We needed a couple of goodies for our Christmas Eve fest, so we walked downtown, in the rain no less. Which of course spared us looking for a parking spot, but as we walked through the 5th Street Market lot, I couldn’t help notice these two disparate cars next to each other.
Golf Mk III’s aren’t exactly seriously vintage cars here in Curbsidelandia, but then it’s a Trek Edition, something I haven’t seen in a while.
The 1988 Pontiac Safari is a familiar car to me, as I shot it and posted it some years ago, and I keep seeing it around town. It’s a gem of a wagon, in splendid condition, but I rather wish it wasn’t spending its time always out side in an apartment parking lot, where I see it sitting when it’s not being driven. This car deserves a garage. In fact, I can see where the vinyl is deteriorating on that rear trim piece; it was intact when I shot it a few years back. Oh well; someone’s enjoying it.
And they’re riding home dry; the rain picked up and we got home soaked. But we were invigorated too, and clothes are easy to change. Easier than that peeling vinyl.
Both are hatchbacks of a sort, LOL! Hope you and yours have a very Merry Christmas, Paul.
Um, Pontiac Safari isn’t exactly a hatchback.
The glass window disappears into the rear tailgate if you want to enhance the cooling effect while zooming at 80mph or if you want to flip down the tailgate to make room for 30-foot Christmas tree.
The tailgate also opens to the left like a normal door.
Nifty!
B-body wagon in a compact spot – almost as bad as a Hummer parked in the same place. 😛
While certainly not compact, The 1977-84 B bodies would have been considered mid sized in 1975!
The Pontiac likely is carrying a compact car in the cargo area, and that is why the driver feels that he is able to use that spot.
I do not see compact painted on the asphalt where the Safari is.
Compact is painted beneath the wagon…..you can barely see the C on the pavement underneath the left corner of the rear bumper.
Last month, I saw an identical Safari, in similarly good condition, on a used car lot in Illinois.
Of all the GM full-size wagons, the Safari is my favorite, partly due to its rarity, and partly the juxtaposition with Pontiac’s positioning itself as the “excitement division.” The fact that these wagons held on until 1989 is amazing.
Oh, and it looks like this car’s owner invested in Oregon’s retro-look Pacific Wonderland license plates, which look great on this car.
A number of older cars wear those Oregon Sesquicentennial/Pacific Wonderland Plates and I assume the owners are going for a retro look.
Also have seen those plates on mundane vehicles.
My favorite box wagons would be the Electra Estate wagons, which you could option up nicely with alloy wheels and leather, plus I think the Buick nose styling worked well with the wagon body. But these Safaris would run second. Nice to see this one still out and being used, even if it does overwhelm that compact space! You take what you can get the week of Christmas, I suppose.
While this car would be better garaged, sometimes you have to take what life gives you. The house my wife and I bought over the summer doesn’t have one, and there isn’t room on the lot to add one. But it was pretty much ideal otherwise, so…can’t get everything you want.
Wow, the two complete ends of the “cool” spectrum circa 2000. Is it just me, or has the spectrum reversed since then?
The Golf IV is stuck in the old-but-not-yet-retro phase; it helps the Safari’s case that a modern GM big CUV is a very different car and fake-wood paneling is an aesthetic of a bygone era while a new Golf is very much an improved version of the ’90s model. Clean-sheet redesigned, but the same form factors.
The wagon is more than likely powered by the Olds 307 V8 which powered B body wagons of this vintage…..The 307 was rated at a whopping 140 hp.
All GM B-Body wagons manufactured after November of 1985 were equipped with the Olds 307 for the sake of simplification.
Makes for some leisurely driving.
Yes I actually prefer the pre-85 Caprice wagons just because you could have the SBC (with 4 barrel carb in many years) and that engine was much more fun than the Olds.
Tim is correct on his facts and this 1988 Pontiac did come equipped with the 307 Olds as its sole engine option. The only wagons that had the 305 Chev engines prior to November 1985 were the Chev and Pontiac Parisienne wagons. Olds and Buicks always used the 307 as it’s only choice (1980-90). Having owned both, I agree with Principal Dan, the 305 is the hands down better choice.
The 307 in my `88 Caprice Estate never had issues keeping up with traffic or cruising at 80mph comfortably. It’s not fast, but it never needs to be.
But the 305 was better breathing and made more hp. Buried the needle a few times on Dad’s 84 Caprice Estate and it was pretty stable and sedate.
307 quadrajet in my Cutlass sedan ran out of breath at 65 mph. I know which one was easier to drive on the interstate.
