If you’re not a Colonnade connoisseur, you may have forgotten that Pontiac ever offered the awkwardly named Grand LeMans at all. Originally intended to replace the Luxury LeMans, the Grand LeMans never really caught on, especially in rarer four-door form, failing to fully capture either the sportiness of its ’60s ancestors or the indulgent luxury of the ’70s Brougham Epoch.
The first and most important thing to understand about this model is that Pontiac didn’t really have a lot of luck with its Colonnade intermediates after the first year. The redesigned A-body LeMans line did respectably well in 1973, but it lost a lot of ground in the 1974 model year due to the oil embargo, and it never really regained any momentum after that. Combined Pontiac A-body sales for 1975 through 1977 were only a little better than the line had sold in ’73, falling below 100,000 units for both of its final two years.
Pontiac kept trying different permutations, but nothing really seemed to stick. The once-great GTO was no longer viable; it dropped out of the intermediate line after 1973. The LeMans Sport Coupe started well, but faded badly after 1973. The Luxury LeMans was a disappointment, and the flashy Grand Am never found an audience in this generation. After 1973, none of these individual variations sold better than 38,000 units a year, and many didn’t break 25K. Four-door sedan and wagon sales were especially grim. Overall, contemporary GM buyers seemed to greatly prefer the Colonnade intermediates in two-door form, and even those didn’t do consistently well for Pontiac.
For 1975, Pontiac ditched the Luxury LeMans in favor of the Grand LeMans. Even the name suggested that things had gotten awfully muddled in the Pontiac product planning offices. The brochure proclaimed, “The new Grand LeMans joins company with Pontiac’s finest cars. Grand Prix…Grand Am…Grand Ville Brougham.” Which made no sense: Even people who didn’t follow racing and had never been to France generally knew what “Le Mans” meant, but “Grand LeMans” meant nothing. The Luxury LeMans hadn’t sold very well, but the name at least left no question of what it was supposed to be. Adding the name confusion to a rather busy facelift didn’t help, and the ’75 Grand LeMans sold even worse than its predecessor had.
The 1976 Grand LeMans got another facelift with rectangular headlights, which I would rate as a big improvement. If nothing else, it finally ended the Pontiac styling studio’s strange fixation on tunneled headlights with single round lights in square bezels.
So, what WAS the Grand LeMans? The 1976 brochure proclaimed it “Pontiac’s most luxurious mid-sized car” (which was only true if you pretended the Grand Prix wasn’t also an intermediate) and described it as “either one of the most practical luxurious cars or one of the most luxurious practical cars Pontiac’s ever built,” an equivocal statement that somehow managed to be both vacuous and noncommittal. Essentially, a Grand LeMans was a LeMans with a different grille and taillight treatment, body-color door handle inserts, and a fancier interior that borrowed the “cockpit-style” wraparound dashboard from the Grand Prix. It had some extra sound insulation and a couple of additional minor convenience items, like a clock and courtesy lamps.
Grand LeMans buyers also got this stand-up hood ornament.
Rear fender skirts were an exclusive Grand LeMans option, although they still cost extra. I have some aesthetic reservations about them, especially on the coupe, where they tended to accentuate the shortness of the wheelbase. The Colonnade A-body coupes had a 4-inch-shorter wheelbase than the sedans and wagons (112 rather than 116 inches), and the skirts made the coupe look like it had been shortened even further.
The Grand Prix, which did without the skirts and pushed the front wheels 4 inches farther forward, had much better proportions than the two-door LeMans. Since the Grand Prix greatly outsold the LeMans coupes in 1976, contemporary buyers apparently thought so too.
In profile, the four-door LeMans strikes me as better-proportioned than the coupe. Unfortunately, in this lighting, the Cordovan Maroon paint doesn’t really show the sedan’s most controversial feature: its bulbous curved fenders.
This brochure illustration gives a clearer sense of the shapes of the fenders, which carried through into the doors.
