I came across this little gem somewhere in the Kissimmee-Sanford area of central Florida, at the Wide-Track Warriors annual Pontiac show. It’s the ultimate anti-GTO.
This was as close to four-wheels-and-an-engine as you could get from a Pontiac dealer in 1964, a year that marked the debut of the formerly compact Tempest as an intermediate sharing GM’s new A-body–as well as the return of a six-cylinder engine to the Ponitac lineup. A new 215 cu. in., 140-hp six-cylinder base engine was in, and gone were both the half-a-389 four-cylinder and “rope drive” (1963 Le Mans CC here). The six was actually a Chevy engine whose bore and stroke had been jiggered to make 215 cubic inches.
This one is as bare-bones as it gets, despite the set of full wheel covers that could well have been its only option. A set of ultra-cheap “dog dishes” would look good. Really plain cars and fully loaded cars represent the peaks and valleys of car optioning, which is interesting at either end of the spectrum. This car was about as low as you could go: three-on-the-tree, radio delete, no wheel-trim ring, rubber mats, a real po-boy special. Something like this would have run you about $2,300 back in 1964 ($16,800 adjusted).
Back in its day, you could order options a la carte, which meant could order a heater delete along with the deluxe speed-minder. Note the prison-spec upholstery and spare door panels. It’s unusual to see a car like this one survive; there were only about 21,000 made, and usually something this plain was bought to be run into the ground–or to sit, barely used, in Aunt Mathilda’s garage.
Great to see there’s at least one two-door out there that hasn’t been butchered or “cloned” by now. (I might have opted for a couple more cylinders and carburetor barrels, but then I’m nobody’s Aunt Mathilda.)
I love this. The Tempest, in its purest form.
Very similar to my friend’s dad’s brand-new tan-on-tan, bare-bones 1966 Buick Special. Nothing “Special” about that car: 4 door sedan, dog-dish hub caps, AM radio, 6 cyl. automatic – oh yes – it DID have A/C…I guess it was special after all…
Respect the Strippo! Strippo survivors are one of the coolest finds there can be. Such cars survive only by beating incredible odds, as there would have been nothing less worth saving in, say, 1974 than a car like this. I would love to know how this car avoided the dreaded twin fates of either “GTO-a-zation” or being driven into the ground as a cheap beater by the alcoholic grandson.
I have never seen a 3 on the tree Tempest before. At least this one came in a real color instead of that beige that most buyers of this temperament seemed to choose.
Is this the shade of beige you were thinking of?
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1964-pontiac-tempest-custom-you-bet-it-hauls/
This one is a three-speed, also, but Carmine’s picture of the setup is light years better.
I remember now. Yes, this beige. I had forgotten that this was a 3 speed car. Isn’t it funny how we can forget the cars we read about, but NEVER forget the ones we have actually seen and written about.
I hadn’t forgotten, which is why I sat on this for a month or two 🙂
Love it, the only change I would make is the addition of said plain dog dish caps. Drive as is and love it
In Canada, the Pontiac Tempest nameplate was resurrected in 1987 as Pontiac’s version of the Chevy Corsica even though they already have the similar sized and mechanically based Pontiac Grand Am Sedan and Chevy’s own Corsica.
I remember the first time I was in Canada and I saw was seemed to be a Corsica with Pontiac alloy wheels, I was even more surprised when I saw the Tempest emblem on the Corsicas, I think the Corsica/Tempes may have been the last of the Canada only Cheviacs.
> I think the Corsica/Tempes may have been the last of the Canada only Cheviacs.
Pontiac G3: Canadian “Cheviac” version of the Chevy Aveo.
No.. I’ve seen G3s here in Texas, with Texas plates on them… Confused me for a sec, but I remembered vaguely that they were sold here for like a month before Pontiac went away.
Yeah, there were Canadian G3s for several years, they inherited the Firefly name from the rebadged Metro until the facelift. As gas prices headed up in the mid/late 00’s US Pontiac dealers started clamoring for them.
