(first posted 3/13/2011. One wouldn’t likely find a comparable one for $400 today)
A familiar sight around downtown: three very colorful characters cruising in their Parisienne. There’s a reason the window is open on a chilly day: there’s usually a little cloud of smoke wafting out of it, and it ain’t from cigarettes. Curiously, just a half block down the street, I see them pull into the parking lot of the Sports Car Shop. Now that’s a bit odd.
It wasn’t to buy a restored Austin Healey, though. Actually, I never did find out why, but one of the three disappeared to somewhere for a few minutes. Time to say hello and ask for permission. Granted, but not without some some slight misunderstanding as to my interest.
Ironically, it was the driver who was most impaired, and she was certain that I wanted to buy her car, which she seemed rather desperate to pawn off on me. “$400, cash; and its yours”. No thanks; just pictures. “Aw come on…just $400…”
One of the passengers insisted on having his picture taken with the ‘RISIENNE, and how could I not oblige, given that I hadn’t already forked over four Benjamins.
It’s not exactly a Jaguar, but then this Canadian-import ( a little more so than so many others anyway) does sport that badge of distinction on its vinyl roof:
Yes, a Brougham, no less. I wonder in what quantities GM bought these familiar badges during the Great Brougham Epoch?
The third passenger returned, the disappointed driver got back in, and they headed out. And I know where to, quite likely:
To the top of Skinner Butte, to enjoy the AWESOME view, if they could see it through the haze inside the ‘RISIENNE.
Paul, that is a 1986, as it has the 1981 Bonneville rear quarters, taillights and fender skirts. The 1983 and 1984 had Caprice/Impala rear quarters. They made the Parisienne in 1985 too, but this one has the CHMSL. I always liked the looks of these cars. The secretary/treasurer of my dad’s office had one of these as a company car back when they were new.
Lunch was on the table…and that headline got eaten…horse de ovres.
IMO this was best of the B-bodies. Had one and absolutely loved it, coach lights, skirts, and all. Mine was totaled when a drunk driver with no insurance hit me head-on one rainy night.
i have 1 for sale
Is this car still for sale and if so how much are you asking?
I would like to know how much your selling it for.my#732-379-9501
How much u want for it bro
How much 4 the car
Car still available?
This just goes to show: there’s someone for every car.
How much are u asking7542351480
How much do you want
How much
I’m interested in buying the car 409-216-3869
Old school Pontiac 1983
Let me kno I’m interested email me or something nhcburk@gmail
Shoot I know where there’s a much cleaner example for sale but it’s an 1981, coupe, red with white interior. Ironically (according to my local teenage sources) the gentleman who owns it deals in illegal substances. (But, dammmmmmmmn it is clean shinny and the top is perfect.)
Paul, I hope you clean the lense on your camera every now and then? There’s spots all over this. I saw some of that some weeks ago as well, so I guess this was taken at the same time? If not, I should have it mended if I were you, you can’t go out and shoot with dirt on your camera.
Maybe there’s a little smoke film on the camera?
I think I’m about ready for a new camera. My $100 Lumix has shot 2,000 cars, and I’m increasingly seeing spots and UV flare-ups. Other times, it still looks great (’59 Caddy CC)
“The Great Brougham Epoch”. Priceless.
Beat me to it. Better than “Malaise Era?”
One thing is for sure: My Town Car, as pictured in my avatar, always secretly wished it was called a Town Car Grand Supreme Ultra Brougham…or something.
My dad had a Parisienne station wagon but I can’t remember the model year. He bought it used, and it all but disintegrated in record time. The previous owner must have hid all the rust and imperfections under cheap bondo and a quick paint job – same colour as above, oddly enough. The mechanicals must have been on their last legs, too. What a @#% box, my dad got royally ripped off.
You’ll understand if the word ‘Parisienne’ has no particular love for me, heck, I’m still a little bitter over the experience.
I always thought it seemed a bit of an anomoly for such a traditional car to be marketed by a division that even in 1986 was rapidly drifting over to expressions of plasticized “driving excitement.” It sold well enough, though: Oddly enough, I’ve been seeing more Parisiennes of this era on the roads than full-size Chevrolets.
