Although a 1969 GTO convertible ignited my love for General Motors products at the tender age of 20 or 21, GTOs mostly escape my notice anymore. In my sleepy little town of 33,000 or so, a summer GTO sighting is almost as ubiquitous, if not as annoying, as all night drunken fireworks displays or shirtless middle-aged dudes (of whom I am sadly now sometimes one). It’s not that I dislike GTOs, it’s just that I’m around old cars too much to appreciate their appeal. But this Tempest reminded me, if I at all needed the nudge, that the 1960s were the decade of Pontiac.
Somewhat ratty, somewhat forgotten, somewhat nontraditional old cars are typically the magnet to my steel, and this bottom-of-the-line two-door Tempest is almost hipster ironic in its “look at me” invisibility, but that same chic mousiness is what makes it the winner with which I was instantly enamored. Because it’s NOT shiny, and it IS lived in, I noticed it, and since I noticed a ’67 Pontiac A-Body for the first time in what seems like eons, it all became clear why people love ’67 GTOs. They are the fortunate recipients of a beautiful bodystyle, Bill Mitchell and Jack Humbert having waved their magic wands and creating a carriage that lasted long after midnight.
While Buick owned most of the 1950s and Oldsmobile the 1970s, Pontiac raced to number three in the 1960s based on the strength of their superior styling and innovative marketing, rendering even the most basic of Tempests lifestyle-machines. Even with a basic 326 and basic wheel covers, the Tempest oozes a GTO-like ready to strike persona, a sheep in wolf’s clothing. What makes this particular car so exciting, however, is that nobody seems to want a base Tempest, or even a LeMans. Everybody goes for the GTO, or much worse, a clone. Therefore, seeing a lowly Tempest at an average summer get-together is exciting.
While I understand why men and women of a certain age want to finally purchase the car they couldn’t afford back in the day, the worst thing that could happen to this Tempest is a for sale sign, or for the current owner to have a change of heart. Aside from some surface rust and a little Walmart rash, this poor Tempest would be the faux-GTO clean slate that some baby boomer has been searching for, and that’s a shame.
After all, Van Kaufman and Art Fitzpatrick sold the Tempest lifestyle well enough for any owner to appreciate the feature car based on its own numerous merits. It’s a driveable example of why owning an old car is so much fun. With a stock 326, it will likely be as reliable as any old car, will cruise easily at freeway speed, and won’t require race gas. Its old paint liberates an owner from waxing instead of driving and worrying instead of smiling. Any new stone chip will only add to the well-used mosaic instead of instigating heart palpitations.
In The Tempest, Prospero mused that “we are such stuff that dreams are made on,” an existential salute to the impermanence of life and all its accouterments, but if Shakespeare loved cars, a basic old Tempest might brighten his protagonist’s day just a little. So “be cheerful,” Curbside readers, and smile a little smile for the underdog, the Malibu that hasn’t morphed into a fake Chevelle SS, or a base Camaro without Z/28 stripes, and behold the joys of the simple and humble, yet beautiful, classic car.
For further consideration:
1967 Pontiac Tempest Custom by PN
Hi,
Yes the Sixties were the decade of Bill Mitchell, Jack Humbert and Pontiac!
I like the 65 and 66 Pontiac design-all models. The guages were angled to look at you in the 65 and 66 Bonneville and grand prix. The 65 body with the fender skirts and curving lines was elegant.
Gary
Aaron65, There’s a lot of love for late 1950s and early 1960s Pontiacs.
And for good reason. Great styling without the excesses that became common later on.
And it’s also good not to worry about stone chips and parking lot dings.
Nice photos.
I am with you completely! There is nothing more boring than a car show or cruise-in full of Mustangs, Camaros, GTOs and Challengers. I love seeing an original low-trim model with a yawn-inducing level of equipment and especially in an unpopular color. These are why I go to places where old cars show up, but I am not often rewarded.
These were indeed beautiful cars. I was a kid when these were new, and they were common on the streets for the next decade or more. In fact, there were so many beautiful cars made in the 60s, it’s a shame that I didn’t appreciate them more. Trying to make up for it now, though.
There were so many good-looking cars from the ’60s it’s hard to keep track of them all. I find the older I get the more I like to look at the most basic models of old cars — to see what kind of things they didn’t have. With me, ‘lowly’ models are “in”. I own an old car that would be considered ‘lowly’. It’s so basic I’d likely have a hard time finding another like it.
If I went to car show I know I’d be gravitating over to find the plainest-looking, most original cars I can find. Keep the pickled ‘show cars’ with perfect everything, I’ll take the plain sedan with the road dust.
The kind of vintage car my makes my heart flutter: One of the models that actually sold in large numbers and were driven by average drivers back in the day. Not another damned muscle car in a car show that’s already overrun with them.
Lovely looking car. I’ve never seen a 1967 Pontiac Tempest. I’ve seen plenty of GTOs.
