With today being Labor Day in the U.S., and also speaking of “labor”, many of us have driven what could be labeled as a “transportation car”, one of which you were perhaps the fourth or fifth owner. It wasn’t in terrible shape, but it was no beauty winner, with reliability and at least the appearance of decent maintenance being your primary concerns. Little (and not-so-little) cosmetic things were amiss, both on the outside and inside, but this car did a admirable job of getting you to your job reliably, day after day. That’s what I’m guessing is the role of this “Goolie” Safari wagon. I’m also guessing as to the model year, as this car sported the grille and sealed-beam headlamp assembly from ’84, and wheels from ’87-forward. Regardless of model year, this 6000 LE is a rare bird in this configuration.
Even with such a daily beater, you’re not trying to unduly embarrass yourself if you can help it. If something can be done with, say, a little duct tape and/or bungee cord to substantially improve the appearance or functionality of such a car, why not move forward? Though the aforementioned items wouldn’t be of particular use on our featured car, the wood applique that gives it its “Safari”-ness is half-missing from the driver’s side, and there are also a few, surrounding trim bits also gone. If this was your car, would you delaminate it completely, leave it as-is, or if you’re a more adventurous type, try to actually reapply the Di-Noc (with help, of course) as a weekend project in your garage?
Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois.
Monday, January 30, 2012.
Related reading from Carlo Di Tullio: Dad’s Wagon: 1984 Pontiac 6000 – Twenty Years Of Use, Abuse And Memories.
I’m thinking this is a 1990 or ’91 wagon, judging by the door-mounted seat belts in front (and the rear shoulder belts in back, which were new in ’89). If so, this is among the last Pontiac station wagons. (Maybe the front clip w/ earlier-style sealed-beam headlights were donated from another car? Just a thought.)
I love cars that are contradictions, and a wood-paneled 6000 wagon certainly fits that bill. Sold by the “excitement division,” it was by 1990 an outmoded vehicle with amusingly dated wood trim, sprinkled with a few “excitement” touches like the stylish alloy wheels.
If it were mine, I’d reapply the Di-Noc. Without the wood, it’s just an old wagon.
I concur about the model year.
A tidbit: the three-point seat belts for rear seats weren’t federally mandated for many years. Many domestic car manufacturers fitted the lap seat belts and be done with it. In 1986 or 1987, the 20/20 newsmagazine show profiled the danger of lap seat belts. A representative from Swedish equivalent of DOT/NHTSA looked at it and laughed so hard. He declared that they weren’t even safety equipment, period.
20/20 reporter interviewed four victims who were in a serious car accident with Ford Escort. He had those four victims situated themselves where they were in a car following the collision. Two in the rear seat ended up paralysed below waist because they wore lap seat belts. Two in front using three-point seat belts recovered with no lasting effect. That image really shook the American public so much that the domestic car manufacturers started to offer three-point seat belts for rear seats.
I believe I had the dealer install the rear shoulder belts when I bought a new 88 Celebrity wagon. (My experience with the many self-destructive tendencies of that car suggests an explanation for why so few 6000 wagons remain, as they were sold in smaller quantities and had the same drivetrain as the Celebs).
Wow, three point belts appeared over here in the late 60s in 71 a belt for every passenger became law in OZ and our cars were specced the same, the US really dragged its feet on safety.
Amazing. For a country that made so much noise about safety to miss out on such a basic thing that had been standard elsewhere for so long. It makes me wonder how the US safety authorities (Nader and who else?) missed mandating proper three-point belts when the rest of the free world did.
Great catch, Eric! Thanks!
My heart is with Eric703 who wants to re-panel. But my head is with the old mechanic a friend worked for whose favorite advice was “drive it.”
I’d have to add a gold package to class it up a bit more. 🙂
For this one, I’ll make an exception. It could only help!
Does anyone know this car as the “goolie”?…. New immigrants who didn’t read or speak English well thought that the ‘6’ was a ‘G’. Lol. Some… Not all… But that moniker stayed with me humorously.
Yep, and if you got the fancier one, 6000 STE, you had a “Goostie.”
In SE trim it became a GOOOSE.
The Saab 900SE also had a badge that looked alot like GOOSE (or gOOSE) and was affectionately called that by some owners
I recall thinking the 6000LE badge on the back and sides of the car looked like “GOOOLIE” when I first saw them, even before reading the Car and Driver writer who read it the same way and thus called it that (can’t remember who it was, but do remember he or she didn’t like the 6000 or the GM A bodies in general).
So it wasn’t just a Car and Driver joke, then? 🙂
No…by 1989, the 6000 and its platform-mates most certainly was a joke. It was an aging fossil that did nothing well.