I have the 1986 Pontiac showroom book, and despite how seemingly out of place this, along with the GP and Bonneville Broughams may have been, they sure photographed well.
Of course I’ve always had a strange “Old man’s car fetish”, even since I was a kid, so of course this car, or rather this type of car, appeals to me 🙂
I remember around 1988-89 seeing a lot of these, along with Caprice Classic Broughams, LeSabre Collector Editions and Delta 88 Royale Brougham LS’s being acquired by seeming well-to-do younger families as family cars. You know, the ones that today would only drive top-range CUV’s these days.
Those people were classy to me 🙂
Having lived in Canada from 1968-1970, I got the history of these cars and understood the naked badge engineering. At least in the 60’s, GM Canada adapted the American Pontiac bodies to Chevy’s B-platform, complete with the Chevrolet drive train. The 80’s Parisiennes were more in the fashion of the 1960’s Beaumonts and Acadians – Chevies with a split grille. If you ever see any of those Canadian models on Eugene streets I’d love to read about it! I’ll take a ’63 Parisienne convertible with a 327…
I hope a link is ok but here are some of those 60s Canadian Acadians and Beaumonts.
http://oldcarjunkie.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/canadian-gm-the-beaumont-story/
“Naked badge engineering” is right. As an outsider, watching the slo-mo meltdown of GM…I saw them axe the Catalina, presumably to save money; and only THEN notice a hole in their lineup. Quick rush-job to rebadge a Caprice as a Parisienne, complete with Chevy taillights.
It was then, or about then, that they killed Pontiac. It just took two decades for them to bury it decently.
My understanding is that the Parisienne’s fleeting US appearance was indirectly motivated by the presumption that gas would rise to $3 a gallon in the mid 1980s. In the face of that, GM planned to discontinue its RWD B- and C-body cars and shunt facelifted A/G-body substitutes into place until the FWD C-, E-, H- and K-cars were ready. They wound up backpedaling on the plan, but Pontiac got the go-ahead anyway…so the old Catalina and Bonneville were dropped, and the old Le Mans was turned into the “Bonneville Model G.”
In Canada, Pontiac was positioned as a full-line mass-market make obligated to provide equivalents for every Chevrolet car model. The 1981 Parisienne looked nearly identical to the 1981 Bonneville, with unique Pontiac trim and sheetmetal. When the Pontiac B-bodies were axed and the Chevrolet B-bodies weren’t, they continued producing the Parisienne out of necessity with Chevrolet sheetmetal.
The story from there? Gas prices don’t get any higher, American Pontiac buyers yearn for the big B-bodies that were taken away, and GM pacifies them by shipping the Chevro-Parisienne across the border. By 1985, they had restored the pre-82 rear sheetmetal and were building the cars with other B-bodies in Kansas City.
I think the proper word for Chevro-Parisienne is Cap-arisienne(:D
Between CAFE regulations and the instability in the price of gasoline in the late 70’s-early 80’s Pontiac foolishly (IMO) cancelled the Catalina and Bonneville and stuck us with the G-body ‘Bonneville’. When gasoline prices steadied and then dropped later, and demand for big cars shot up again, GM gave us the Parisienne since they already had a ‘Bonneville’. I knew several people with these cars, and they were generally pretty good runners. There were a few that had the power steering/brake booster issue, but that seemed to have been resolved or ignored as time went on. There was a guy down the road from me who was selling an ’81 or ’82 Coupe, a real nice survivor. It’s not often you see a nice example of a relatively unremarkable car like that. I haven’t seen it since before Christmas, I’m guessing it was sold. I hope it went to a nice family.
EDIT: I see Andrew T beat me to the punch. Well done, sir!
2ND EDIT: The other site has a whole host of Panther body lovers, I wonder if there’s a similar amount of B Body lovers on this site?
I like them both-especially in Police Package form.
