It’s also time to celebrate ten years of the CC Cohort, which has become an indispensable part of CC. To properly celebrate, I went back to the first page, and will be posting and re-posting some of my favorites, such as this badass 1970 Pontiac convertible posted by Pixel. One used to see cars like this quite a bit more often ten years ago, for obvious reasons. But we’re largely living in the post Rust Age (or am I kidding myself?).
But here it is again, as I suspect many of you missed it the first time around.
Oh, I remember this one. There is no way this car can still be around. Can there?
I suppose someone could spend a bazillion man-hours on the body repairs and the mechanical rebuilds, but after all that you would still be left with a 1970 Pontiac. Is this the least attractive big Pontiac of the entire 1959-1979 period?
We still have some stray rusters – American vans are bad, and there is still the occasional Mazda Protoge5 running around.
Can a car be any more battered yet still be driveable? I think not.
Post Rust Age – well said. Any car on the streets with visible rust nowadays is very rare.
Decades ago you knew the weak spots for every type of car, where they started to rust. It was inevitable.
I see plenty of rusty post-2000 cars here in Central NY. Our 2005 Xterra is a case in point, with rust around rear wheel openings and on the silver painted rear bumper, inevitable with roads heavily salted 5-6 months of the year. However with a full heavy-duty (for off roading) frame it’s a cosmetic issue only on that vehicle . Oddly rust is not part of our stringent NY inspection, and you see older pickups with the lower sides of their beds flapping down the road regularly!
I did a short article here showing some modern rusters last year: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/uncategorized/curbside-corrosion-deep-rust-thoughts/
In places like Minnesota, as long as bodies are made of steel, there will be rust!
Now we know where BMW got inspiration for their recent grilles.
Dual antennas!
…maybe triple?
The LF collision damage creates sort of a “sharknose” ’68 Chevelle/Riviera look that might’ve worked. Lol
A rare example of car where the canvas convertible top is in better shape than anything else.
Well, I’ve got to run to keep from hiding
And I’m bound to keep on riding
And I’ve got one more silver dollar
But I’m not gonna let them catch me, no
Not gonna let ’em catch the midnight rider
And I don’t own the clothes I’m wearing
And the road goes on forever
And I’ve got one more silver dollar
But I’m not gonna let them catch me, no
Not gonna let ’em catch the midnight rider
The last modern vehicles I can remember rusting were both Mercedes. The 2000s ML SUVs and the Sprinter vans were notorious for heavy rust around here.
Some of those era sedans were pretty bad too. All of these MB characters were pretty frequent customers at my body shop, they were huge jobs.
I was too broke then to buy Mercedes but I would have been PISSED to spend that much money on a car to have that happen, whereas, say, a Hyundai of the same year would have kept on looking nice.
I’m wondering whether the popular “Cash for Clunkers” program back in ’09 or thereabouts is partly responsible for the lack of such vehicles these days. By law, all of those cars had to be rendered undriveable (which to me was a missed opportunity to get some of the “better” ones into the hands of poor folks).
Many literally were taken from poor folks.
Like, people showed up and took the keys and drove them away to the crusher? I thought it was a voluntary thing.
I think he means that something like this with a real street resale value of maybe $500 at the time would be sold to someone for $1500 or whatever and then that buyer would then use it to trade it in and get $4500 towards their next car, assuming that buyer didn’t have a beater of their own worth less than that. Free enterprise at work. (unless there was a caveat regarding having to prove a certain minimum time period of registration in the trader-inner’s name, I don’t recall.)
According to the program criteria, vehicles had to be younger than 25 in 2009, so cars of the 70s would be safe. The main victims were Ford Explorers and pickups, their Chevrolet counterparts, and Jeep Cherokees and Grand Cherokees.
This was one of my early (the second one I think?) “Cohort Pic(k)s of the day” a couple of years ago for the same reasons, it just reached out and grabbed me for the same reasons it does today.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-cohort/cohort-pick-of-the-day-2/
Oops; I didn’t know you went back that far. Did you do others that old?
