This black-over-red 1980 Pontiac Phoenix might well be the best-dressed, best-preserved FWD X-car still on the road, a relatively rare two-door notchback coupe in plush LJ trim. But, would you want it? Uhh, could you repeat the question?
Upon seeing this car, my first, unkind thought was, “Honey, I shrunk the LeMans.” The two-door notchback version of the X-body Phoenix did look like a truncated 1978–1981 Pontiac LeMans coupe, and the FWD A-body Pontiac 6000 that replaced the RWD LeMans in Pontiac’s U.S. lineup from 1982 was essentially an X-body Phoenix with a longer nose and longer tail.
With the black paint, bright window moldings and B-pillars, and aluminum wheels, this particular Phoenix also bore a clear visual relationship to the B-body Pontiac Bonneville and Catalina. The Pontiac studio had clearly been working overtime to create a family resemblance between all these quite different models.
In an earlier era, that might have gone over very well, but by the time the Phoenix arrived in spring 1979, neither the B-body cars nor the A-body LeMans were selling particularly well, and so the resemblance did none of them any great favors. The Phoenix sold well enough at first — its arrival coincided with a renewed oil crisis that made its low fuel consumption very attractive — but three out of five were the five-door hatchback rather than the notchback coupe.
The X-car hatchbacks were not what most people would call stunningly handsome vehicles; they were rather dumpling-like. However, a five-door Phoenix was at least an honest car (or it would have been, if not for all the recalls, the sloppy build quality, etc.). It offered a quite decent amount of passenger and cargo room in a modestly sized package, with hatchback versatility and the promise of good gas mileage — all very commendable, even if you didn’t love the looks.
You could tell, looking at the X-cars, that they were designed around the five-door hatchback configuration. There were also notchback coupes and sedans (Buick and Oldsmobile offered nothing else), but the structural hardpoints were very obviously dictated by the hatchbacks.
For all their efforts, the Pontiac stylists banged their heads on almost every single one of those hardpoints. The Phoenix coupe was not really a small car, and the coupe was almost 3 inches longer than the hatchback (182.1 inches on a 104.9-inch wheelbase). However, its proportions were just wrong for this body style, like a Japanese “superdeformed” caricature of a bigger car: short and chubby, with a stubby nose and a stubbier tail.
The upright rear window didn’t help aerodynamics either.
So, the Phoenix coupe looked worse than the hatchback, and the notchback coupe sacrificed a good measure of the five-door hatchback’s utility.
One of the major virtues of the X-cars was that they offered the rear seat room of an intermediate in a compact package. There was reasonable space for two adults in back, and the notchback roof provided a bit more headroom than did the hatchback. However, the coupe body made it harder for passengers to get in and out, and the rear quarter windows were fixed, so rear ventilation was poor without air conditioning. The wider doors were also an annoyance in tight parking spaces.
The coupe’s trunk was still decent-sized, but it kept the hatchback’s high liftover height without its larger opening and fold-down rear seat.
A good-looking coupe can get away with some practical sacrifices — GM had sold scads of Colonnade A-body coupes, which had much less back seat and trunk room than this Phoenix — and a practical, economical car can get away with being a little dowdy. The point of a dowdy coupe is harder to see.
This Phoenix is an LJ, which was the dressed-up luxury version. For $471 more than the base coupe, it had extra sound insulation, carpeted door trim, and color-keyed sports mirrors (plus deluxe wheel covers, replaced on this car by alloy wheels).
The LJ also included a color-keyed steering wheel, nicer carpeting, and a “luxury notchback” front seat with separate seatbacks and a fold-down center armrest. The seat backs were unfortunately not adjustable for rake, a feature Pontiac wouldn’t offer on the Phoenix until 1982. (There was a passenger-side recliner option, but that wasn’t the same thing.)
Whoever originally bought this late 1980 model specified a lot of extra-cost options, including air conditioning, AM/FM radio with CB, intermittent wipers, and rear defroster. The air conditioning made mandatory both power steering ($153) and power brakes ($71). The latter were not very desirable given the X-car’s issues with abrupt rear brake lockup, which later became the subject of an NHTSA lawsuit.
This car also has the rally gauge package, which included a tachometer as well as water temperature, oil pressure, and voltage gauges and a clock. Note that Pontiac did not share the weird vertically angled radio and HVAC slots of the X-body Citation.