We don’t get much snow where we live. Which is fine with me. The snow can fall on the mountains, where it can do the most good. I hope everyone has a safe and fun Christmas. 🙂
Reminds me that I still need to do all (yes ALL) of my Christmas shopping…
What’s the deal with these “COMPACT” spots? I’ve only ever heard of such a thing through CC comments, never seen them IRL. Is it so the store can stuff one or two more parking spots in a row, or is it like a reward for buying a more fuel efficient car (getting a closer spot)?
The only place I really ever see them is parking garages. Usually that’s done to fit in spaces in a tight spot and still leave a wide enough travel lane. I can’t recall ever seeing them in a surface lot.
Sometimes it’s a “reward” for people to buy smaller cars (I think this started in the early ’80s). Other times, developers use Compact spaces in order to squeeze the required number of parking spaces into their development (and complicit local governments let them do it).
More frequently these days, I’ve seen spaces that are reserved for “efficient” cars… these are tied to LEED green building standards, which require such spaces.
But in all cases, parking restrictions such as these cannot possibly be enforced, which makes a farce out of any social good they’re intended to bring. In my opinion, it’s an annoying trend that simply won’t go away.
The only “efficient” spaces I’ve seen are EV charging stations.
It may be a Eugene thing. There are requirements to have a certain number of parking spaces, and I believe a certain percentage can be designated “Compact”, thereby allowing more total spaces in a given size lot.
Frankly, as cars get bigger and wider, it’s probably time to ditch it. it was probably a code thing from the 80s or so, when there was a huge disparity between big American cars and small cars. Not so much anymore.
These spaces are in Chicago too, in a lot of the parking garages downtown for example. The parking space fad here is reserved EV parking (with chargers), where prime spaces by the elevators/exits are set aside for electric cars. For the most part, the spaces preceded the cars, and used to sit empty, to the annoyance of everyone seeking a decent open space in the garages. Now, with more electrics on the road, these charging spots are usually full and in some cases can’t actually satisfy the demand. Leads to some interesting situations, as I have observed, always involving Tesla owners. In one instance, a Tesla owner was arguing with a Leaf owner who had just parked that the spaces were for Teslas only (they’re not). I’ve also seen Tesla owners, on more than one occasion, screaming obsceneties at each other about hogging parking spaces/charging stations. I guess it’s kinda tough when you need to get home during charge-sucking rush hours in freezing midwest temperatures and had nowhere to top off during the day…
I really do hate all the social engineering going on by codes. I had lived in Portland, OR for 64 out of my almost 65 years of my life. I used to like it but the last 20 years of more density and restrictions trying to force people out cars finally got to me. I sold my house which I bought 30 years ago for a wildly inflated price especially for it’s condition due to zoning in Portland and bought a newer house(60 years newer) which is larger and a lot nicer in Clark county just outside of Vancouver and still had money left over. It is so nice not worrying about speed bumps, bicyclists, and noise. Not to mention the neighbors are a lot more friendly up here.
Those “Compact” spaces are all over SoCal. Definitely a way to allow more spaces. Now that a new Civic is as big or bigger than an Accord of years back, these spaces are contributing to more and more door dings and scrapes and really need to go. Or manufacturers could try to get a handle on the constant increases in size, which really don’t add quality to urban life. I’m in favor of both actions.
Just been down town and no camera worse luck, Xmas eve traffic included a 39 Ford Coupe 64 Rolls-Royce and a 39 Morris 8.
From what I gather reading CC, living in Eugene is, for cars, basically like being in a giant garage! Anyplace else, it should be a crime leaving a nice old wagon like that outside full time.
Back up lights seem a tad small on such a large wagon? Guess one ever backs up when driving a beast like this Pontiac…like a bull run through India…
The back-up lights were fine on my old Pontiac wagon that had the same taillights. The white portion is small, but the entire lower part of the lens lights up. It takes a standard 1156 bulb like almost all other cars of this era. These old B-body wagons are easy to backup too as they have excellent visibility.
That’s not the only full-size Pontiac box-wagon in the area. I’ve got my ’81 Bonneville Safari. I’m in Springfield.
I like the beak.
Nice looking Safari and I need to look up what makes a Trek Golf,
Slightl;y off topic- Saw this wagon on Craigslist yesterday before reading this post. ’79 Lemans Grand Safari. I think Pontiac wagons had the nicest woodgrain appliques of any GM division from this era. I might go look at it for $2300.
Love it! There’s one very much like this in my old neighborhood, except wearing styled steel wheels instead of wire covers, and much less shiny. I do love the woodgrain with the almost pinstripe look. Let us know if it comes home with you!