As I have posted here before, I had a chance in ’96 to buy one of these, with the OHC six and 3 speed manual on the floor. I passed, because it was a wee bit to rusty for me, and the only body work I do is on my ladies 🙂
You reminded me of an old episode of “American Pickers”. Mike and Frank were asking a guy about his collection of transportation items (cars, boats, airplane engines, motorcycles) and the gentleman said: “The only thing I’ve got that’s not modified is my wife!”
I agree, these 66-67 Pontiac A-bodies were beautiful cars. When I was a child in the early/mid 70s, a friend of my dad had a 67 LeMans blue convertible. I thought it was perhaps the coolest car in our circle (another family friend had a white 65 Mustang with 3 on the floor, which I also really liked). An uncle had a 4-dr 66 Tempest (I remember the wheel covers too, just like the ones in your picture!)
Nice Tempest Aaron, but I must disagree with you. The Tempest pictured is hardly bottom-of-the-line. Perhaps the full wheel covers were standard (perhaps not, as I’ve seen 65 Buick A-bodies with just hub caps), but I have seen Tempests of that era with PAINTED, not chromed, door frames.
Also, a true bottom feeder would have a 6-cyl, wouldn’t it? And with a 326, it probably had power steering (I hope so!)
Thanks for another good CC memory!
The full wheel covers were definitely not standard, as they weren’t on any Pontiac except for the top tier Bonneville and GP. And yes, this is not a true stripper, which would not have had the chrome window surrounds. But as someone who saw a lot of these when new, this is how the overwhelming majority of Tempests were equipped. Folks bought them to get some style in a basic car, so why scrimp on a couple of key visual improvements. I could probably count the number of Tempests without chrome window surrounds I’ve ever seen on my hands (or one).
Its a tempest custom. I had the base model 67 tempest it was in fact a 6 and didn’t even have a carpet ,it just had rubber for mats.
I don’t recall mine having the tempest badge on the dashboard ,maby that came only on the custom
Hey, fordfan, remember if you bought the cheapest model Falcons in ’64 the glove compartment was plain? The slightly fancier Falcons had the word ” F A L C O N ” across the glove box. The dowdy, plain sedans didn’t bother with that ‘fancy’ trim option. And they didn’t have the bird symbol anywhere nor a hood ornament or chrome side trim.
Sigh… My 66-67 Childhood memory is a sad one; a lone Le Mans coupe, exactly in this color used to park next to a garage on the way home from school. It never moved and I could see it slowly deteriorate and deteriorate. In Israel of the 70s it was an exotic car but as a penniless teenager with a father who was not interested in cars there was nothing I could do about it. One day it was gone, most likely to the great scrap yard in the sky…
Swoon.
Rooflines of both the 2-dr. hardtop & 2 dr sedan was the same.
Both had the flying buttress effect.
(Dad had a 66 LeMans — our 1st car with AC)
Nice car. I wouldn’t change a thing. I saw a similar Tempest about 20 years ago with the vanity plate “NOGOAT”. An old survivor like this is way more special than yet another polished up GTO. I’d love to find a Tempest fake wood wagon and display it at all the shows right next to the GTO’S. It would be like having Uncle Buck at the dinner table.
GM A bodies are the best looking and most right sized cars of the 60’s. My first car was a 67 Lemans and yes, in those bygone days, I longed for a Goat. Now I’d rather have a Tempest or Lemans with the Hurst package and an overhead cam 6.
Better yet, a sport sedan or a Sprint !!
I’d take out the dents and rust rash, and give it a good paint job in the same color, medium metallic blue, which has always been among my favorites. But whatever other work it got would be mechanical (if it needs an engine eventually, any Pontiac V8 will bolt in, they are all the same size as the 326) and invisible. It just looks RIGHT this way.
They didn’t make all that many GTO post coupes, did they? Seems like the vast majority were hardtops.
Regardless, back in the day, you couldn’t throw a stick without hitting one of these lesser Tempest or Lemans cars. They were the bread-and-butter of Pontiac and I dare say that many of those sales were influenced by the association and appearance similarity with the GTO. It was marketing nirvana and it would be a true shame to see any remaining original versions, in decent drivable shape, modded up to make an ersatz, tribute GTO.
Total 1967 post coupes, all trims: 48,169
Total 1967 hardtop coupes, all trims: 171,653
Base Tempest post coupe: 17,978
Tempest Custom post coupe: 12,469
Tempest Custom hardtop coupe: 30,512
LeMans post coupe: 10,693
LeMans hardtop coupe: 75,965
GTO post coupe: 7,029
GTO hardtop coupe: 65,176
(numbers from http://www.oldride.com/library/1967_pontiac_tempest.html)
Our family’s ’67 GTO hardtop was very rust-prone, such that the dealer stripped all the paint (Linden Green with black pinstripes) and repainted it when it was about 4 years old. Being my mother’s car, it had an automatic with column shift (no console) and factory a/c. At least the transmission was a proper THM. Positraction, too.