What a find!More secretary’s/miser’s specials please.These were a great looking car and not as bulky or thirsty as the big Pontiacs.All the style and glamour and none of the vices and a gorgeous colour
I suspect that many of these strippo specials survived because they were bought by someone who, at that point in their life, didn’t need or like driving all that much, but still wanted the independence a car in the garage offered.
On top of that, since they were strippos with a bare minimum of creature comforts, it would become quickly apparent that driving one wasn’t all that much fun or preasurable, anyway, so they only got driven when absolutely necessary.
I had the convertible version of this car from 1970-1973. Bought it from a friend getting out of the Navy for $300 and it was a great buy. Six cylinder, 3 on three. Only option was AM radio and vinyl bucket seats. It did have a heater but no AC or power anything. The engine ran great, never any problems. I believe it had a 2 barrel carburetor. Part of the clutch linkage was attached to the side of the engine and a flange broke off. Car was pretty rough then so I sold as is. Should have fixed and kept – would be much better off today.
Pontiac and Buick still did offer the choice of a base model convertible still in the 60’s, where at Chevrolet, for example, you had to get a Nova, Malibu or Monza trim series to get a convertible, Pontiac had a convertible Temepst Custom and LeMans, same for Buick, which had a Special Deluxe convertible and Skylark convertible.
At 140HP, “Tempest” might be a misnomer.
” . . . . . in a teapot?”
Love seeing non-cloned, Tempests and LeMans, to show ‘the kids’ that GTO was not like the Mustang, with its own bodyshell. One kid online claimed that the Mustang was “Ford’s answer to the GTO” 😛
Too many assume that the only mid size Pontiac sold in the 60’s were GTO’s.
I had one of these back in 1966 (or so), same color. I think the model was “Custom”, a bit more upscale. Bought it from a friend’s father who had helped him pick the options: 326HO, 4 speed, transistor ignition, positraction, HD suspension without pesky PS/PB to drag on the forward motion. Drove like a truck without brakes. Within a year I managed to run it into a Class 8 tractor in the fog, totaled.
I’ve always been a bit confused over the relationship between Chevy straight sixes and Pontiac straight sixes in this era. (I used to have this idea in my head at one time that all 1964-69 Pontiac sixes were 230 OHCs). Looking at Wikipedia, I think this is it:
1964-65: 215 CID OHV six; essentially nothing more than a smaller bore version of the Chevy 230 CID six.
1966-67: 230 CID OHC six; related to contemporary Chevy 230 CID six, but has significant differences (OHC rather than OHV).
1968-69: 250 CID OHC six; enlarged version of 230; related to contemporary Chevy 250 CID six, but has significant differences (OHC rather than OHV).
1970-76: Pontiac stops making its own six and uses Chevy 250 CID sixes (exception: the new-for-’76 Sunbird uses the same Buick 231 V6 as its corporate siblings, presumably because a straight six wouldn’t fit in the H-body).
That is it!
Looking at the top photo, its interesting how the tailights on these sort of predict the 1967 Chevelle tailights too.
These were very rare in Canuckistan. We got a Pontiac version of the Nova called the Beaumont, which was identical in every way except badges. I don’t think this Tempest was sold here.
I thought the Pontiac Malibu was the Beaumont and the Pontiac Nova was the Acadian?
I saw one as a kid in the 60s in Lendrum & Hartmans in London.Pontiacs were seen as a step up from a Chevy and more exciting than an Olds in the UK
I like that rational dash, it looks less chromy & thus less dated than those of other ’60s cars. Pity that all those nice round dials aren’t filled with more gauges, but that was typical then. And I have no problem with durable bare metal in the interior, if done tastefully. We joke about padded cells, but that’s what cars have become nowadays, perhaps beyond what’s needed for passive safety.
Question: why “radio delete?” I thought that in those days, it was “radio insert” (i.e., you had to expressly order it, as it wasn’t standard).
More of a use of a common phrase, true though, radio wasn’t standard.
For a cheap car it sure has a very nice upbeat interior with all the textures and colors. Definitely a good value. Heck even from the outside at a glance it doesn’t look like the entry level car it is.
