three models with numbers appeared in unprefixed form in a different model year. Who knows what Pontiac was thinking….
My dad had one of these. I don’t remember for sure when he bought it, but it was bought new. It was a T1000 for sure. It got rear ended once, and another time he rolled it. Both times it was fixed, and he kept on driving it.
I do know that in 1986 Dad (Mom could never drive stick) drove us in that car from Kalamazoo, MI to Tampa, FL.
Also, when I was 10 or so, I tried to drive it, did a miserable job, and could not figure out how to remove the key. It had one of the little latch things. Totally got busted for that one.
The car, while still drivable, was in pretty rough shape, when a dealer offered my dad $1000 trade in ($500?) sight unseen. And that was how we got our 88 Celebrity. Wagon.
NPR sounds the same from a single blown speaker cradles in front of the shifter as it does in some fancy 6+ stereo.
“Our next caller is Bob from Eugene, Oregon. Hi Bob! (5-minute conversation about the Bob Newhart Show edited for space) , welcome to Car Talk!”
“Hi Tom and Ray, I drive a Pontiac 1000-”
“Well, there’s your problem right there! (laughter)“
Car Tahwk became significantly less interesting when I realized 1.) the show is no longer being produced, and 2.) even when it was in production, the entire show was pieced together from interviews done over the past week. My entire life had been a lie up to that point.
And Texn3, you’re wrong there. The stentorian tones of Carl Kasell on Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! and Garrison Keillor on A Prairie Home Companion gain another level of resonance when heard in surround sound.
The T-body was pretty old by the time Pontiac got in the game with it, at least in the US. The original North American Chevette was released in 1975, the T-1000 was released in 1982 (IIRC). Another car I believe that dealers demanded and CAFE gave favorable conditions to, much like the more recent G3, or Chevy Aveo (US) or Daewoo Spark.
I came real close to buying the 1984 version of the Chevette back in the day, a real stripper version, even without the radio, because I was between cars and could have bought one well under $5,000 US due to my UAW and GM connections. I couldn’t have gotten into a Cavalier coupe for under $6000. It would have been cheap to own, run and insure. I had a long commute at the time and I wouldn’t have cared if it got beaten up.
What did I do? I bought a demonstrator 1983 Trans Am! What else could I have done? It was only $5,000 more than the Chevette I’d considered and a much higher interest rate, too!
The folly of youth. Ugh.
“the T-1000 was released in 1982 (IIRC)”
1981 model year, if I’m not mistaken.
Back in the mid-eighties a friend had one of these while I had a 78 Zephyr coupe (not the Z7). His had the 1.6, 5 speed iirc, and 3.73 final drive. My Zephyr had the 2.3, 4 speed, and 3.08’s. Of course we had to race and I thought the combination of smaller car and deeper gears would give him the win. What happened was that I pulled out so far by the end that I thought his car broke.
We would also practice bootleggers turns and reverse 180’s (aka Rockfords) for grins. The Zephyr probably didn’t look as good as a gold Firebird doing that stuff but managed to do them without excess drama. His car otoh, well the first, and only, time we tried a reverse 180 we felt a bang as the suspension hit full droop on the high side followed by the feel of an impact as it came back down. The realization caused our eyes to grow wide as it dawned that the only thing that could mean was the car had gone up on two wheels and also explained similar, but not as severe, feelings when doing bootleggers turns. Pretty well stopped trying stunts in that car after that.
Not bad-looking little cars, albeit the grille doesn’t do any favours, even if the package was a bit old fashioned against a Civic. They are reminiscent of the Talbot Sunbeam that in Lotus form won the 1981 world rally championship.
I think I’d rather have the wagon version sold locally as the Holden Gemini (based on the Isuzu version).
The Vauxhall version was called Chevanne same car with different front sheet metal and Viva running gear.
A friend of mine who is 10 years younger than I am got a 4 door T-1000 and it was a decent enough car. He drove it like a lunatic and it survived without issues until someone put sand into the engine (he had a lot of enemies). We were over at his parent’s house having a cookout when a neighbor’s kid drove down the street in a Chevette, and he started making fun of her car. I said, “What do you think you’re driving?” He says, “At least it’s not a Chevette!”, His brother and I said together, “No, it’s a Chevette with a different name!”. He was pissed off, big time. About six months later, it was gone, replaced by a Chevy Beretta. He modded the crap out of that thing, it was actually scary quick and he drove it all through college. Soon after, it was borrowed by his future wife’s little brother, who wrecked it when he fell asleep after a night of partying. He was too drunk to even feel anything. He got out of the wrecked car and walked to a 24 hour gas station and called the cops, who arrested him for underage drinking, and resisting arrest. He stayed with Chevy as his next vehicle was an ’88 S-10 4×4 which he drove till it rotted.
Pontiac overlapped Chevy for years. Chevy has performance cars, so having another ‘performance division’ competing in house wouldn’t work now.
When GM had 50% share, sure, 5 divisions worked, but not with 18% share. The 1000 shows plain and simple why Pontiac was killed off. They were mostly rebadges competing for ‘cheapest car’ with Chevy. And the idea that somehow the 1000 is ‘better’ or ‘sportier’ due to the badge, is a joke to unbiased car buyers.
And the G8 lives on as the Chevy SS. But where are the buyers?
And thinking someone could ‘buy’ Pontiac? They would have to create their own platforms, motors, etc, who has that kind of money? China? And even if so, the loyalists would complain about styling and that they “don’t look like the 1967…”
By the way, where were the ‘loyal’ buyers when the G8 was out? They were complaining about the price, styling, country of origin, engine, etc. They wanted a reproduction 1967 GTO, with a Pontiac block motor, which is impossible with new car regs.