Regrettably, the options list didn’t offer any good answers on the transmission front. The standard overdrive 4-speed was much criticized for its balky shift linkage and grabby clutch, and it had a big gap between 1st and 2nd. The optional TH125 automatic was jerky, its lower numerical axle ratio cut into performance, and it developed a reputation for self-destructing.
Not only did the 4-speed manual’s clutch suffer a long pedal travel that made it difficult to drive smoothly, the continuing prevalence of bench seats meant that stick shift buyers still got a pedal-operated parking brake, which couldn’t be used to aid starting on hills.
This Phoenix might still have made a case for itself if it had the optional 2.8-liter V-6, a $225 option. The V-6 cost some fuel economy, but its performance was quite good for this era, and its additional torque reduced the need to struggle with the transmissions. Car and Driver managed 0 to 60 in 9.2 seconds with a V-6 Citation, which was better than some V-8 sporty cars of this time could manage.
Sadly, this car has the standard 2.5-liter LW9 Iron Duke four, which had adequate performance, but wasn’t especially smooth or economical except on the highway. (Consumer Reports averaged just 17.8 mpg in city traffic.) It also had an annoying tendency to stumble and stall, especially during warm-up and with the air conditioner running. For 1982, GM adopted throttle-body injection for better driveability, but the carbureted version was troublesome and often miserable.
Pontiac offered a “Radial Rally Tuned Suspension” for the Phoenix, which was included with the sporty SJ option, but not specified on this car. Handling was surprisingly good with the sport suspension and not bad otherwise, but both suspensions suffered disconcerting compliance steer — the steering rack was fixed to the firewall, but the front suspension was carried on a rubber-isolated cradle, so at some angles, there was a jerky steering response due to slack in the rubber bushings. The X-cars were also prone to torque steer even with the four-cylinder engine.
It’s not difficult to understand why someone would have bought this car in 1980. It was economical enough for a domestic car. It wasn’t too big, but it did have room for four adults, it wasn’t painfully slow, and it rode and handled okay. Even with the plush trim and various options, it wasn’t that expensive for the time. Base price was $5,936, rising to maybe $8,000 as equipped. (The CB radio may have been a bigger-ticket item.)
As an historian, I appreciate seeing cars that aren’t usually preserved in this kind of shape. On the other hand, seeing a well-scrubbed example of a much-maligned vehicle can make all too clear why they were so maligned in the first place.
This Phoenix coupe is such an “if only …” car. If only its proportions had been a little less ungainly; if only GM hadn’t taken until 1982 to address the rubbery steering and driveability problems; if only it had had a slicker shift linkage and less jumpy clutch, or an automatic that didn’t self-destruct; if only its brakes hadn’t been so prone to rear lockup; if only there hadn’t been so many minor design flaws GM didn’t fix before launch; if only there hadn’t been so many recalls, quality control lapses, and rust problems. This particular car has obviously beaten the odds on the latter, but far too many X-cars did not.
Pontiac built a total of 154,503 Phoenix coupes through 1984, this model’s final year. The best year for the plush LJ coupe was 1980, when Pontiac moved 23,674 of them, falling to 11,975 in 1981, 4,436 in 1983, and 2,251 in 1983. (The LJ was renamed LE for 1984 and sold a further 1,357 coupes.) How many of them are still roadworthy? Probably not many, and fewer still with so few miles or in this kind of condition. (The coupe had only 32,349 miles when these photos were taken.)
Despite its rarity and low mileage, I have a hard time seeing the Phoenix as very desirable, but some people evidently did. When this car showed up on Bring a Trailer in 2023, it drew 28 bids and finally sold for $16,750, roughly half of its inflation-adjusted original price. If the buyer ever decides to open a museum of missed opportunities and lost causes, this Phoenix could be a star exhibit.
Related Reading
Curbside Classic: 1980-1984 Pontiac Phoenix – A Short (And Feeble) Second Life (by Paul N)
Curbside Recycling: 1980 Pontiac Phoenix SJ – Pontiac Flips America The Bird (by Jim Klein)
Curbside Classic: 1980 Chevrolet Citation – GM’s Deadliest Sin (#13) (by Paul N)
1981 Chevrolet Citation 4-Speed Hatchback: A Well-Preserved Example Of GM’s Greatest Failure (by me)
Can’t explain why, but I kind of like it.
