I was on business travel a few weeks ago, spending time in the Garden State. Traveling for work can be a drag, but the initial discomfort of being in an unfamiliar environment can be mitigated somewhat when you’re traveling with a fun group of colleagues. Seven of us went into the picturesque town of Somerville for Italian cuisine on the first Sunday night there. Anticipating an uneventful evening, I left my camera back at the hotel. Big mistake.
As the unmistakable shape of this late-Mitchell-era (I love how those door window openings are V’d like on the Corvette) personal luxury coupe glided into my peripheral vision, then past me, I ran to the intersection where it stopped to get a few more snaps on my phone. The two best shots are the images featured here. The nice gentleman behind the wheel, noticing my enthusiasm, paused in traffic to allow me a few more frames.
This ‘Prix was one of just under 100,000 produced for the model year and base-priced at just under $5,000 (about $24,000 / adjusted). It came standard with a 225-horse, 400-cubic inch, small-block Pontiac V8, and had a starting weight of just over two tons. It’s another example of a once-everywhere and now-nowhere car I remember seeing regularly when I was growing up.
This spotting called to mind a different, Colonnade-era GP from years ago. Back home in Flint in the summer of ’91, I was attending a two-week summer program at what was then called GMI (now Kettering University) for teenagers interested in science and engineering. The intent of the program was to give us kids some exposure to college-level courses and dorm life. At some point during this program, a black ’74 or ’75 Grand Prix (much like our featured car) was parked on a wide walkway on campus and ruthlessly sledgehammered. It was a hideous sight.
I think that perhaps it might have been a school- or fraternity-sponsored event, but it still broke my heart. I remember seeing the broken plastic of the round dashboard vents on the floor near the driver’s seat afterward, and wondering what final indignity to which that GP had subjected its final, private owner in order to deserve such final and undignified punishment. As for our featured car, it is clearly cherished, judging by its condition and the driver’s apparent pride of ownership. Maybe the kid in the passenger’s seat (his grandson, perhaps?) will be the next, proud owner.
Somerville, New Jersey
Sunday, October 9, 2016.
Related reading:
As an aside, that stretch of road where you had snapped the photo of this Grand Prix (West Main Street, a.k.a. NJ 28, and about a mile or less from my house) is a very interesting place to be on Friday nights between Memorial Day and Labor Day. It’s home to one of the largest and most popular “Cruise Nights” in the area. The parking spots on both sides of East and West Main throughout the entire downtown are “reserved” for all manner of classics and other oddities, mostly of CC vintage. That GP would not be an uncommon site to see on a summer Friday evening in the ‘Ville. Thanks for representing my wonderful hometown :-).
Frank, thanks for posting! This is such a charming area. I had actually wished our hotel was closer to Somerville (we stayed in Bridgewater) so we could have walked around and explored a little more.
One of my coworkers was telling me about Cruise Nights there in Somerville, and it sounds excellent… I may have to arrange some business travel to coincide with one of those around that time of year.
Wasn’t there a GM factory in Linden? That would be about an hour away from Somerville. I looked online, but I couldn’t confirm (somebody here would know)… was this generation of GP built in NJ?
There was definitely a GM assembly plant for many years in Linden, which is actually closer to Somerville than an hour … probably more like a half-hour away from here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linden_Assembly
I don’t know about the “A”s But Linden did assemble “C”s. I had three Electras from the Linden plant!
Yes, plus Ford (originally Mercury) in Metuchen, NJ and Mahwah, NJ, Chrysler in Newark, DE, GM in Tarrytown, NY, and Baltimore, MD. The retreat of the Big 3 from the East Coast is one of the untold stories of the last 25 years.
My second Malibu, the ’82, was assembled in Baltimore. Maybe the ’79 too but I’ve never checked. Evidently that plant lived out its days assembling Astros and Safaris before closing sometime in the early 2000s.
Sweet looking Grand Prix. I’ve always found this to be the most attractive Pontiac Grand Prix.
The ’73 was the best-looking, with just the front 5 mph bumper, and beautiful “cross-fire” mahogany trim on the dash and doors.
