If you were looking to buy a 1977-1979 full-size Pontiac today, you would have a long road ahead. Looking online and in Hemmings, you could be forgiven for thinking that all Pontiac built in the late 1970s were Firebirds and Trans Ams. Believe it or not, Pontiac really did offer a full lineup of vehicles, including their bread-and-butter offerings, the Catalina and Bonneville.
It’s no secret that the 1977-96 GM B-body is a favorite of many of us here at Curbside Classic. My personal favorite is the Bonneville, as my dad had one when I was born. In late 1978 or early 1979, his office bought three brand new 1979 Pontiacs from Horst-Zimmerman Pontiac-Cadillac for the investigators to use: blue and brown Bonneville sedans and a silver Catalina sedan. Dad got the brown one. It replaced the silver-blue 1977 Monte Carlo he had been using. He did occasionally drive the silver Catalina (no vinyl roof, red interior) and the blue Bonneville (I have no memory of that one), but the beige over brown Bonneville was his.
It was either Sierra Copper or Heritage Brown, but I’m pretty sure it was brown. It had a beige vinyl roof and beige cloth interior, with the standard full wheel covers. My first car memory was riding in the back seat of the Bonneville while going through the car wash at a Shell station with my dad. This was back when car washes actually had brushes, so it was a while ago. The photo above, although a Canadian-market Parisienne, is very close to what our car looked like.
It has been told many times before, but GM downsized their vehicles at exactly the right time. The 1971-76 B-bodies were the largest full-size cars GM had built, and it was time to trim the fat. Really, there was nowhere to go but down, size-wise. The 1977 Pontiacs followed the format of their corporate siblings in utilizing the ‘sheer look’, as had been first introduced on the first-generation Cadillac Seville. The new Bonnevilles (and Catalinas) were built on a modified version of the 1973-77 GM A-body chassis, but were much more space efficient. In fact, the 1977 Bonnevilles had more front headroom and rear legroom than the gigantic 1976 versions.
The standard engine for Bonnevilles was the 140 hp 4.9L 301 CID V8, with Turbo Hydramatic transmission. Optional engines included a 170 hp, 4 BBL 350 and 180 hp, 4 BBL 400. The Pontiac 350 was replaced with the Chevy 350 in 1978, and the 400 was discontinued in 1979. The lineup consisted of Catalina, Bonneville and Bonneville Brougham coupes and sedans, plus Grand Safari and Catalina Safari station wagons.
Bonneville and Catalina coupes could get an optional Landau vinyl roof. The Brougham added niceties like extra window sill trim, electric clock, power windows and an extra-plush interior trimmed in velour. All Bonnevilles had bright rocker moldings, a unique grille and taillights, and standard rear fender skirts to distinguish themselves from the more basic Catalinas.
1978 Bonnevilles received the usual front and rear styling changes. What had been the 1977 Brougham interior was now the standard Bonneville interior. Broughams had new loose-pillow seating in velour for extra decadence.
The Brougham interior would not have looked out of place in an Oldsmobile or Buick and actually reminds me a lot of the 1978 Park Avenue’s interior. Those who thought the acres of pillowed velour were a bit gauche could opt for the standard Bonneville and get a much more understated interior.
The most distinctive seating option was the Valencia interior. Available in red or tan, it consisted of special striped velour seating and door panel trim. It was an option on the Brougham only for 1977, but in ’78 could be had on any Bonneville.
One of the Bonneville’s best features was the instrument panel. A black trim section wrapped around from side to side and concealed the heating and air conditioning vents. Full gauges were also available as an option.
For whatever reason, the B-body 1977-79 Pontiacs were not big sellers. Perhaps it had to do with the Impala and Caprice offering a similar package for less money. At any rate, when comparing Caprice vs. Bonneville for 1977, there was no contest, with the Caprice’s 284,813 units eclipsing Bonneville production of 114,880. 1978 was slightly better with 125,297 Bonnevilles, but once again, the Caprice ruled the roost, with 263,909 built (figures cited exclude station wagons).