That look recalled the boxy “torpedo” fenders of GM’s 1941–1948 cars. Judging by the sales figures, it wasn’t a theme Pontiac buyers of the mid-1970s were keen to revisit — Pontiac sold only 8,411 Grand LeMans sedans in 1976, plus 22,199 base LeMans sedans, and this was actually the best year for the four-door Grand LeMans in this generation.
The two-door was no less swoopy, but the curvaceous fender sweep seemed somewhat less incongruous on the coupe than on the sedan.
Inside, the Grand LeMans had the same dash and steering wheel as the Grand Prix, complete with rosewood simulated wood applique.
However, the Grand LeMans had different door trim than the Grand Prix, with a shorter armrest and pull straps on all the doors.
Surprisingly, the Grand LeMans came with the same choice of tufted button Dover cloth or Doeskin Morrokide (expanded vinyl) upholstery as the base LeMans. Ordering the 60/40 split bench seat would let you get the fancier Lombardy velour upholstery offered on the Grand Prix LJ, but it cost extra. I wonder if Pontiac missed a bet by not standardizing it on the Grand LeMans — there was a definite market for ultra-plush overstuffed interior luxury in this era, and the Grand LeMans fell a bit short.
The vertical straps on the Morrokide-upholstered seats pictured were also shared with the base LeMans. I’m not too keen on them, personally, especially in the fleshy beige color of this Grand LeMans coupe, which is too Hellraiser for my tastes.
While contemporary buyers didn’t care much for the LeMans four-door, it was dramatically more accommodating for back seat passengers than the coupe, with 4.1 inches more legroom, 5.1 inches more hip room, an extra inch of shoulder room, and almost half an inch more headroom.
You had to order the rally gauge option if you wanted instruments rather than lights in three of the four center binnacles, although that was also true of the base Grand Prix and Grand Prix LJ. However, the Grand LeMans included Turbo Hydra-Matic as standard equipment. Almost no one ordered these cars with anything else anymore, but Pontiac still charged extra for automatic on the cheaper base LeMans and LeMans Sport Coupe. It accounted for almost half of the $560 to $620 price difference between a Grand LeMans and the base model.
Otherwise, the Grand LeMans offered the same powertrain options as other Pontiac A-bodies. The Chevrolet 250-cid six was standard, with 110 hp, and the top option was the 455-4V, with 200 hp. The 1976 Grand LeMans coupe pictured here has the Pontiac 350-2V, with 160 hp, which was a $140 option.
The four-door has the new Oldsmobile 260-2V engine, which had 20 lb-ft more torque than the six, but the same 110 hp. It listed for $90. I confess I can’t really see the point unless you just had to have a V-8 (which 92.7 percent of LeMans buyers did), although you’d get the money back at trade-in time.
The 1976 Grand LeMans ought to have been at least reasonably competitive in the midprice midsize field, but sales were still dreadful. Pontiac didn’t separate sales/production of the Grand LeMans Safari station wagon from the cheaper base LeMans Safari for 1976, but combined sales of the sedan and coupe totaled a meager 23,168 cars. The 1977 model year was even worse: 13,165 Grand LeMans sedans and coupes plus 5,393 Safari wagons, out of a total of just 80,014 Pontiac A-bodies.
In all, Pontiac’s 1976 and 1977 LeMans line was by far the weakest seller of all the Colonnade intermediates. People who wanted a cheap midsize car bought a Chevelle; people who wanted something nicer bought a Cutlass, or maybe a Century or Regal, which also had more brand cachet. Customers looking for a stylish personal luxury coupe strongly preferred the Grand Prix or Monte Carlo. The Colonnade LeMans — Grand or not — was just boxed in, and no matter what Pontiac tried, they couldn’t seem to find a way out.