GM ruined the Iron Duke which was 28 MPG City / 34 Hiway in ’77 Astre… with a carb…
I had an 80 Citation with the 4 banger and 4 speed back in 1983. The 2 big issues that I found were the shift forks wore out at 30k miles covered under warranty and the pressure plate for the clutch broke twice. If I needed to pass someone on a 2 lane road and downshifted to 3rd or 2nd gear and if the rpms went above 4500 a lifter would collapse. The engine only held 3 qts of oil so I had to change oil every 3000 miles.
Grabby clutch, foot-operated parking brake, and bench seat with no rake adjustment? Wow, this is a winner on all of the ergonomic fronts. No wonder the Japanese took over.
And how many cars have rake adjustment on their bench seats? What is the other option for a parking brake with a bench seat, the pull out under dash lever?
Re the parking brake, my ’69 510 had that type and although not as convenient as between the seats it was still good to use for starting on hills.
It was stupid to put a bench seat in to begin with.
No it wasn’t stupid. If they didn’t do the bench they would push people over to Ford or Mercury if they really wanted a 6 passenger compact. More importantly they couldn’t do a high margin up-charge for those that did want the buckets.
Boy, we are really butting heads over this. As somebody who is 5’4”, there is nothing worse than a solid bench seat. Taller passengers really don’t appreciate being parked in the glove box when I am driving.
Would a split bench seat be acceptable to you?
US automakers really didn’t understand ergonomics at all.
Part of the problem was that even if you did order buckets, you couldn’t get driver’s side rake adjustment until 1982.
Personally, I don’t see any reason bench seats couldn’t offer rake adjustment, particularly with the kind of split-back notchback bench in this LJ. The luxury notchback seat in the black coupe was essentially two cloth-upholstered buckets permanently attached to a common central cushion with a fold-down armrest. It would have cost a bit more to make the driver’s side rake-adjustable, and/or to offer a split bench, but this was already an extra-cost step-up optional seat, not the standard bench in base cars.
More importantly they couldn’t do a high margin up-charge for those that did want the buckets? It was precisely that nickel and diming attitude that drove people to drive Japanese cars, which started out better equipped.
I’ve been the tall person in the passenger side of a bench seat driven by a shorter person.
However that is irrelevant to people who do want or need a car with room for more than 5 people, even in a compact car. The previous X-body came with a bench seat. Over at Ford the Foxes had benches like their predecessors. When Chrysler came out with the K-cars they leaned into the fact that they had the highest MPG of any 6 passenger vehicle, noting 7 times in this ad that it is a 6 passenger vehicle. There were still some of us children of the 60’s and 70’s still at home with our 3 siblings, thankfully my frugal dad wasn’t that frugal and we rolled around in a B-body.
And how could you have 3 passengers in the front with a gear shift lever sticking out of the floor?
Same way we did it in the mini pickups of the 70’s and 80’s and I occasionally still do in my 2006 F-250, the middle passenger puts their feet to the left and/or does the shifting for you. Note my F-250 does have buckets but also has a fixed jump seat/arm rest/storage combo between them and there have been several times when I either had the back filled with tools and things or I actually needed to carry 5 other people with me.
I had an ’81 Skylark with type of seat and I had to put a piece of hockey stick under the backrest to prop it upright enough for me.
Me too. The black on red really looks good on this car.
So much potential, so poorly executed. All the evils have been covered.
At least GM salvaged the engine and transmission tooling via the A body (Celebrity, Ciera, etc). However, who ever was in charge of engine development at this time (Iron Duke, 4100 HT, V8-6-4, Diesel) should have been shown the door years earlier. Why GM kept shooting itself in the foot is beyond me.
By the way, that interior looks way more inviting compared to my RAV4. There is something to be said about velour, especially if it’s Bordello Red!
They salvaged much more than just the powertrain as the A-body was basically just a stretched X-body.
I’d often see those bottom seat cushions lying on the ground at the local P’nP autowreckers under a truck or some other vehicle where one used it to be comfortable while on their back removing a transmission or some other component.
I’m hard pressed to think of another car that was available in only these two body styles – 2-door coupe and 5-door hatchback. It seemed Pontiac just didn’t want to duplicate any other GM division’s X-body lineup.
No vertical radio, but still some oddness – if the optional cassette player was ordered, it was not part of the radio as usual but a separate unit that was in the lower left slot in the center binnacle, apparently where the CB radio is in this car, making me think you couldn’t have both a cassette deck and a CB in the same car.
Pontiac and GM went to a darker, burgundy interior red for 1981, with corduroy replacing the knubby cloth in the ’80 models, which I thought improved the appearance.
