If you wandered into a Pontiac showroom in the summer of 1977 seeking a new car that DIDN’T look like a refugee from Smokey and the Bandit or The Rockford Files, you might have ended up with something like this B-body coupe: the Bonneville Brougham, Pontiac’s offering for the, er, mature customer.
Considered overall, the late ’70s were great years for Pontiac: From 1977 through 1979, Pontiac sold a staggering 2.7 million cars. The problem — to the extent that selling more than 900,000 cars a year could be considered a problem — was that nearly half those sales were the Firebird and Grand Prix, cars that appealed most strongly to the young and young at heart.
What was so bad about that? While they were certainly profitable, models like the Firebird didn’t generally get a lot of repeat customers. The real object of these cars, so far as companies like GM and Ford were concerned, was to attract younger buyers who would then trade up to the same brand’s bigger, more grown-up offerings, which were Detroit’s bread and butter. Judging by the modest sales of the full-size Catalina and Brougham, that wasn’t really happening at Pontiac, at least not at the rate GM would have liked.
In its downsized 1977 full-size lineup, Pontiac’s strongest bid for the “mature” buyer — the 45-to-54 crowd that GM considered the core audience for its full-size cars — was the plush Bonneville Brougham. Introduced for 1976 to replace the slow-selling Grand Ville Brougham, the Bonneville Brougham had all the exterior dress-up that distinguished the Bonneville from the cheaper Catalina (which was the same size), plus Custom interior trim with the usual double helping of crushed velour and cut-pile carpet.
Most Bonneville Brougham buyers took the four-door sedan, which was by a narrow margin the bestselling 1977 Pontiac B-body. The coupe version sold only 15,901 copies this year. (Oddly, the B-body coupe was most popular in the standard Brougham line, where it listed for $486 less than the Brougham.) Both the sedan and coupe had the same exterior dimensions, and both were 12.2 inches shorter, 3.5 inches narrower, and over 800 lb lighter than their 1976 predecessors.
As I’ve previously noted, I don’t care for the styling of the 1977–1979 Bonneville coupes, and this car’s two-tone color scheme doesn’t help. The colors are fine, but I think this curious two-tone treatment manages to make the coupe’s awkward proportions even worse. If you think it’s the bee’s knees, you can take solace in knowing that contemporary buyers greatly preferred it to the Catalina coupe (which I think was considerably more tasteful), by a margin of more than 3 to 1 in 1977.
Still, I can’t help thinking Pontiac was on the wrong track with the styling of these cars. They did look more grown-up than a Firebird or a Grand Prix, but they also seemed to have grown up in completely different neighborhoods, with a completely different set of tastes. I have a hard time seeing many Trans Am buyers eventually trading up to this Brougham, even if they were now over 30 and wanted more back seat room and trunk space.
The only real point of continuity was the available Rally II styled wheels, a $93 option. (The Brougham normally came with its own set of Custom wheel covers.) Rally II wheels are usually a welcome sight on older Pontiacs, like seeing an old friend, but they seem a tad out of character on this car, especially with the wide-stripe whitewalls.
The plush door trim panels immediately marked the Bonneville Brougham as a car for people who wore sport coats rather than T-shirts; you’d want to keep people’s dirty elbows off the velour. Power windows were standard on the Brougham, sparing you the awkwardly placed window regulator handles of the cheaper Catalina.
An interior like this was not really suited for people who frequented fast food drive-throughs or drive-ins, especially since it would be years before Detroit really embraced cupholders. I rather like the color-keyed woodsy green ambiance, but I would definitely not let people eat in this car.
Bare feet or sandy flip-flops would be right out too. (This Bonneville was ordered with a set of factory floor mats, but they were in the trunk for these shots, I assume to better show off the condition of the carpet.)
Aside from the crushed velour upholstery, the big selling point of the Brougham was this 60/40 notchback split bench seat with fold-down center armrest, allowing individual adjustability while keeping the driver and their front-seat traveling companion at a discreet distance.
The downsized B-body cars had fairly roomy back seats, but this really doesn’t seem like a date-night car except perhaps in an old-married-couple sort of way.
Don’t get me wrong, this interior seems like a pleasant place to spend time. This car has Soft-Ray tinted glass and air conditioning to keep the summer heat at bay, and additional acoustical insulation so you could hear the AM/FM stereo (which originally cost a usurious $236). However, it says “gallery opening” rather than “discotheque,” Mel Tormé rather than Blue Öyster Cult.