I think that’s the only one from that actual last/first page but I went all over the CCohort, certainly some of the older pages. I know I also duplicated a couple that had already been used without realizing it. The best ones are simply too good to pass up I guess (although they are all good in their own right, it just takes the right mood to grab one at a particular time).
Hi there from blustery ole England
I’m pretty new to Curbside Classics and this is my first comment but I like what I see and this Pontiac convertible is probably the coolest car I’ve ever seen. How can anything so bashed up and rusty still keep going? But I’m sure glad this car does. Or did. Whatever, This car is as old as me and probably in better condition. This fifty year old jalopy contains more character than almost anything modern and I know Jack about Pontiac. The wheels and tyres seem to be in good condition but the bodywork and overall condition would have the boys in blue (police) very twitchy should they see it. Britain’s MOT test would more than likely fail the car for dozens of reasons, too. Does America have a similar (pointless) yearly roadworthy check?
The setting, the cars colour, that horrendous nose, all perfect, just perfect to brighten a grey evening here.
This picture has now become my iPad wallpaper; it’s THAT good. More, please!
If you like cars such as this, you’ve found the right place!
Regarding roadworthy checks, only about a dozen US states have regular safety inspections. Oddly enough, Massachusetts, where this car was photographed is one of them. Massachusetts’ inspection sticker is placed on the lower-right corner of the windshield, so it’s tough to see whether it has a sticker there, but I’m sure it wouldn’t pass in this condition (for instance, headlight aim is one of the Safety criteria, which this Pontiac seems to be struggling with a bit).
There appears to be no criterion for body integrity (rust) in Massachusetts though.
Somehow I doubt this car is still on the road, though…
Like the US, Australia varies from state to state. Victoria, where I live, doesn’t have regular inspections, only when a car changes owners is a roadworthy required.
Having said that, the police here will often pull over older cars and give them a roadside inspection including a look underneath and under the bonnet. I was once complimented by them on the state of my 20-year-old Cortina. The first police unit that saw this would order it off the road. Headlight aim, sharp exposed edges, structural rust….. if my father-in-law was still alive he could probably come up with a dozen more failure points just from the photo!
Rust buckets in that condition were common in SA and WA where there were no inspections at all
Weird thing that for years NSW roadworthys mandated no visible rust, but not Victoria, which meant quite a few oldies coming here for a new life.
A vaguely ridiculous rule, anyway, as visible rust can mean bugger-all to structural integrity or safety.
1970 was the year I mark where Pontiac styling lost the plot. I wouldn’t give this a second glance if it were pristine, but in banger condition it’s pretty sweet. That ridiculous grille gives it a charming VW with a Rolls grille vibe, and it amuses me how tarnished and dull all the chrome and brightwork is everywhere else except it. Its a pure vulnerable Bunkie beak in the pre-5mph bumper days and it’s the only part mostly intact!
Can you imagine the utter feeling of freedom it must be to drive around in this with the top down? All the tall climate controlled SUVs cowering away and leaving space fearing what they’d call an “eyesore”(pot-kettle, right there) careening into them, and you yourself have none of those worries, just rolling in the open air in a big old land boat. For you if an inattentive driver in one of them, distracted by their infotainment or overconfident in their beta phase autopilot systems, crashes into you it’s just another dent with a story to tell later on, while their replaced front facia never matches the shade of the rest of the car again.
My parents had one of these.
Looks aside, this was one helluva car. Trouble free, solid ride. etc.
I cannot imagine how that car could pass annual safety inspection…..At the very least, the drivers side headlights are way out of proper aim.
That car would never pass inspection in Pennsylvania.
Is that a 61 Buick fender on the left front?
It’s a car that screams “nothing to lose”. You can bet if you saw this thing careening towards you in a traffic circle you’d get the heck out of the way, and fast.
Oh, and here’s what it would have once looked like.
One imagines that the body-removal job that the rust was then busily undertaking is now complete, that removal being entirely to the benefit of the original klutz-handed styling.