Although I prefer the Bonneville, the combination of rear fender skirts and the rounded rear deck may have made the Pontiac look less attractive than the Caprice to new car shoppers. The Caprice does have a somewhat trimmer, leaner look when compared to the Pontiac.
For whatever reason, the Pontiacs were the least-popular B-bodies, and Pontiac actually eliminated all their full-size cars after 1981. For 1982, the A-body Grand LeMans was given a new front end and renamed Bonneville Model G, replacing the true full-size Bonneville. The Catalina was axed. This proved to be a bad idea in the long run, as after the 1980-82 recession, car sales started picking up again, and Pontiac found itself without an entry in a market that was suddenly showing renewed interest in full-size cars.
There actually was a 1982 full-size Pontiac. GM of Canada did not feel it was a good idea to completely abandon the full size market, so they offered a Caprice-based Parisienne for 1982. The really rare variant was the coupe, built that year only.
Pontiac wound up importing Parisienne sedans and wagons to the US market starting in 1983. Sedans continued to be available through 1986, adding the 1980-81 Bonneville rear sheetmetal in 1985. The Safari wagon would last until 1989, then disappear.
I found this 1978 Brougham back in January and took some pictures for the Cohort. I remembered seeing it years earlier and was pleased to see it still parked on the same street, nearly ten years later. With the memories of Dad’s ’79, I had to stop and check it out.
It is well equipped, being a Brougham, and also has Rally II wheels and sport mirrors. The color is Chesterfield Brown, with velour interior in Camel Tan. It is also somewhat rare in that it does not have a vinyl roof. It has current tags, so it is still transportation for someone, though I’ve never seen it being driven.
As with just about every other Midwestern Bonneville still on the road, the rear fender skirts are gone.GM must have used the flimsiest hardware to attach them, as nearly every one I’ve seen since 1995 or so have them missing.
Here is a retouched photo of what the car would have looked like when new. Although I prefer the fender skirts, this car does look kind of nice without them, especially with the Rally IIs. I’d add some bright wheel trim around the rear wheel wells, though.
As for our 1979 Bonneville, it was traded in on a maroon 1981 or ’82 Volvo 242DL coupe. Mom had a ’77 245DL wagon, and I think Dad wanted something a little sportier. It turned out to be his last two-door car for almost twenty years. My brother came along in 1983, and Dad got a silver ’84 244GL shortly thereafter. When I asked him about the Bonneville while preparing this article, he really couldn’t remember much about it – we usually took the wagon on vacations, and when he was home he was usually puttering around with the Porsche 356 he had owned since 1973. I guess it must have been a good car, as I’m sure he would have remembered it if it had a lot of problems. The 1977-79 Pontiacs were pretty good cars, even if they weren’t the most popular B-body.
My Grandfather drove a blue ’73 Lemans with vinyl top that he bought new. When I got my learner’s permit in ’81, that’s the first car that I drove legally from the DMV to home. I remember the accelerator had such a short travel that it gave the illusion of more power than it really had. I’d step on the gas just a “little bit” (more like half throttle) and the car would put you back in your seat. It was pre-catalytic converter but had an EGR valve that never seemed to work right. When the valve stuck open, the car wouldn’t idle or run at low throttle. When it stuck closed, it would run hotter and ping like crazy with part throttle. The 350 4 bbl needed a valve job in 1975 when only 2 years old. Yes, it drank gas. Pretty much sums up cars in the 70s.
My mom had a 74 LeMans with the 350 2bbl. It was a dog. Our problem was that the automatic choke was never right. Until the car fully warmed up, it would hesitate or stall every time you tried to step on the gas. I tried fiddling with the timing on the choke and could never get it right – it was always over-rich or under. Ours drank gas too. But other than the choke, the bad gas mileage, and my running it into a fire hydrant, it was pretty trouble-free. Except for the door pull straps. And except for the maroon GM lacquer paint that would get chalky. And except for the time one of the back brakes got hung up, hot and cracked a drum. OK, I guess it wasn’t that trouble-free.