All this maturity didn’t mean the Bonneville Brougham was bad to drive. Like most of the downsized B-body cars, it had a nice balance of comfort and composure even with the standard “Radial Tuned Suspension.” (Variable-ratio power steering and power front disc brakes were standard on all full-size Pontiacs by this point.)
While the Catalina came with the Buick V-6, the Bonneville had the new Pontiac 301 cid V-8 as standard, offering a modest 135 hp and uninspired performance. The original buyer of this car sensibly paid $91 extra for the Pontiac L76 350-4V, which had a more-like-it 170 hp.
Nevertheless, the Bonneville Brougham was plainly not aimed at the sort of buyer who prioritized sportiness; I think Pontiac management felt they had too many cars aimed at that market. It seems like Pontiac was more interested in tempting Buick LeSabre or Oldsmobile Delta 88 buyers than in holding onto existing Pontiac customers who might be aging out of the Firebird or Grand Prix.
If that was the plan, it didn’t really succeed: The Bonneville and Bonneville Brougham did acceptably well in this period, and somewhat better than the bigger 1976 models they replaced, but they didn’t seriously challenge Oldsmobile or Buick, which offered a similar type of luxury with more badge cachet and marginally better repair records.
Pontiac never really regained its footing in the full-size RWD segment. 1979 was the last reasonably good year for the B-body Pontiac, with sales hitting 226,300 — almost four-fifths of those the Bonneville and Brougham — but it was downhill from there. (I think both fans and detractors would agree that the later FWD H-body Bonneville wasn’t quite the same thing.)
In later years, many automakers would have done anything short of tossing older buyers into volcanoes to bring down their median buyer age — my parents were once chased out of a Scion dealership for being too old — but I think in 1977, a lot of senior GM executives hadn’t gotten over their disdain for what used to be called the youth market. “Sure, Firebirds are fine for the kids, but a Bonneville, buddy, that’s a real car, a respectable car, the kind of car Pontiac ought to be selling.” In the long run, it just didn’t work out that way.
Related Reading
Vintage Review: 1977 Pontiac Bonneville Brougham (by Robert Kim)
CC Capsule: 1977 Pontiac Bonneville Brougham – This Grandma Had Class (by Richard Bennett)
COAL: 1977 Pontiac Bonneville – The Reincarnation of a COAL With Valencia Interior (by jimmylapas)
Curbside Classic: 1978 Pontiac Bonneville Brougham – No, Pontiac Didn’t Just Make Firebirds In The ’70s (by Tom Klockau)
COAL: 1978 Pontiac Bonneville Brougham Sedan – The Good Life (by Chris Clark)
1979 Pontiac Bonneville Coupe: Rare And Plush Bucket Seat B-Body (by me)
Have always liked two tone colour combinations that are effectively one colour, but made up of darker & lighter examples of that colour. Such as ‘dark & light blue’ ‘dark & light red’ or the example featured here ‘dark & light green’. Have never liked a simple white roof as a two tone.
The white wall width on this Pontiac looks more than fine to me.
Agreed.
And I DO like the Green/Green color scheme.
These wheels are so much better looking than any ‘wheel cover’ Whitewall tires or not. I think the WW tires actually help the looks a bit too.
I think this Pont looks fine for the times.
The rear sloping trunk is my least favorite ‘feature’, and the rear 3/4 view really accents this. (IMO).
I think the style is too square to have that rear slope.
The front 3/4 view looks the best to me.
I’d take one. (Make mine the 350).
Carl: I totally agree. I love a nice two-tone no matter if in two shades of the same color like this one or like the Cadillac Seville Elegante models in light gray/black. Just something about it that I like.
I think this Pontiac is stunning.
We were surrounded by Oldsmobiles and Buicks when these were new. I truly don’t recall anyone I knew owning a big Pontiac in that era aside from my next door neighbor who still had a 71ish Catalina that she rarely drove.
In the 1950s and early 1960s, Pontiac wasn’t selling well and was (possibly) on the verge of getting the axe. Along comes John DeLorean and he “Built Excitement”. But when the excitement was over and the malaise began, Pontiac wasn’t much any more. From this Bonneville to the brand’s demise 30 years later, Pontiac was mostly an also-ran brand, with only a few bright spots, the FWD Bonneville H-body with a supercharger being one of them.