I’m also struggling to see the rationale for putting the switch for the (optional) rear defroster in the radio binnacle rather than on the left side of the HVAC panel, which would be logical and might be slightly easier to see.
A nice looking Pontiac Phoenix! The car the way is equipped with options reminds me of the 1978 or 1979 Grand Am coupe that is based on the Lemans. It tries to keep the two door sportiness of previous Pontiacs. The gauge package is nice but they are hard to see from the driver’s seat. The 1982 and later versions of these got better mechanically when they added fuel injection but still aren’t great. The reputation of these cars was doomed after their early mechanical and build quality troubles. One of my college professors had a 1980 Pontiac Phoenix 4 door hatchback. I remember he had a lot of trouble with it. It was a decent looking car. I had a 71 Pontiac Ventura at that time (1984ish) and thought that the old Ventura was a better car. Hoping whoever has bought this car and takes care of it. Kind of an oddball car but neat in a orphan brand way.
I had a girl friend in NH that had a four door Phoenix Hatchback that was a nightmare to drive on the NH back roads. Borderline dangerous if you pushed it. My grandmothers 65 Ford Galaxy was better handling.
Amazing to see an X-body trimmed almost exactly as was my 80 Olds Omega. This Phoenix has exactly the options I wanted but could not find in any dealer’s lot when I was limping along in my 74 RX4. My Omega did not have a/c or CB but did have a moon roof. The mpg on that 4 speed 4 cylinder was enough to make it on one tank of gas to take the kids to visit grandparents (because of potential gas shortages that was a major car shopping criteria in 1980).
One really serious issue with the clutch pedal was the self-adjusting nylon parts that failed in the worst possible way. With the clutch pedal depressed the clutch would suddenly engage when the nylon mechanism would let go – akin to popping the clutch. Not so bad in first gear but in reverse my body weight was thrown against the gas resulting in nearly impossible attempts to fight inertia while pumping the clutch pedal begging for it to work. Once I almost impaled a pedestrian walking behind as I was flailing on the clutch pedal. Scarry and dangerous. 46 years later that car still haunts me with the what-ifs..
People like to dump on the body-cladding era that arrived with the mid-80s at Pontiac but it cannot be denied that look blew out the Broughamtastic styling of this sort of car for good.
My other take on this is the astonishing number of body styles the X car was offered in – and this industry can barely justify non-greyscale paint these days, let alone something other than four doors (and no choice of roofline).
I think this is a cool little car. My arthritic knees would not like the 4 speed, but aside from that, I’d rock this car. Am I seeing things or is the lower passenger seat outer bolster heavily worn? Wonder how that happened. The old Goodyears need to go too, I forget what model that is and can’t read it in the pics. It’s not a Tiempo. Just found it…Vector is the model.
Your eyes are correct, the passenger-side seat bolster is worn. I wonder if it was scraped by some heavy thing at some point rather than being worn down by use.
I did wonder if perhaps someone with a mobility issue used to ride shotgun and slid across the seat in some sort of conveyance. Those Goodyear Vectors were factory fitment on a lot of Chrysler K cars in that era, but I was told to never ever use them on a Taurus or Sable because they wore unevenly…didn’t play well with the suspension geometry.
That might be a reflection that looks like a scuff on the seat bolster. Another one of the pictures on the BAT link is from another angle, and it doesn’t seem to show that mark:
The more I look at this car the more I like it. A high school friend drove the Olds Omega version in the mid 80s, non metallic dove gray with really nice velour seats and even as a 17 year old I thought it was a neat little car.
Great comparison of the B-O-P variants of the X-body.
With that said, kind of odd that this one is otherwise loaded, but the ordering party eschewed the V6 and/or automatic. Of course, gas prices in 1980 were, once again, very high, so I guess fuel economy trumped any kind of performance, regardless of the benefit. Just another example of pennywise, pound foolish. I can easily see the original buyer regretting that decision and could help explain the extraordinarily low mileage.
For the time, the performance of the four with manual shift was adequate enough — at least when the engine deigned to run, once it was warm, and if the choke and carburetor were both working properly. Even Consumer Reports managed 0 to 60 in about 13 seconds with a 4-speed/four-cylinder car, which was not bad for a Malaise Era econobox. The V-6 had better performance, but it did penalize fuel economy. With manual transmission, the four rated 4 mpg better on the contemporary EPA city cycle (not adjusted). I assume that had a lot to do with why they ordered the base powertrain.