Amusing little story about a Parisienne. While living and working in Cleveland in 2001, I found at at a car lot a very cherry ’85 Parisienne. White over white – burgundy interior. Looking at the car I found a series of toggle switches on the dash. I asked the salesman about them – light cutoff switches – and he explained the car came from “West Virginia”. Upon closer inspection under the hood, I found an early ’80’s Camaro Port Fuel Injection 5.0 V-8 and underneath, heavy duty stabilzer bar, finned aluminum differential cover and gas shock absorbers (coil overs). Also, 2 1/2″ Flowmasters. Hmmm . . . . looked like THIS Parisienne wasn’t carrying Granny to church, but white lightning to quench the devil’s thirst.
No, I didn’t get this car (but I should’ve) . . . another one that slipped away .
My grandparents had bought Pontiacs for years and years when my dad was growing up, but when I was a little kid in the early ’80s, grandma drove a mid-70’s Monte Carlo.
Grandpa died in ’84, and in ’85, she bought a brand-new Parisienne Brougham. It was a nice car, and her first NEW car ever. Come to find out, they had way, way more money than anyone had suspected, and asked why she didn’t just go ahead and buy a Cadillac since she is finally spending some, her answer was “because I like a Pontiac car.”
My late uncle bought Mercury Grand Marquis every year from 1992 until he passed on in July of 2002. Traded EVERY year for a new one. I joked with him that he was trying out every avaiable Grand Marquis color off the chart!
Mr. Tactful’s story is similar to my auntie/uncle – they could’ve swung the Lincoln Town Car, but felt the Mercury was the ‘same car at a much lower price’.
I am a sucker for fender skirts….I am.
I need that car ASAP
Here’s an 85 Parisienne in LA, $1795.00 with 75K miles
http://sandiego.craigslist.org/csd/cto/3221906692.html
Nice looking car. I can’t say I care for the wheels, but the rest of the car is handsome looking, like most cars General Motors sold in the late 70 through the mid 80s.
1986 was the year you could find this car with either the 140 Hp 307 Olds or the 165 Hp Chevy 305 with ESC. The Chevy motor felt much more energetic not surprisingly.
My family had one, an ’86 with the Olds 307. Not the quickest car in the world but it felt reasonably peppy (maybe because my direct comparisons were a 267-equipped ’79 Malibu and a non-HO 302-equipped ’91 Crown Vic). Very Brougham-y with a lovely blue velour interior…like riding around on a couch. All things considered it was a good car for us, though it was stolen in 2002 and never recovered. My one complaint was that it was missing the fender skirts, a previous owner having tossed them…
The car in question:
You should have forked over the $400 & rescued that car from those baked out of their minds, white-trash Oregon weirdos. At least GIVE them $50 to replace those tacky auto-parts discount outlet wheel covers! Wait–never mind that–they would just go buy more weed & burn up what little was left of their brain cells!
I have a 1983 Pontiac Parisienne for sale.
Runs and drives, 305 V8 was replaced in 2005, 700R4 Transmission. Needs to be painted, Interior is still pretty nice.
Asking 2,500.00 OBO.
email me for pics and details.
Send pics of it to me. Where U from?
[email protected]
Thats my email. Email me for details.
Do you still have it
Yes, but not for 400.
A very nice and reliable way to enter the collectible car universe for not too much outlay. This is my ’84 with the 305 and moderate option load
other side
OldCheviac interior
A friend of mine had one of these in the ’90s and made a trip to Detroit then to visit friends. A group of big black men on the street came up to where he parked, mis-read the nameplate and said “What in hell is THAT?”
He had to explain that it was the Canadian version of the Bonneville.
These were nice cars, a step up from the Caprice. Yes, they were a styling mismash but I still though they were nice. A friend of the family had one of these that he bought new in 1983 and kept until he died of cancer in 1995. I rode in it many times and it was very very comfortable.
I have a friend who once owned an ’86. Riding in it was like riding around on your living room couch.
Particularly liking the shot of all that complicated trim that doesn’t quite meet up on the sail panel.
GM seemed to just given up at that point.
And it lives on today. Just spent time looking at several Ford products with poor exterior panel alignment and one new Civic that had misaligned door sweeps.
Is this still.for sale