Until I was really aware of Japanese reliability, I always thought that “that’s just how it is”. I was born in ’66, so I was just becoming aware of cars and engines and how they worked during the mid 70s. Funny how our expectations of reliability have changed since then.
+1 on that! Same with me (born in ’65, started working on American cars in the early 1980s) – it was just normal to be replacing plugs, wires, hoses, shocks, brakes, tires, mufflers, tailpipes, etc. every few years. Which is why there was at least one gas station with a full garage at every major intersection in our small town (anybody remember buying a full set of new tires from the corner gas station?).
I was a big Japanese car basher when I was younger. Owning my first foreign car, a 1981 Mazda GLC, which at 190K miles still had every original engine accessory on it, opened my eyes. I couldn’t believe that an alternator could go that long w/o being rebuilt. All of the ones we had on our American cars growing up crapped out every 30-50K miles like clockwork.
That’s really odd because none of my alternators or starters ever went bad on my B or G body cars, even with over 100K miles. And the Japanese cars most certainly did have items that needed replacement every several years such as timing belts, head gaskets, belts and hoses, spark plugs, exhaust systems, distributors etc. 100k plugs, wires, anti-freeze and transmission fluid didn’t come about until the 90′s which GM was big on starting around 1995. Also stainless steal exhaust was starting to become popular then too which added years of life to any of my cars.
These Pontiacs were my second favorite of this series of B body, after the Olds 88. Your interior picture shows the most memorable feature of these interiors. For some reason, GM decided to print woodgrain on a piece of aluminum trim on the steering wheel. Everybody knows you steer these cars with your finger on the wheel spokes, so the wood printing wore off to leave you with half wood and half aluminum on the steering wheel.
I cannot speak to the fender skirt mounting hardware on these, but had firsthand knowledge of skirts on my Mom’s 74 Luxury LeMans. The skirts were fiberglass and the mounting system was actually quite solid. Maybe the top of the inner fender rusted so that the upper skirt mount had nothing to hold onto?
You are right about these being rare. I periodically see late 70s B bodies of all kinds, except for these.
That ’73 LeMans had fender skirts that would accumulate crud and sand underneath, so every once in a while, I’d reach under, try to find the handle in all of the dried on muck and take it off to clean it.
Seeing these GMs again makes me recall just how populated America’s roads were with them and how few you see today, at least in my neck of the woods.
I would have owned one of these back in the day if we weren’t into small cars for a number of years – oh, say until the late 90′s.
I worked for Koons Pontiac-GMC in the late ’70′s/early ’80′s and somewhat frequently drove my bosse’s 79 Bonneville Brougham 2 door. It was silver blue with a padded top and had the spider web look wheels. It was very deluxe inside and I fit in it very well. I am 6’5″ tall w/ a 38″ inseam.
IMHO, these and the ’78 A-bodies were the last new real Pontiacs before fully reverting to the function which almost resulted in their demise before Knudsen/DeLorean came along…
…fancy Chevy.
To me, the difference between the ’77-’81 American line and the ’83-up Parisiennes is night and day. GM Canada was no longer as clever as in the 60′s, adapting a Pontiac body to the Chevy underpinnings…instead they went the Beaumont/Acadian/Astre route, slapped a split grille on a Caprice and called it good. Not that the ’80s Parisiennes weren’t good cars…just that they weren’t – and couldn’t be expected to – equal to the ’77-’81s for what was expected of a Pontiac.
I’d probably point to the mid-90′s Bonnevilles and last iteration of Grand Prix as the marque’s last stand.