What was the fuel mileage for the V6/auto combo on an X-body? If it was bad enough, yeah, it would negate the whole idea of buying the smaller car over, say, a more comfortable, better performing intermediate for not much more.
The early Consumer Reports test measured these figures:
The V-6 was better than you were likely to get with a bigger six-cylinder intermediate or a GM B-body with the 3.8-liter V-6, but there was a penalty.
Interestingly, buyers were pretty evenly split. For 1980, 51 percent of Phoenix buyers took the four, 49 percent took the V-6. Citation buyers initially favored the V-6, 55 to 45 percent.
My mom had an 1982 Omega ES coupe with the V6 for 3 years and really liked it. I guess it had some engine mount issues, but that was about it, other than the well known torque steer. Put about 60k miles on it, and was sad to see it go when the family grew and it got traded for a Dodge Caravan. I know the X bodies don’t have the best reputation, but it seems that after the first two years of production issues they became pretty solid little cars.
All I can say is that it’s better than the Phoenix hatchback.
Although I would never them it beautiful, the X-cars do not seem to me aesthetically worse than their competitors, and this particular example actually looks quite nice; i especially appreciate the dash and the symmetry between gauges and vents.
I would never load up so much a rather basic car and push it to a price point where you have higher segment vehicles, but I do see the logic here: minimize running costs without sacrificing too much in comfort.. if you can live with the Iron Duke
Indeed, my favorite aspect of the Phoenix is the rally option with its very nice complete and positioned selection of actual gauges. Likewise, I’m fond of the front bench seat which looks to be of higher quality and better material than what was found in the Citation. Of course, that might just be due to the lack of wear on this low mileage example.
“ stick shift buyers still got a pedal-operated parking brake, which couldn’t be used to aid starting on hills.”
Set the footbrake at the stop, release it with the hand release when you begin to move forward. It’s not the most intuitive sequence of events if you’re accustomed to a central handbrake but the effect is the same, and I imagine for most American drivers it wasn’t an unusual malady, with most manual transmission equipped cars up to this point being no different than the phoenix.
Also of note, even in modern times it’s not unprecedented, the late 6-speed manual Dodge Challengers use this same parking brake setup with a footbrake/hand release, for this very purpose. Where Automatic cars used a simple push on/off footbrake where hill starts truly would be impossible.
It’s not intuitive and, most importantly, it doesn’t work as well. You can’t release the brake gradually in parallel with engagement of the clutch. It can be stressful enough starting on a hill without putting in unnecessary obstacles. Why are we giving the US automakers a pass on this?
I actually kind of like this car except for its ergonomic failings.
If you are using it to start on a hill you don’t need to release it gradually if you know what you are doing. As XR7 mentioned that had been the way it was done for decades and somehow people managed to make it work.
Well not all of us are as proficient as you and we’d prefer not to have additional barriers.
No wonder people buy automatics nowadays.
I taught myself to drive stick without even knowing starts from hills were a trick and got proficient enough to not roll backwards without using any of them. Either way, it’s not rocket science to figure it out in either scenario, the brake holds the car, you modulate the throttle/clutch and release the brake when moving, that’s all there is to it in the end. I agree handbrakes are more convenient, other than that I don’t know what else to say.
To be blunt I’m not trying to defend or give a pass to the X cars of all things, but this is as misaimed of a critique of them as pointing out they don’t have backup cameras or ABS brakes because that’s what we’re now accustomed to. I don’t know your age or where you hail from, but where it seems an absurd barrier from your perspective was simply the norm back then in US cars in the US market, for better or worse. I didn’t have much else to say about this car in my comment because I couldn’t think of anything else Aaron didn’t already mention I could disagree with or elaborate on, I only meant to point out the logic in the function of this LONG used parking brake system that you’d find even in the likes of Shelby Mustangs and C2 Corvettes…(weird how the collectors don’t shun them and favor C3s with the handbrake, eh?)
Both Motor Trend and Consumer Reports were annoyed by it at the time, when these cars were new, and it was compounded on the X-cars by the fact that the clutch didn’t really begin to engage until the pedal returned to nearly the top of its travel. This made it more difficult to shift smoothly in general and to modulate a hill start in particular.