Related Reading
Curbside Classic: 1977 Pontiac Grand LeMans – Retrograde Colonnade (by Mike Burns)
1973 Pontiac LeMans Sport Coupe: The Poor Man’s GTO, With A 3-Speed Manual Transmission (by me)
Curbside Find: 1973 Pontiac LeMans Coupe – A Strong Start to a Weak Finish (by Dave Skinner)
Curbside Classic: 1973 Pontiac LeMans Sport Coupe With Floor Shifter – A Victim Of Fashion (by Rich Baron)
CC Tech: 1973-77 GM Colonnade Chassis Design – Corner Carving through the Brougham Era (by VinceC)
I gather that the GM Colonnade styling is not well regarded by enthusiasts today but I stand in opposition. I like them very much but feel that the requisite 5-mph bumpers diluted an otherwise sleek design. I like them in the earlier two headlight versions and feel that the concept was muddied with each year’s restyling.
I agree. Dad cross shopped a Luxury LeMans with a Grand Am in the fall of 1972. The Lemans had too much glitz for him thankfully. After 15 years his second new car was Burma brown 4 door. I loved this car with it’s bucket seats, center console, cross fire mahogany veneer instrument panel, gauges, a/c, AM/FM radio, and 400 cube under the hood.
I think Pontiac may have been spreading their Colonnade offerings too thin with a LeMans, Luxury LeMans, Grand Am, Grand Le Mans, a Grand Prix, a LeMans Sport coupe, a GT coupe, and briefly a Can Am (did I forget anything)? None except maybe the Grand Prix made much of an impression over the Colonnade’s five-year run. The Grand Le Mans was more prominent in the next, downsized generation (offered from ’78-81 in the US, but while later G bodies after 1981j were badged Bonneville in the States, they were still called Grand LeMans in Canada for another couple of years.
The LeMans sedan didn”t just recall old Cadillacs but also anticipated the ’95 Olds Aurora with similar swoopy side contours and overall shape.
I don’t think it was so much that they were spread too thin — not all of those models were offered at the same time (the Grand LeMans replaced the Luxury LeMans after 1974, and the Grand Am was dropped after 1975) — as they were flailing around desperately trying to find a commercially viable angle. I was really startled looking at the production figures to see how poorly most of the LeMans variations sold.
The Grand Prix ended up being the real winner, but it didn’t start off that way, which was quite different than Chevrolet’s experience with the second-generation Monte Carlo. The Colonnade Monte Carlo was a consistently strong seller, so much so that it made the Chevelle/Malibu and Laguna coupes seem kind of superfluous. The Grand Prix did pretty well in 1973, but then had two very mediocre years before taking off strongly for 1976 and 1977.
By 1973, Pontiac had lost its way. After DeLorean came a succession of dull gray men in the finest (NOT) GM tradition. One of them was so bad that he was basically fired but again in the finest (NOT) GM tradition, a new vice presidency was created for him, to save face until retirement.
The Olds Cutlass in its’ many forms just killed these in the styling department. I suspect that is the big reason they didn’t sell, that and the Grand Prix right next to it in the showroom.
I felt the 2 door Colonnades were all odd looking with Olds being the best. The 4 doors were better but the Pontiac had the strange bulbous fenders as you say.
The personal luxury coupe versions (Cutlass, Grand Prix, Monte Carlo, Buick Regal) squared off the roof and truncated the rear side window and transformed them.
I agree with you on the styling of the Colonnades. I generally prefer fastbacks over notchbacks, but the 2-door Colonnades, especially those with the big triangular rear side windows, always looked off to me. The PLC variants, with the notchback roof and opera windows, looked much better, and this was reflected in the sales numbers.
IMO this is the most successful attempt to graft square headlights onto the Colonnades, unless you count the Cutlass coupes where Olds cheated and gave the car a full reskin.
Interesting to read that sales of the LeMans overall were low. When I started working in Fremont California in early 1977, I was surprised to see LeMans police cars. 4 doors of course, and not Grand. Fremont was home to a GM plant which manufactured these and the later A/G bodies, before becoming NNUMMI and now Tesla. So that aspect of using a home-grown product wasn’t surprising, but I would have thought Chevy would have been the choice for a patrol car. But maybe they had extra Pontiac inventory to get rid of. Or at least the city got an especially good deal.