I am glad to say that I sold Pontiacs in the 90′s during the 2nd sort-of heyday for the division, we had the very attractive supercharged Grand Prix coupe and sedan, the Bonneville SSEi, the agressive Firebird and Trans Am, with WS6-Ram Air option, the Grand Am’s were selling really well even the Sunfire was kind of cool when it had a GT package, there were some good times.
Had a 77 Impala wagon. Always had a tough time seeing any difference between it and it’s corporate cousins. They all had gas eating tendencies.
That was probably the best work vehicle that I ever owned.. Sometimes you don’t miss what you have till it’s gone but I don’t miss the gas bill.
“The standard engine for Bonnevilles was the 140 hp 4.9L 301 CID V8, with Turbo Hydramatic transmission. Optional engines included a 170 hp Chevrolet 350 CID V8 and Pontiac’s own 180 hp, 4 BBL 400.”
Just for trivia’s sake, Pontiac still offered their own 350 for ’77. It was replaced by the Chevy 350 for 1978. At some point (not sure if it began in ’78 or not until ’79), the Buick and Olds 350s were also optional. The 400 was dropped after ’78.
California – 231 Buick V6 – Chevy 350 4bbl – Olds 403 4bbl. That was about it ca. ’77-’79 in full size Ponchos, although most I ran across in the day (Troncatty Pontiac in Corte Madera and Ballestra in Redwood City) usually had the Olds 403.
No version of the 301 was avail for Cali? Did they have the Chevy 305 instead or was there nothing between the 231 and 350?
In the Impala, Caprice and mid-sizers (and Camaro/Firebird) in Calif. in the late 70′s did offer the 305 2-bbl. Oddly, not in B-O-P full sizers. 305 2-bbl and the Chevy LM-1 350 4-bbl filled in for the Pontiac 301 as it (and the 400) after ’76, weren’t “clean” enough for the Golden State. In my driving youth, I paid attention to all those brochure additions that used to be printed up for California customers. Engine sizes, transmission choices were restricted. I think this began to change in the mid-80′s when more modern fuel delivery and emission systems began to show up.
Sorry, but in the looks department, the B-body Pontiac was a dog compared to the Chevrolet. Completely overdone, over-trimmed, and way too much chetchke (that’s the Polish/Slovak spelling, by the way – at least as I learned it). At least Pontiac was keeping it’s traditional place in the lineup: An overtrimmed Chevrolet for more money.
Back when dad had the Chevrolet dealership, the one ethnic group he couldn’t sell Chevy’s to were the Polish-Americans. In our town (Johnstown, PA; which was an absolutely ethnic Easter European enclave) they completely preferred Pontiacs. And all you had to do was walk one block from our church (St. Mary’s Byzantine Catholic) to the Polish church (St. Casmir’s Roman Catholic) and walk into the sacristy, you’d understand why. While St. Mary’s was the usual Orthodox style gilt wonder, St. Casmir’s almost made it look Ikea-plain by comparison. I guess it was something in the ethnic traditions.
It’s amazing how fairly small changes in sheet metal created quite different looks on the same body — especially on the coupes, which all had different rooflines. I agree that the Pontiacs seem pudgier.
Yes, I do get annoyed when a ‘kid’ assumes “Pontiac was the muscle car division” as if that is all they sold, since 1926.
Let’s see, Pontiac wasn’t a muscle/sporty car – then it was (GTO, GP, Firebird) – then it pretended to be (80′s we build excitement, Fiero, Grand Am) – then it tried to be (GP again & Trans Am) – then it went all Aztek on us – small wonder that it was euthanized.
An elderly couple down the street from me had one of these, and kept it for several years–I always thought it seemed dowdy and out of place with the rest of Pontiac’s efforts to come across as a performance division/brand. The full-size Pontiac of this era is a mere shadow of the full-size Pontiac of the ’60s. (And that, among other reasons, is why there is no Pontiac anymore.)
Love to see a drag race between a 400 equipped B-body Pontiac and a 403 equipped B-body Oldsmobile of the same era.
Olds all the way!