I had always thought both the 1973 and ’74 featured the “crossfire” real mahogany interior trim, and no simulated trim, on both the Grand Prix and Grand Am. According to the following brochures found online, the situation is somewhat ambiguous.
The Grand Prix instrument panel and door panel trim are specified as genuine mahogany in the 1973 brochure; nothing is said about the console (lov2xlr8.no/brochures/pontiac/73pfull/73pfull.html). The Canadian ’73 brochure mentions genuine mahogany on the instrument panel and console, but says nothing about the door panels (www.lov2xlr8.no/brochures/pontiac/73pon/73pon.html). For 1974, the overlap is somewhat different: The U.S. brochure specifies mahogany on door panels and console, but says nothing about the instrument panel (www.lov2xlr8.no/brochures/pontiac/74pt/74pt.html); the Canadian brochure (like the ’73) specifies instrument panel and console, but doesn’t mention door panels (www.lov2xlr8.no/brochures/pontiac/74pcan/74pcan.html).
The ’73 Grand Am brochure specifies genuine mahogany on both dash and console (www.lov2xlr8.no/brochures/pontiac/73pga/73pga.html), but for ’74 it’s only mentioned as being on the console (www.lov2xlr8.no/brochures/pontiac/grand74/grand74.html).
[Unlike the GP, the Grand Am didn’t use wood trim on the door panels. The full-line Canadian brochures don’t mention any colonnade cars except the GP; all others shown are full-sizers.]
Is there an authoritative source out there somewhere? Brochures obviously can’t always be trusted.
A story at Hemmings Motor News today about the mid-1970s Grand Prix and its competitors drew many comments, including one that gives a reason why the 1973 Grand Am had real wood on the instrument panel and the ’74 didn’t: “In the 1973 model year only, the wood trim around the dash of the Grand Am was real African Mahogany not fake wood. They went back to the fake stuff in 1974 and 1975 because too many surrounds were getting chipped during installation.”
If chipping during installation was the reason for switching to simulated wood for the instrument panel with its many circular openings, it would have applied also to the identical panel of the Grand Prix. In that case, the 1974 Canadian brochure would seem to be in error concerning the GP.
https://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2016/10/31/10-reasons-to-consider-a-1970s-personalluxury-coupe-for-your-next-weekend-cruiser/#comments
I can tell you first hand that in 73 the Grand Am had the real wood on both the dash and console. I clearly remember my Dad bringing home a demo in Nov 72. It was white with a brown interior and the factory red, white and blue pin stripe.
He ended up buying a 4 door in Burma brown with matching interior. Only options were air and and AM/FM stereo. He used to brag about the cross fire mahogany veneer!
The ’77 is the best looking but Im restoring one and it was my first car so of course Im biased.
Interesting that the one in the picture doesn’t have a vinyl top like most did; I’m guessing its a base Model J vice an SJ. Love the black but hate the 80s-vintage aftermarket wheels and mudflaps.
This body style of GP (all years) was very popular in the Washington DC suburbs until most of them were eliminated by the rust monster. The local governments would salt the roads white colored whenever winter weather was predicted.
A Pontiac 400 C.I. engine is really neither a small-block (nor a big-block). All Pontiac V8’s from 301 C.I. to 455 C.I., including the 400, come from the same basic casting
It wasn’t a “Big Block”. And there is no medium block.
So I think Small-Block is appropriate.
It also helps explain how the Trans Am handled so well and was not overly nose-heavy despite packing 455 cubic inches….
The Pontiac V8 engine was lighter than the big block Chevy but significantly heavier than a Chevy or Ford small block. It basically split the difference between the two.
SBC/SBF around 550#
BBC around 700#
Pontiac V8 around 630#
as far as 60 pounds on the front end really effecting handling all that much remember that the factory Harrison A6 compressor driven AC system used back then added 40+ pounds on its own and I don’t think people complained about handling because of it. I think the extra torque of more cubic inches and the slap dink tire and suspension tech of back then couldn’t keep up and that is where a lot of the handling problems come from.