It’s nice to read that others share my sentiments with cars like these. Nice capture, Carmine. I would like seeing the rear 1/4 view if you have one: the taillight panel differed from the GTO quite a bit.
I would start attending shows around here if they contained more cars like this. The parking lots of the last shows I attended were more interesting than the show vehicles themselves.
Bring on the four-door sedans too. They don’t need to have a “big block” to be appreciated by me. My exposure to vehicles as a child consisted of everyday vehicles. My father’s work car was a white 4-door hardtop ’65 Impala (283) followed by two blue 6-cylinder ’67 Chevy sedans de Biscayne & Bel Air. Mom’s car was a Mark III Lincoln.
As a three-year-old, I remember our next-door neighbor Emilo’s green 1970 Impala with fondness…not because it was a 454 convertible 4-speed with every factory option (it wasn’t). It was a 2-door with the one-step-up full wheelcovers and most likely a 350-2. Awesome.
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Super nice find. I really miss those big, floor hinged accelerator pedals. Nowadays you only see them on premium cars. They were nice because you didn’t have to move the heel of your foot to press the pedal more, or less.
They pretty much went away with straight rods.
Our 1968 Fords had pedals hinged from the towboard; but our 1968 Wagoneer retained a floor hinge. The pedal worked on a delicate-looking rod that leveraged a throttle cable.
Now…the 1962 Rambler that preceded it…DID have a straight rod to the carb.
It may be that GMs of that era kept the direct linkage; I remember someone writing to Smokey Yunick in Popular Science, about how his throttle would drop to the floor every time he took a left-hand turn. Yunick, in his pithy way, advised him to check the motor-mounts, pronto. So apparently the full-size Chevys kept the archaic linkage.
Now, the foot-size pedal…that went away in many cars, circa 1980.
Here is the monster pedal in my Brougham. The car just wouldn’t be the same without it. Went away in 93 when the FWB went aero. I suppose the chrome door handles, mirrors and bumpers going away made sense as they might clash with the new streamlined body but going to a hanging pedal was a pure decontent.
I know the current BMW 3-series still has a floor-hinged pedal but interestingly not the more expensive Mercedes ML. I believe VW still uses them even on lower priced models.
Lexus 450ES (I shot lots of Toyota pedals during Pedal-gate)
I like the brake pedal cover on that Lexus, their old ones looked like what you would find in a taxi. What is pedal-gate?
“What is pedal-gate?” (calibrick)
Un-intended acceleration on Toyotas due to issues with drive-by-wire throttle pedals.
Mea culpa.
Obviously, I don’t travel in the world of Lexii or BMWs (not the cars, anyway; cycles are another story).
I’m getting used to the ever-shrinking gas pedal in a succession of Chevettes, Escorts, and then Toyotae to the present day.
Floor-hinged pedals are sort of a pain to vacuum around.
Water/ice tends to build around the hinges in winter, too.
As well as dirt/sand off the shoes. When I was a kid, I liked to heel-and-toe; but I broke the hinge on the pedal of my Super Beetle that way; and when I got my Chevette the little one-inch gas pedal forbade it.
I gave it up. Most cars, from then until about twelve years ago, didn’t lend to sporting pretensions or hard driving. And, older now, I’ve become shiftless…slush in the head, slush in the gearbox.
Grandma had a blue ’66 2-dr Tempest. Her famous story was that she made the dealer thrown in the nicer hubcaps and some chrome trim for no extra charge because she wanted it to look nicer than the one they had advertised in the newspaper! I was really young when she had that car, but I remember it had the LOUDEST blinkers of any car I can remember!!
The purists will be happy to know that I’m keeping my Biscayne true to its heritage- a dull-looking box on wheels, but with something really nasty under the hood.
good to know , they remind me of cop cars.
This was the catalina to the 64 GTO Being the 63 Gran Prix in taillights .
I love it! I’m the proud owner of something similar with just a tad more options (radio and horn ring) and custom wheels. Love the simplicity and originality. I’ll take that over a goat clone any day!