In your dreams Rocketman…
Nothing a good Chevy engine wouldn’t fix…
I have driven both extensively and both feel pretty much the same. The Pontiac block revs a little more than the Olds but the Olds has better punch off the line. Also, the Olds is smoother and quieter than the Pontiac 400.
In fact the best engine that these cars got was the Oldsmobile 350. It revs much better than the 403 and you would never know the difference while driving the cars, except the 350 used less fuel.
We had a 1977 Catalina with the Olds 350 in our taxi fleet. No a/c and cranker windows so it was light. The drivers used to line up to get it. With the hd suspension the car was a true Q-Ship. Really, other than my 1990 9C1 it was the best B-body I have ever driven.
To add, while I am a fan of these Ponchos, I can see how an average big car buyer of the time would get either a cheaper Caprice, or an Olds/Buick for about same price. My parents and others of same generation put O/B on a pedestal, but not Pontiacs.
The sporty late 70s F bodies sold well, though, but as soon as gas went up…
The 80′s Parissiane and Bonneville G were mimicking Oldsmobiles, and clashed with Firebird/Fiero/6000 ‘sporty’ cars. Brand confusion hurt Ponitac in long run.
My folks had a 1978 Caprice and 1983 Olds 88, so I grew up with these B-bodies. I agree that the 1977-79 Pontiac didn’t get the best looks of the family, but they’re still fun — and now rare. I especially like that striped Valencia interior, which was offered on Grand Safari wagons, by the way! My parents’ best friends (50ish then) had a 1979-ish Bonneville Brougham for a couple of years, then traded for an Olds 98 Regency in the early 80s, to be followed by one of the last rear-drive Sedan De Villes (with cloth) — the classic GM move-up customer. But, in the common pattern we’ve talked about before on here, the ’80s Cad was their last GM car, to be replaced by loaded Toyota Previas and Siennas. Funny, huh?
That particular sedan needs the hinge bushings replaced on the driver’s door. Drive it with the door sagging like that for too long and you ruin the latch assembly too. When I was looking for a Firebird I saw a couple of them in which the door sagged so badly you could see daylight at the bottom from the inside of the car. Typical 1970′s GM – my 1975 Monza needed that done by the time I had 50k miles on it.
If you followed the manufacturer’s recommended maintenance schedule (lube all moving items on the body every year or so, can’t remember exactly) this did not happen.
We had a 1977 Chevy Impala in our family until about ten years ago, and the door hinges were tight as new when we finally got rid of it.
Spray-lithium grease is a wonderful thing. As a kid, I actually read the factory maintenance manual for our cars, and tried to follow it. Too bad that most of the dealers didn’t.
You can still find quite a few late 70s-mid 80s G bodies floating around in my area.
I wasn’t a fan of the Pontiac “B” cars just like many others. Oddly, I like the Grand LeMans/Grand Prix “G” cars more than the Chevy, Buick, and Olds versions.
It’s a tie for third place on my B body podium.
1. 1977-81 Olds Delta Holiday Coupe (A 77 Delta Royale Pace Car would an outstanding find!)
2. 1977-81 Impala Sport Coupe. (Would have had first but the Olds still had a “Big Block”
3. 1977-85 Buick Electra/Pontiac Bonnie/Catalina
“3. 1977-85 Buick Electra/Pontiac Bonnie/Catalina”
I’m being nitpicky, I know, but the ’85 Electra was FWD, and there was no Catalina or full size Bonne 82-85,
Delta 88 Pace car was way cool, like a big 442.
That shows how interesting I found the Buford and Poncho versions..
The Delta 88 Holiday/Pace Car, LeSabre Sport Coupe and late Bonnevilles were a curious attempt to revive the way dead sporty-ish big car market, they all had swaybars and suspension upgrades with available bucket seat and console options, though there weren’t many takers and most of those options were gone by 1980-81. I have not seen a turbocharged LeSabre sport coupe in years, it has to be the oddest of the late 70′s sport B-bodies. The Pace Car 77 Delta 88′s are interesting to, too bad the buckets were not available in 77, the 403 isn’t really a big block though, its a punched out Olds 350.