I read a definition years ago that >4.5″ bore spacing is a big block, and the Pontiac is 4.62″. They are more compact than most, and apparently easier to swap into a 1970s Holden than a BB Chev, even if not many do.
rpol35: Thanks for pointing that out. “Small block” and “Big block” are both misnomers when talking Pontiac.
As a side note, they did have 2 different sized main journals. The biggest Pontiac V-8’s- 421, 428 and 455, had 3.25″ main journals, while all the others had 3″ journals. So, saying “big main journal” or “small main journal” could be considered correct.
On another aside, if you were at GMI, why were they sledgehammering a GM car. You would have thought they would have picked some other make.
I had the same thought, Roger…why not an import? Many of Flint’s GM factories may be gone, but there’s still a very palpable bias toward domestic makes – especially those from GM.
The more time that has passed, the more enthusiastic I become about these. Pontiac did a very, very nice job with these cars. I have never been crazy about some of the shortcuts taken in their construction (which always made these feel less solid than the two previous generations of A body) but today, I would have a hard time turning a really nice one down.
In the late 70s, I worked with a guy who special ordered a new one. He claimed that it was an SJ chassis with an LJ body and interior. It was a beautiful 2 tone blue, and optioned really well. Though today, I think I prefer a black one like this.
The personal luxury class came off the best during the colonnade years, primarily because they didn’t have the colonnade look and seemed to simply continue with the solid styling that began with the ’69 Grand Prix.
The colonnade cars that might be the exception were the Cutlass and Regal coupes which, for all intents and purposes, were those GM division’s version of the intermediate personal luxury car.
GM really had all the personal luxury coupe bases covered during most of the seventies. Eldorado, Riviera, Toronado, Grand Prix, Monte Carlo and, by default, the Cutlass and Regal coupes.
It’s hard to tell from the photos, but from what I can see of the rear license plate it appears that this car is tagged as a standard private passenger vehicle. NJ’s antique plates carry a prefix of ‘QQ’, which doesn’t seem to be the case here. This owner obviously prefers to use this car as originally intended without restrictions. Good for him. These are quintessential Jersey Cars to me, as growing up there in the 70’s the collonades and their Personal Luxury brethren seemed to represent 2 out of 3 vehicles on our streets. What makes this one look even more like a throwback to a native Jersey Boy is the fact that it sports the ‘newer’ black over gold plates, which themselves are a throwback to the tag colors our cars wore in the 70’s. NJ briefly went to a gold over blue color scheme for license plates through the 80’s and 90’s, but returned to the “Old School” black over gold sometime around the turn of the century. To me it just never looked right seeing a pre-’80’s car with NJ blue plates.
Just a little Garden State trivia, I guess;)
I have a real soft spot for this vintage GP. Though I was a teenager in the mid-’70s, I was not necessarily inclined to the hot-rodding impulses that were more typical of the era’s youth. I would have preferred one of these, though I’d certainly have wanted mine to be an SJ with buckets and console. I remember a couple of neighbors having ones like this, one was a ’76 in brown and tan with the Rally wheels.
The rear view of the car makes it apparent what the designers intended. This was a “special car”, a sporty , luxurious, distinctive coupe that you could drive on a long road trip or arrive at a social event and be noticed. This was the successful young Blade’s car, kind of a modern, and affordable, Stutz Bearcat or Auburn Boat tail Speedster. Of course, at the time these types of cars were everywhere and the statement the car made was drowned out by the chorus of cars trumpeting the same theme.
My Aunt bought a 1969 Grand Prix right when they first came out, and Man did that car cause a sensation wherever she drove it. People gathered around it when she parked it. Celebrities fade over time, though I still prefer the first gen, especially the ’72 with the dual headlights. It’s funny how these all blended into the background when the streets were filled with personal luxury cars, and how distinctive they appear in today’s traffic. I should try to find one of these!
I never liked the single round headlight GPs (71-75) but the bodystyle is definitely my favorite of the colonnades.
I always detested events where a group is supposed to sledge hammer a car to death for some asinine reason. I even get pissed when I hear of anger management therapy groups going to junkyards to unload on cars.