Stick some mac-tac on it to finish off that woodgrain look. These were nice-looking wagons. My Dad had an ’84 model when it was about 10 yrs old, it had the Chevy 2.8 V6 with a carb. It ran ok but was somewhat underpowered. Rode and drove ok, had tons of cargo space out back. Worst thing about it was that stupid red instrument panel lighting which always hurt my eyes at night.
1982 6000 – green dash lighting (standard GM light green)
1983 6000 STE – red dash lighting
1984 6000 and later – orange-red dash lighting, a distinctly different color than the deep red used in the previous year’s 6000STE, 2000, and some special edition Trans Ams. I think the standard ’83 6000 and 6000 LE models stuck with green lighting though the gauge fonts were modernized from the original ’82s.
I thought the ’83 red lighting, which was a similar color as used by Audi circa ’98-’00, was gorgeous. The orangey red used in most Pontiacs from ’84 onward was rather annoying and done simply to imitate the similar color in BMWs.
Depends on whether the replacement faux wood is both available and affordable. Otherwise, drive it the way it is or remove the faux wood from the rest of the car. One thing I wouldn’t recommend is replacing the faux wood with contact paper. I’ve seen that done and it looks awful.
I had a 98 Escort wagon with rear three point belts but no head restraints – anybody know when/if those were federally mandated?
Definitely not many 6000 wagons left, especially the early ones. I have a 1984 example, and these were the first model year of the wagon. She’s a plain old 6000, V6, but no options other than cruise control. I rescued this from a parking spot about 4 years ago and got it running. The paint is very tired… but low mileage for the age at about 220,000 KM.
I’d fix it if it were mine, but the whole point, for its current owner, is to drive it into the ground. This wagon will be flogged straight to the junkyard.
This is the kind of car that could end up getting crushed if it needed 4 tires. It’s just not worth putting money into a car like this.
I would have to do something, the half and half would drive me nuts!
It would be expensive too redo the wood and I question if it would be worth it. Maybe paint? A nice contrasting colour over where the surviving wood is and should be.
This one’s currently for sale in Wisconsin….
https://janesville.craigslist.org/cto/d/1987-pontiac-6000le-safari/6277044695.html
I’m assuming that these fwd A bodies weren’t built to last long trouble free lives. First off being that they’re products from the bad old days of GM. I can remember seeing lots of Celebrities, Cieras, Centruys and 6000s when they were new, but within a short time they were virtually all extinct from the roads. There were so many disgruntled GM, Ford and Chrysler owners back in the day so much so they ended up lining up to buy quality imports to replace their American built clunkers.
My Dad had two of these type GM wagons both Chevies. I guess they were okay, but the interior and construction were kind of cheap looking and the rear windows didn’t go down, These models were some of the last ones I shot screws at when I worked for GM in Fremont. It needs the wood.
When I worked at the Presidio Car Care center, a regular customer had a 6000STE wagon. He special ordered it with a 5 speed ! Told him he probably had the only one. White with gold trim, composite headlights. Very cool. He was a USN officer stationed at Treasure Island – I believe. Wonder what became of it…..
The rear windows were operable on the front wheel drive 1982-96 “A bodies.” It was the rear wheel drive 4 door 1978-81 “A bodies”, 4 door 82-87 “G bodies” that had fixed rear windows.
If my memory serves me correctly some of the last GM automobiles produced at the old GM Fremont plant were the all new front wheel drive 1982 “A bodies” before the plant temporarily closed. Then came the world class NUMI plant, the Toyota/GM partnership that produced some very impressive cars designed by Toyota.
Well well well, I’d have been all over it if I would have been the one to find this car. I have an strange attraction to these a body wagons. I didn’t pay them any attention when they were new and thought they were terribly boring. But for whatever reason now, the closer I get to 40, I want one! I have a thing for station wagons in general and my true lust is B body wagons (V8/RWD) but I’ve been becoming more and more obsessed with these. So if I had the chance to have this car, I’d do the foolish thing and spend more money on it than it’s worth and put the fake wood back on it.
My parents owned a new 1986 Olds Cierra wagon with the 2.8 six. There were numerous issues with the car early on. Failed alternator, leaking air condition compressor, power steering rack leak, engine oil leaks, power seat jammed, power window motor failed. These issues were all fixed under warranty, and then came the plugged catalytic converter after the warranty expired. The catalytic converter was replaced to get the car running and then my parents promptly traded (for pennies!) the Cierra for a brand new Honda Accord wagon which provided 11 years of flawless service.
I had the Olds version of this car, a ’92 Ceira S wagon 3.3 V6 in maple red and mid level trim with full power accessories. It was a great secomd car and grocery getter, and we even took it on a couple of long summer trips. It was garaged, well cared for, and still looked and ran great in 2005 with only 72k on it when someone made me an offer I couldn’t refuse even though it wasn’t for sale. I really didn’t want to part with it and at first I said no, then I gave in. I’ve owned right around 40 cars since the mid 70’s and that was the only car I’ve ever owned that someone left a note on in a parking lot giving their name and phone number and saying if i ever wanted to sell it to please give them a call.