That’s why I had Big Block in quotes. Some people are nitpicky and consider 400+ cubes a BB(unless you’re a Mopar or Chevy fan..) So many parts interchange between 260-455 Olds mills that there really isn’t a Big and Small block.
Not true exactly – being said a 403 is a punched out 350; 403 is a destroked 455. Smogger big block – still offered mondo torque from 185 net horses – and “California Clean”. The Olds block is actually the same basic block design from the 1949 303 through to the end in 1990′s 307.
The 403 is a “small block” It shares the same 9.33″ deck height as the 260-350 blocks. The 400, 425 and 455 had a 10.250 deck height.
Used to think that too, like the Cadillac 425 and 500, but its not.
Though I’m not as big a fan of this generation of B-bodies as many here (my idea of a Big American Car is a 71-76 B-body), I always liked the Pontiac versions a bit more than their corporate cousins. In fact, it’s the look of this exact CC car that I prefer: no fender skirts and rally wheels. Classy, a little sporty, and without the frippery of vinyl roof and faux-spoke wheels. (Like I said, if that’s what I’m looking for, I’ll go with a 1976 Fleetwood! Though I guess that’s technically a D-body….)
I can recall in 1976, dealers in Western PA advertised Pontiacs at rock bottom prices. Lemans sport coupes were advertised at less than $ 4,000. Some as low as $ 3,400. Sixes with manual trans, no doubt. The Grand Prix, nicely equiped, was listed around $ 5,000.
I knew 2 guys who bought Lemans’s that year. One young guy I worked with, a coupe, and the other, an older guy, bought a sedan. Both cars had significant rust in less than a year. The old guy kept his for a least 15 years, but patched the car with pop rivets and bondo. He kept the car alive.
I never knew anyone who bought the Gran Prix, so I don’t know how they aged. They were nice looking cars, the whole model line up.
Another fellow I worked with bought a used Bonneville (around a 75) in 1978. Several months later, he tried to trade back for an older model, due to financial difficulty. The same dealership offered him $ 200 for the car! And as the guy told me, the salesman acted like he was doing him a personal favor.
A similar thing happened to me. When trying to make a deal, the difference between buying a car no trade or trade, was that trading in my 68 Fury, I would pay $ 200 more than buying without the trade. When I asked the salesman why I was paying more to trade the car in, he replied that my Fury had no value.
I bought a car from another dealer and sold my Fury (in good condition) to a private buyer.
Sales of the full size Pontiacs didnt drop all of a sudden when these came out in 1977, they had been on a decline since the start of the 70′s pretty much, as they had been for many standard full size cars at the time, there move towards mid-sizers in the 70′s represented a big shift in the buying publics tastes, Pontiacs own Grand Prix was doing really well througout the 70′s while the full size cars sunk, and of course there was the Cutlass Supreme mania over at Oldsmobile. I do admire Pontiac for being the only division that still offered a full guage cluster on all their full size cars through the 70′s.
I thought the Chevy’s were by far the best looking on the outside…Very clean, elegant. Especially in two tone paint that accentuated the character line just below the belt line.
Interior I loved the Buicks. Those round gauges with the brushed stainless steel bezels, one of which was a huge quartz clock above the glove box…very elegant.
My dad bought a 1978 Buick Estate wagon. Bright red vinyl “notch back” seats with folding center armrest and chrome trim on the outer edges of the seats very cool.
An interesting thing was that the Buick wagons were actually Chevy bodies with a Buick front clip…fenders, hood, grille bumper. They had to braze a piece of metal at the top of the front doors under the mirrors so the chevy sheet metal would line up with the Buick fenders.