Your timing is off by 5 years or so. By 1960 Pontiac was 5th in sales, 4th in 1961, and then bounced between 3rd and 4th after that.
And the rebirth was started by Bunkie Knudson and Eliot “Pete” Estes.
As a motorsports fan, I was always confused by the way GM used racing (other than NASCAR) as a marketing and promotional tool in the later Seventies through Nineties, and even now. Chevy’s role was always pretty clear, but despite the TransAm being named after a racing series, Pontiac’s involvement was pretty minimal. Yet in Indy car racing with Buick V6’es and later Oldsmobile V8’s, IMSA with various Olds Quad 4 machines and V6 powered GT cars, the other brands really reached out to some extremes. But that was not reflected in their showroom cars. And now Cadillac is in Formula 1 – currently with Ferrari engines, while in the showroom Cadillac seems to be mostly EV’s and Escalades. I mention this because I’ve always thought of racing as being targeted at youth – but maybe not so much anymore.
Interesting observation. If my kids, both under 28, are representative of ‘youth’ then there is not much of a youth market. They have no interest in cars in general let alone motorsports. Son drives a mid-level 2020 Impreza sedan bought new and the daughter a hand me down low km base 2012 RAV4. They are appliances to them.
I have two sons, aged 26 and 24. Both have finally got their driver’s licence. Not that it matters much. They grew up using the Skytrain and bus and are comfortable using them. Neither of them has driven since their licence road test. One thing that is certain is they are saving a lot money. For a year, riding transit is about C$1300. Running my car costs about C$3500 a year and that is about as cheap as motoring gets.
The big, green, machine is attractive. Ungainly, in this “tudor”, iteration though. At least, getting to/from the back seat was not difficult.
The tudor “Chevy” of the same year, was much better proportioned. (and the “Olds”, or “Buick”)
Generally I prefer 4 doors on big cars, but this car is quite handsome, and I prefer this coupe design or the Buick’s to Chevy’s folded rear window or the clunky Olds coupes, as well as the Pontiac dash. Never did care for Pontiacs’s V8, including the wheezy 301, Olds’ was superior imo as was Chevy’s SB, their soft cams of the era notwithstanding.
Love the car, love the color and color scheme, love the interior. I’d take it in a heartbeat, though my first and only mod would be to fit a true dual exhaust system to it.
I like the look of this car, but I must confess, if I were buying a car in 1977, this would not be my choice. I think the Caprice Coupe had an interesting and rakish look with the rear window treatment. The Oldsmobile 88 had a “sporty” look with the Oldsmobile rally wheels, as did the Buick LeSabre with the Buick rally wheels. Arguably, all three have a nicer look, in my opinion, whereas the Bonneville has a lot going on. I am biased, as my Uncle Lou had a 1977 Chevrolet Caprice coupe that I really liked.
Yeah, I think for this kind of full-size coupe, the 1977 Caprice Classic coupe (see https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/auction-classic/1977-chevrolet-caprice-classic-low-mileage-two-door-two-tone-350-f41-positraction-dreamboat/ for a nice example) was vastly better-looking, and it pulled off the two-tone paint jobs much better. I find the Bonneville objectionably fussy.
I actually prefer the look of this Pontiac B body over it’s cousins at Buick and Olds. The front and back are far more attractive to me. I also like the two tone green since I feel a large bodied all green color is a tad too much. The second accent color breaks it up.
As far as GM thinking buyers of the Firebird and Gran Prix would step up to more full size adult cars I have no idea where they got that idea. Most bought the Firebird either for performance, sporty looks, smaller size, less cost, and in some cases economy. Once accustomed to that why would someone go larger? My first was my 68 Cougar as typical of a 16 year old buying any pony car. By the time I was set to get another car for daily use, Cougar in the garage. I was mid-20’s and primarily concerned with fuel economy given the two 70’s gas crisis. So I went smaller, not larger, like most I knew of at my age. Have been at the typical size of a Camry/Accord/626 ever since. I think GM got it backwards as to size, in that if given a choice between large and smaller, most will opt for smaller.