I’m not sure if they’re still in use but Fremont has used Tesla Model S and Y as patrol cars.
FWIU Pontiac was trying to get into the copcar market. And the NUMMI Nova along with its’ Prizm and Vibe would’ve made a great city/suburban police car, much more so than any Colonnade or Tesla.
My county’s Sheriffs department went to Pontiac Catalinas in 1977 (from Plymouths) for a year but they then switched to Mopars for a few years then to Caprices until the end of the rear drivers.
I always thought that the LeMans police car in Smoky And The Bandit was nothing more than product placement to go with the T/A. But I have seen others here tell about LeMans police cars where they lived. I never saw one other than on the screen.
Judging from how bad LeMans sales numbers were, no wonder they started chasing fleet business.
I became a fan of the styling on these after some firsthand exposure to my mother’s 74 Luxury LeMans. I never cared for the details of the 73, and also found 75-77 a downgrade. I will also be an outlier who thinks the fender skirts really worked on these. I made the connection with those GM torpedo sedans of the 40s and liked the retro look. But most people clearly did not. The photo below is the best I have of our 74.
I never realized at the time how rare these were, but I should have because I don’t remember ever seeing one like ours. Even recently, trying to find pictures online of a 74 Luxury LeMans with fender skirts is almost impossible.
I remember the name change in 1975 and thought “Grand” was an improvement. But the problem was probably the LeMans name, that screamed sport, not Luxury. A “Luxury” or “Grand” LeMans was kind of like Valiant Brougham in 2 names that just didn’t go together.
In the 68-72 intermediates, Pontiac owned the muscle/sporty spot in the GM family. But with the emissions/insurance/safety/fuel economy issues of the Colonnade era, that spot ceased to exist. The Pontiac Colonnades were neither fish nor fowl (GP aside) and I guess people didn’t see a reason to buy them.
If you wanted your Colonnade coupe with more luxury, you got a Grand Prix, a Monte Carlo, or a Cutlass Supreme. Maybe a Century/Regal. If you wanted something inexpensive, you got a Malibu. Aside from the A-Special Grand Prix, there wasn’t much reason to select Pontiac over its in-house competitors.
I am an admitted Pontiac fanboy, but I find the featured coupe to be stunning.
Grand Am coupe.
Grand LeMans 4-dr sedan with fender skirts.
Grand Prix.
I want all 3 in my garage!
I never knew the Grand LeMans got the Grand Prix dashboard, I always thought that was a Can-Am thing but this makes much more sense.
Its an interesting reversal of fortunes, Pontiac and Mercury being mid priced brands that were both in the spectrum of fancy Chevys and Ford’s respectively had images diametrically opposed in the previous decade but Mercury’s inherent broughamy nature fit well into those sign of the cat days, where Pontiac’s chiseled styling and relatively youthful attitude just plain didn’t fit, where you get contradictions like “Grand Lemans”. The Grand Prix did remarkably good job straddling the diametrically opposed fashions and the Firebird kept the 60s attitude alive but these regular Collonades? A LeMans with fender skirts fits about as well as a Cadillac Eldorado with Cragars.
I think the coupe looks way better than the sedan. I normally don’t care much for wheel skirts, but they really work on this. I didn’t notice the perceived shorter wheelbase until now, but maybe that’s why it looks so good.
I think the skirts look amazing on the sedan especially. I don’t recall seeing many of these in the flesh when they were new. Every time my dad car shopped he would go to Western Hills Ford, Glenway Chevrolet, Henry Sieve Pontiac, maybe Hagen Buick then he would buy an Oldsmobile either at Bob Pulte, Columbia or Simon & Fischer, which we all knew he was going to do in the first place. I never understood why he didn’t just start at an Olds store to begin with.
I think the fancy LeMans looks a whole heckuva lot nicer than the creme and buckskin slantnose 76 Cutlass S sedan he wound up buying.