The car had an Olds 403 6.6 liter 4bbl that produced a whopping 185 hp…the same as 2.4 liter Honda CRV…but it did crank out a whopping 320 lb-ft of torque at fast idle!
My favourite was the Pontiac “Parisienne.” Only slightly less suited to Paris traffic than an ICBM carrier…
I bought an 80 2door brogham in the 90′s. Drove her for a few years and never had any problems until the day I sold her. Drove thru a gas station and stopped on a man hole cover and she slid in. Did you know that there was a bucket seat/console option in 80? Found it pictured in my
GM reference book, but never saw it in person. Now THAT would be sweet.
CC ALERT! CC ALERT! Murilee Martin at TTAC has found a 1981 model of this car in a junkyard! Look under the “Junkyard Find” section find at TTAC! BUY IT NOW! BUY IT NOW! BUY IT NOW! RESTORE IT! RESTORE IT!
That is my 1978 bonneville that is pictured and it is for sale if u are interested in it Tom i also have the fender skirts.
I was wondering, how long have you had the car? I remember seeing it at least ten years ago, so it must have been a while. These are very nice cars. If you read some of the other posts here on CC, there are a lot of GM B-body fans.
Hope you enjoyed the article.
What’s under the hood? How much? Inquiring minds want to know.
79′ bonneville brougham only 73,000 original miles 5.7 L 350 under the hood
Wow, nice car and a great color combination! I’d love to see more of it.
I owned a 1978 Bonneville Brougham 4dr. in that dark burgundy/red paint (don’t know what they actually called that color) with matching vinyl top, the Pontiac “mag” style wheels, with the deep red “loose” cushion interior… I think it was the best looking Bonneville made, of that era. Everything was intact, including the fender skirts. I really wished, later, that I hadn’t sold it. My best friend wanted the car, and my wife of that time (now “ex”, and has been since 1985 or ’86) also pressured me to sell it, and for some reason (I did own several vehicles, then) I agreed to sell it to him. That was around 1981 or ’82… It remains one of my “favorite” cars, and I was a “Pontiac man”, as were my folks, too, all the way back through the mid-’60′s. I had owned several Catalinas and even a ’70 GTO (last of the good ones, in my opinion), years prior to the Bonneville. I’d love to find a ’78 Bonney Brougham that wasn’t ragged out, and put it on the road! BY THE WAY… my buddy drove that Bonney to something near 300k miles before letting it go, basically because the body components were, by then, in rather rough shape after that many miles. (He was’t much of a “car” guy, and never really kept up the exterior that well…) But the thing still ran, half decently, when he practically “gave” it away, somewhere in the earliest ’90′s.
I’ve recently gotten my hands on a 78 Brougham with green everything. Has the 301 with the velour. I was lucky enough to find it with rear skirts intact, 60k original miles, everything still working and not a spec of rust! Great car, I drive it everyday!
I had the chance many moons ago to purchase a maroon 1980 Bonneville coupe that was shockingly equipped with buckets seats, floor shifter, gauge package, Olds 350, rear sway bar, limited slip, snow flake alloys wheels and every power option imaginable. This was a small time car dealer that acquired the car from an auction with a bad GM 200 metric transmission and had it replaced with a THM 350. I test drove that car and instantly fell in love and have had a thing for B-bodies ever since. The price was a mere 3500 bucks but mom and dad were afraid of a 20 year old me behind the wheel of a big 350 engine. That Olds 350 would light up the optional P215/75R15 tires like nothing and boy dud that car handle! Alas what I ended up with was a 1981 Cutlass LS sedan with Buick’s mightly 231 110HP V6 with base suspension and poverty caps! That car made me realize early on how important it was to option these cars right. Suspension and engine upgrades were a must and the wheels could make or brake the overall look. I have looked and looked but have never found a 1980 coupe like this one. Also strange is that the Pontiac brochure lists the 301 4BBL as the top engine for 49 state cars and that only California had the 350 so apparently this must have been one of those rare instances when one made it to Upstate, NY.