I’m with you completely on the sledgehammer events. It always seems to me that with any old car with still-usable parts on it, it just seems like such a waste to break stuff “just ‘cuz”.
I actually prefer the dual-headlight 1973 – ’75 Colonnade GP’s. Something about those round lights sitting in those chrome bezels reminds me of a looking into a trumpet – a little, visual jazz riffing to go with the bodywork’s complex melody.
This is the first time i noticed the resemblence to the 74 chevelle which is also an unusual beast. I grew up hearing storys of my dads Pontiac GTO, he loved it, bought it new, it was a white on white with blue and red stripe four speed. He had a bunch of neat cars before my time but this was one of his favorites.
It was not until I was in my late teens that i realized that his GTO was not wxactly the GTO we all think of, either a late 60’s tri-power or an early 70’s Judge…. he had a 1974 GTO which was essentieally a nova with a hood scoop. 1974 was a sad year for many cars
Had a co-worker when I was in the Navy that had one of these, very similar to the pictured car, but on Torq-Thrusts. He was a “bear” of a guy, even had a beard while they were allowed by the Navy, and I guess I’ve always associated the 69 through 77 (?) GP with that physical type for an owner.
These GPs did a much better job, style-wise, at being an “affordable luxury/personal coupe than the Thunderbird and Cougar or any Mopar competition, but were edged out on sales by the Thunderbird just as they went “under the knife” via downsizing.
Still prefer, by a tiny margin, a Regal of this vintage.
What a photogenic car. The ’73 bumper was better than this but the ’74 is not bad. I really like the way the dark color, alloy wheels and blackwall tires work together. Yes the V’d window opening is incredible so is the V shape of the hood.
I, too, liked the American Racing rims on this one. I think the ’74 GP wore its 5-mph bumpers better than most cars from that year’s crop.
i used to get in trouble when I saw one of these when I was a little kid.
instead of the correct way of saying it…..GRAN PREE…I insisted on it being just as it was spelt.
took me a long time to understand why that upset my dad. 😉
Bill, I’m almost certain I did the same. I remember arguing with my older brother about the correct pronunciation of “Chevrolet”. Of course, I was wrong. 🙂
That notch in the door panel was one of those tricks GM was so good at playing to differentiate cars on the same body in the pre-downsizing game. Ford and Chrysler never seemed to have the smarts – or more likely the money – to do the same.
I’m think the GP shared its core body with not only the Monte Carlo, but also the Buick Regal and Olds Cutlass coupes – the difference being the GP and the Monte used a lengthened frame and front end. Is that correct?
I agree with you in that I think Ford (before the ’77 Thunderbird / Cougar twins) could have done more to differentiate their personal coupes from their regular, midsized two-door offerings. I do think, though, that Chrysler’s Cordoba was a slam-dunk from a styling perspective. (Not so much the Charger, which shared far too much with it.)
This generation of GP was technically a “G-Body” on the same 116″ in wheelbase of the A-body four-doors. I couldn’t find a definitive answer, but I’d assume that the extra length was all in front of the firewall. The Regal and Cutlasses were both A-bodies, but they shared the G-body roofs, if I’m not mistaken.
Purely based on the pictures, I am now a definite fan of the Pontiac Grand Prix. Thanks Joe!
Like several others, I’ve grown to appreciate these GP’s more as the years have gone by. For most of my childhood they were just another big 70’s GM coupe–I didn’t dislike them but they all seemed to blend together (I did have an appreciation for the unusually curvaceous Grand Am though). But more recently I’ve come to appreciate these for the detail work that went into them–the “aha!” moment being a car show I attended back in 2010. There was a very original metallic brown ’73 in the show, and I spent quite a while looking at the boat-tail angles of the trunk and rear bumper. It really made an impression on me and caused me to re-evaluate the whole car. While that lovely bumper design went away with ’74’s 5-MPH regulation, the whole car is still very nicely designed despite the bulk. I wouldn’t turn one down, especially a ’73 SJ with the as-intended rear styling and real wood trim.