Nice article that brought back memories. I learned to drive in the four-door sedan version of this car in the same green during the summer of my sophomore year in 1977. Five of us, including the instructor, piled into the Bonneville on many hot Iowa summer mornings in what was, for most of us, a very plush set of wheels not replicated at most homes in our town. The school district had us alternate with another set of aspiring drivers on the same morning to get the subcompact driving experience as well, in a very basic beige, un-airconditoned Isuzu Gemini sedan, equipped with automatic transmission and lots of vinyl surfaces. The thinking was to have the student driving experience in the parent’s car as well as a likely high schooler’s vehicle. The Bonneville was certainly the joy of the two to drive, easily passing slow moving farm equipment in air-conditioned comfort, while we floated along jamming to the latest from ABBA on the Delco stereo. The Isuzu labored and shifted into passing gear frequently at highway speeds, and it made so much noise we had to yell to be heard. It was pointless to tune in the static sounds of the AM radio. The suspension bottomed out under the load and woe to the person over the back seat tunnel hump, literally stuck next to two sweaty, well-fed teenagers.
I actually think the two tone works well, but that’s the most positive thing I can say. I hate the fender skirts, those would go in the bin as fast as the plastic engine/undercarriage covers on modern cars if I ever had either one.
Pontiac entirely lost direction with full size after the Grand Prix downsized. There was excellent brand identity across Pontiac models in the 60s, as they all had similar traits at the same time. Come 1970 though the Catalina et al got a bad imitation Grand Prix nose and the 71-72 kind of evolved it, then the 73 bumper laws neutered it and made it “generic GM full size car face”, which these 77s might have perfected in their anonymity. I don’t know what the best direction was but I think treating the Firebird and Grand Prix as liabilities to the “brand” in spite of carrying the brand is exactly why GM went bankrupt and why Pontiac is gone today.
And I’ll take it further, the downsizings and sheer look stylings worked on about 4-5 models(75 Seville obviously, Chevy B bodies, Buick B bodies, 78 Malibu and the 79 Eldorado, of which were so successful so as to be worth it, however the boxy flourish less styling came at the cost of identity to virtually everything else and Pontiacs B body line and A body line were absolutely positively worse off for it. The Grand Prix was the other successful model of the 70s, and it was more “mature” than the Firebird line, but it was full of flourish, sculpting and interesting details. Had Pontiac captured THAT in a B body they may well have had something, but instead the market got this, and the sheered 78 Grand prix(while still successful initially) really lost anything identifiably Pontiac in the process.
I haven’t looked to see if there’s a Collectible Automobile rundown on the development of the 1977–1979 Pontiacs, but looking at the end product, it feels like they lobbied for a C-body and got shot down.
I don’t think it’s exactly that Pontiac considered the Firebird and GP liabilities (they were really paying the rent to a remarkable extent), but the sales figures strongly suggest that they were just not getting much rub-off or trade-up for the rest of their lineup. The LeMans, Astre, Ventura, and Sunbird were all individually very mediocre sellers, and the 1977 restyling really did not move the needle on the Catalina at all, which had to have made division management nervous.
We need more green cars !
Ironically, I have four.
Quit hogging them.
We need more colors in general! In the 1960s-1970s, GM’s color options on various brands and models were as varied as the paint sample display in a Sherwin-Williams store!
My father, a diehard Pontiac man, bought a regular Bonneville 4 door in 1977. I was disappointed and thought he should have purchased a Caprice. These had aluminum rear bumpers and bumper brackets. Around 1984 the rear bumper fell off when leaving a stop sign. The aluminum brackets, which were attached to the steel frame, were uncoated and suffered galvanic corrosion to the extent that they looked like delaminated plywood that had been left in the rain.
Amazing GM could overlook something so basic. Otherwise the car was reliable for him but a slug with the 301.
Had a 78 in gold when I was a teenager (parents’ second car after the Olds 98 finally gave up the ghost). The gold Bonnie was the stripped down version with vinyl and the small v8. For a 15 year old car, at the time, it was incredibly clean.
That 1977 Trams Am SE’s T-tops were made by Hurst outside of the factory after the car was built. Pontiac (Fisher-Body) didn’t start doing T-tops at the factory during body forming until the second half of the 1978 model year. The easiest way to tell is how wide the T-bar is between the glass panels. That’s a Hurst aftermarket job. The Fisher-Body ones at the factory had a narrower T-bar with wider roof panel openings.