Thanks for the research. Those numbers sound about right, with nearly as many low-trim Tempest 2-door posts built as hardtops, then the numbers separating quite a bit with the higher trim Lemans and GTO.
In fact, a low-trim Tempest 2-door post with the OHC six and manual transmission might have been rather a sweet, low-cost ride.
I’ve never been a real fan of hubcaps, full or dog dish, so a set of Rally II’s is the only change I’d make to this beauty….but fantasizing…wouldn’t it be cool with a Bonneville angled gauge dash?? 🙂
+1 on the appreciation of the common car.
At the Brit show at the Gilmore last Sunday, I swept past the two rows of E-Types, the Rollers and Bentleys.
What did I go squishy over? A 59 Morris Minor.
I would have, too! It wouldn’t shock me at all if one of those (probably not a Traveller, for cost’s sake) became old car #7 someday. 🙂
This one is for sale. The guy isn’t shy either, asking $22,900. He had been driving around the grounds and I went running after him to get some pix. He finally pulled off the street and I stood in front of the car to make him stop, so the Morris ended up at the back end of the Mini group, rather than in the miscellaneous section.
Yeah, that’s going to be about four times what I want to spend on one. That must be pretty close to top dollar, even for a Traveller. Of course, all it takes is one person…
I liked the tail lights on my ’66 better than the ‘bar’ lights on this car. The dash was jewel-like, one of my favorites out of any car I’ve owned. Granny & Grandpa bought it new: OHC6, not-powerglide two-speed auto, air, ‘Wondertouch’ power brakes and steering. Clear dimpled plastic seat covers were fitted and were still in place (yellowed a bit) when I got the car years later.
The OHC6 had nuked its top end, so I built (what else) a SBC 350 and Granny helped me install it with a THM350 one evening (she ran the engine hoist).
It’s one car I wish I had held onto.
An everyday cool car from a decade newer, was the 1976 Mercury Monarch 2 door coupe my sister had just before she discovered the joys of motherhood. Black on black, 302, 3 speed manual, floor shift. And with the Cragar S/S wheels, and Goodrich Radial T/A’s was a damn good looking car. Sadly, all it did was look good. Build quality was a oxymoron, and the 140hp (or was it 122hp?) 302 couldn’t pull the peel off a rotten banana. A sad cry from the “Total Performance” era of a mere decade before. I still want it. 🙂
MORE proof that 1967 was a high-water mark for GM styling (in my opinion).
My very first “expensive” model kit ($2.00 at the time…) was an MPC 1/25th scale 1967 GTO. I didn’t paint it, but put the tiger stripe decals on it, and used the optional Hurst mags in the kit…..
I had written about one of these Tempests about 4.5 years ago, on Paul’s post of a red car. I still can remember that car from all those years ago, and still would like to have one. The one in the photo is very much like the one I remember, but the car I knew had a black vinyl roof.
Great photos!
Pontiac Tempest… reminds me of the time back in ’87 when I had a chance to buy – for a very reasonable price – a pristine ’65 Tempest e/w a 326 and finned console automatic… gold on gold… that had been owned and driven only by the late mother of my car pool buddy. I passed and I’ve regretted that poor decision ever since.
The license plate with white characters against an orange background must be practically unreadable at a distance.
That’s Michigan for you! 🙂
Luckily, most of our plates have blue letters on a white background. You have to pay five extra dollars for the “upgrade,” and many motorists are unwilling to do that.
You are right, and as a result, they redesigned the plate to have a light-colored background with a dark serial.
As Aaron said, that is a premium plate. The state has had several specials over the last several years that people pay extra for.
Michigan used to issue new plates every year, rather than a renewal sticker. I read somewhere that the color combinations were derived from the colors of different colleges in the state.
The worst for legibility has to be 1970.
Preach, Brother Aaron! Outstanding piece, and I couldn’t agree more about decently-preserved strippo specials being interesting and cool for *not* being one of the high-spec models. I even like the Tempest font on the dashboard emblem. I could stay for hours at a show with cars exactly like this one.
Although the GTO and Grand Prix got most of the attention, it was the Catalinas, Bonnevilles, Tempests and Le Mans of this era that vaulted Pontiac to number three is sales. All were athletic and beautifully styled, Bill Mitchell at his best. Great values too, as for less that 100 bucks more than an Impala you got a Catalina with 106 more cubic inches and a Hydra Matic.
The sixties was indeed the decade of the Pontiac, an era when the division was fortunate to be led by three successive automotive geniuses. Bunky, Pete Estes and John Z. all became Detroit legends for their work during this time. Also, don’t forget Pontiac ad man Jim Wangers, who shrewdly crafted the brand’s edgy, high-performance image. His GTO “Humbler” ad is the stuff of legend.
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