When I took driver’s education class in 1977, the instructor talked about the difficulty in starting on a hill with a foot operated parking brake. He noted that you were more likely to have to rev the engine and slip the clutch to avoid falling backward. Most manual transmission cars in Canada were then either European or Japanese, as the majority of American cars were automatics (and no wonder since they couldn’t build manual cars that were pleasant to drive). Perhaps I erred in taking driving lessons.
Why so negative. I owned a similar brand new 1984 Chevrolet Citation for 3 years. Absolutely no problems. Very comfortable car. Replaced a 1970 caprice that got 9 mpg. I miss that X car. Only car that I regret selling.
If you had a 1984 you did not have a Citation, you had a Citation II which did correct nearly all of or at least most of the problems that plagued the first year cars. But yes overly negative but not unexpected.
I’m amazed that someone kept an X Car in near mint condition for forty-plus years. Further I have to laugh thinking back to the later 1980s.
When my eldest and middle brothers finally moved out of our family home I got their bedroom to use as my own. Part of the deal was I had to clean out whatever they left behind. I cleaned out their closet and found stacks and stacks of old “Car And Driver” and “Road & Track” magazines from the late 1970s to the mid 1980s.
IIRC, among the “Car And Driver” magazines was a 1979 edition that had an article on how to keep your X Car running for ten years! The kicker? The X Car version was a Pontiac Phoenix four door hatchback. Even in the late 1980s I was aware of the poor reliability of the X Car and laughed at the idea of a Pontiac Phoenix lasting ten years. I guess someone showed me.
Just an observation about the opening paragraph. While cars on similar platforms had been described by their chassis codes for decades (A-body, C-body, Fox-body, etc.) it wasn’t until the 1981 Introduction of the Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant that I recall hearing similar cars being referred to as “(chassis code) cars”. Chrysler introduced them as “K Cars”, rather than “K-body cars”. That’s the first instance I recall of a manufacturer using that particular phrasing.
They also rather quickly (but not at initial launch) had to start adding a big K badge on the trunklid after the Reliant or Aries model name badge, to highlight to potential buyers that these were the vaunted “K cars” they’d been hearing about in the press as Chrysler’s saving grace.
Amazing!
I’ve usually leaned toward big cars, and I thought GM really hit it out of the park styling these little cars. I don’t see them as stubby, so much as just a step away from the longer, lower and wider ethos of their forbears.
I was impressed with the styling variation between the Divisions, especially compared to Chrysler’s K variants and Ford’s CE14 (Escort / Lynx) from that era.
While I found the Citation decently styled, some of the details seem either lazy, or put together in such a way to encourage you to buy from one of the other Divisions. Knowing the Divisions were competitive back then, I’ve always been curious why the Chevy division chiefs seemed to accept this.
The Phoenix 5 door is probably my favorite of the X cars.
I know it’s not fashionable, but I like them. I owned two Skylarks, both with the V6, and those were not bad cars at all.
One could wonder if the Cadillac Cimarron was built off this platform, what could it have looked like. The x-bodies already used the gen 1 Seville look so what do you do? Perhaps take the 4-door notchback and make the roof a little more slanted for a euro sporty look? The rear door window would need to be changed to fit the look as well. Maybe even add a small narrow 3rd window in the c pillar. Any thoughts? Either that or when using the j-body for the original Cimarron, pull the wheelbase a few inches for mor individuality. Nobody could see the gen1 Seville was based off the Nova. Instead Cadillac took a page from the Ford playbook and just luxed up a Cavalier and hoped people would pay the Cadillac price.
“There’s nothing so bad it couldn’t be worse”?
I saw this Phoenix SJ at the Pontiac Transportation Museum today; it has to be one of a handful left.
S somebody paid just shy of $16.8K for it 3 years ago…I wonder where it is today?
It actually calls out to me a little bit, especially since it’s a 3-pedaler. Yeah, the carbureted Duke was a dog but if this was a 49-state/non-CCC car I’d be tempted to see what tweaking could be done.
I guess that if you lost your virginity in a 1980 Pontiac Phoenix that was equipped exactly like this car and you haven’t had much luck since then maybe the memories would warrant the price.?
May depend on whether you lost your virginity to your fellow occupant or the awkwardly placed gear shift lever.
I am right there with Aaron65 – I am delighted that this car still exists in this condition. I am also delighted that I do not own it. This reminds me of how drab most offerings of that time were, especially in the showrooms of US brands. 15 or 20 years earlier, this buyer might have chosen a 2 door LeMans – a far more desirable car, both then and now.