The question posed seems to be more “how do you feel about a beater?”. I have very mixed feelings. I understand that due to circumstances, people may have to rely on something like this to get them from point a to point b without use of a bicycle, bus, cab, or feet for power. However, as car aficionados, we tend to feel for the car as much (or sometimes more) than the person driving it. We think of the abuse it may suffer, or the neglect is it treated to, and want better for the car. A beater is more often a product of the driver’s situation in life, not so much the car. This could be a kid’s first car, or it might be what is keeping someone down on their luck floating. It might be a sentimental reminder of a relative, or it could be an anonymous CL find. No matter, to the driver, it is their car. Do with it as they will….
I have trouble with beaters. I am too choosy in getting them which make them on the nice end of beater-dom. Then, if I like it, I start wanting to treat it like a real car instead of a beater, so I sink more money into it than I should, fixing things that would be left alone on a real beater.
Wood patterned paint would be preferable, but I imagine it would be expensive.
Di-Noc seems to get all milky with time under the sun and atmospheric conditions out in the wild. At least wood look paint could be waxed.
I’ve seen Exploders with this paint scheme.
Or just replace the missing “wood” border pieces and remove the rest of the Di-Noc and replace with body color paint, leaving only the outline.
If it were me I’d want to restore the “wood”. It’s distinctive, and one of the few distinctive things on these very generically shaped cars. As to whether I would, or wood not, ever get around to it is an open question. But it would certainly annoy the hell out of me to have this “half timbered” look.
I know a carver who could probably do an entire door in actual wood. I’d go that route.
Light brown paint applied with a whisk broom.
That’s just brilliant! I like that idea and wonder what the finished product would look like…
I always kind of thought the 6000 wagon with the fake wood was an interesting combo. Ostensibly, the 6000, being from GM’s “Excitement Division”, was the most inherently sporty A-Body wagon (there was the Chevy Celebrity “Eurosport”, but that was an option package). But then, the fake wood was adding some “luxury”… I thought the wood-look worked best on the Buick, which clearly sought to be upscale. I like the wood on this 6000, though, only for the reason I’ve seen so few of these, ever.
Pontiac dealers wanted to compete with Chevy, Buick, Olds and Ford for volume. So they got rebadged Chevettes, Cavaliers, and Olds/Buick luxo cars.
Grand Prix went from sporty to plush Brougham, then to rental sedan.
Over 50 years of restoring/detailing cars I had a lot of wagons come in with bad “wood”. I learned from a master to wood grain dash’s and window trim on cars of the 30’s and 40’s and just did a bigger version on wagons. I usually stripped the old di-noc off, primed with a brown primer, then used as close a match as possible to whatever cars wood was. Once dry, I had brushes trimmed to do wood grain patterns, in either a darker color or lighter, again what the car had, use a light touch of “streaks” over the base and usually end up laying out black lines if the wood had the separate board look. Once all that was set, I cleared the panels either semi gloss or gloss as the vehicle had new. It became known beside high end restorations, my shop could take a beater and make it look like a real car again. Some of the treatments were not long acting, but worked for some months, and I showed customers how to keep the look going as long as possible. The cars that tended to crack paint in the ’60’s-’70’s couldn’t be buffed without trapping wax in the finish. I found buffing these with Futura floor wax or vinyl treatment (depending on car) could make the car look near new, a few done with Futura looked good years later. Many cars with anodized trim have it turn “white out” color, I could prep these, then clear spray them and finally polish them. Usually they look near new. Touch up spray and sticks can do wonders for a beater. A friend once ask me, “Why do all of our cars get worse over time, and your cars get better?” This while standing in my restoration shop surrounded by cars we were restoring. I told him it was an occupational hazard of restoring. I had a customer with a Chevy version of this wagon in metallic red. Touched up the chips, a piece of border trim was missing. Go to the craft store and get some plastic. Trim it to size, paint it the right color and glue it on. Spray the anodized, water spots off everywhere. They were trying to sell it, the highest offer before was $500, after two days of mini-resto and it sold for $3000. Once a customer brought a car in, the next generations also brought theirs in as they got old enough to drive.
This was fascinating to read… thank you for this. I was imagining you at work on a YouTube tutorial. Especially liked the part about fabricating a trim bit and painting it to match. Hopefully, others have been able to learn from your years of experience and expertise.
FWD A bodies were “prime beaters” in Chicagoland in the 90s to about 2010-ish. Now, most likely will see a ’94-6 Ciera/Century survivor driven by elderly folk.
And the Buick/Olds versions in the 90’s, while outdated, lasted somewhat longer.