(first posted 9/30/2011) Nope, I haven’t found a genuine Curbside Classic GTO, yet. There was a time when GTOs in this kind of condition were plentiful, but those days are pretty much gone, even in Beaterville, Oregon. But then lowly A-Body coupes in gray primer aren’t exactly dime-a-dozen anymore, and this one is an almost perfect time capsule from say, the late seventies or early eighties. That’s when every kid who fancied himself a goat could buy a Tempest or LeMans coupe from the woman down the street, who was now married with kids and had just bought a new Olds Cutlass Supreme.
Yes, GM really dominated this segment of the market, as we’ve documented in the CC Complete Cutlass Chronicles. And although the Cutlass eventually rose to the top of the mid-sized heap, the Pontiacs acquitted themselves fairly well, thanks in large part to the huge success of the GTO. And although the GM A-Body coupes shared the same basic shell, the Pontiac’s distinctive beak made it highly unmistakable.
The GTO’s “Endura” body-colored nose gave it more street cred than ever, since one could tell it was the genuine article a block away. And the styling impact it made on the global industry is not to be underestimated. Let’s face it: the ’69 GTO’s front predicted every modern car: no chrome bumpers, and a face integrated into a soft-plastic front end. Pontiac was still at the height of its game.
Although the ’68 GTO was the high water mark in terms of sales (88k), not everyone could quite afford one.
Like this very (trying hard to be) prim and demure secretary ready to take dictation: “Yes, Mr. Niedermeyer; what can I do for you?” Take off those ridiculous fake glasses, for starters. What agency sent you anyway? Oh, right; Sterling Cooper.
When I was hard at work setting a new record for how long one could last at Loyola High School without ever doing a stitch of homework (two years), there was a fund-raising raffle each fall. The prize was a low end Tempest, a ’68 and a ’69, obviously donated by an alum who owned a Pontiac store. They even had the OHC six, which frankly was not a common sight in these cars by this time.
I always thought it was pretty tacky to raffle a stripper car; I mean if you’re going to gamble, go for the gold. Or at least a nicely equipped LeMans coupe, which was by far the best seller of the bunch. But then it undoubtedly wouldn’t have come with the OHC six, which was an engine that had a powerful thrall over me at the time. I was much happier opening the hood of the prize car, and poring over its details than facing another Latin class with old Buck (seven of them per week!).
Little did I know at the time that 1969 would be the last year for that engine. It was a short run indeed, all of four years, before nobody gave a damn about it anymore. It was of course all part of the John DeLorean years at Pontiac, when the efforts to pop out of the GM gray-flannel suit approach resulted in everything from the rear transaxle – irs 1961 Tempest, to the OHC six.
In reality, the Sprint six never did quite fit where cars were going in the late sixties, as well as the price of gas, which continued to drop in inflation-adjusted real terms, and even more so in terms of the (then) growing real wages. By 1969, sixes were strictly for the (genuinely) primmest of secretaries, or raffle-mobiles.
This shot from the 1968 brochure shows not only the last gasp effort to market the higher-performance four-barrel Sprint six, but a specific car that I have never, ever seen in the world. In fact, I didn’t know it existed: a Tempest (not LeMans) convertible with the Sprint package. Now that’s probably worth something today; much rarer than the GTO by a long shot. “The Great Impostor” indeed. I might have assumed they were referring to the GTO, but the text refers to “those low-slung, high-priced jobs from across the sea”. Seriously, who were they really targeting the Sprint to? Austin-Healey 3000 buyers?
One of the problems with the Sprint six, in its 215/230 hp four barrel form, was that it really needed the four-speed stick to function as intended, as the Pontiac two-speed automatic made a very poor companion.
I’ve allowed myself to veer off track here, by focusing on the OHC six, which our featured car obviously doesn’t have. I’d guess 90% or more of these coupes came with the 350, which in two-barrel trim was rated at 265 (gross) horsepower. That made a decent-enough performing car, in the normal sense of the times. A 330 hp four-barrel version was also available.
That made the decisions fairly easy, because if you were buying a ’69 Pontiac with the 400 CID V8, there no less than nine versions available (265, 290, 330, 345, 350, 360, 366, 370 hp). Most of those were GTO variants. What I do know is that the 265 hp two-barrel 400 in a GTO (delete option) was not a fast car. One of the seniors at Loyola had a brand new red ’68 GTO, and one day we got him to give us a ride up up-hill Chestnut Avenue, at full throttle, and I was decidedly underwhelmed. His dad had obviously done the smart but sad thing, and ordered the goat with the two-barrel. Looked good, though.
So what’s left to say about this Tempest? No much. These GM coupes had a fairly decent ride-handling compromise, for the times. Classic GM: smooth, a bit too soft, mediocre brakes unless the discs were on tap. The GM power steering was a bit better than average, unless one got really aggressive with it and it couldn’t keep up. Actually, I don’t think I ever drove one of these Pontiacs, but the 1970 Skylark I drove once or twice had a honey of a drive train. But then it had the Turbo-Hydramatic, while Pontiac was still saddling their fine motors with two-speed automatics in the smaller cars. Bad call.
But then the secretaries wouldn’t have cared, and if you won the stripper Tempest at the Loyola raffle, you’d just give it to your son or daughter anyway. And eventually, it would end up like this one, with a GTO spoiler and some cheap mag wheels. Impostor indeed.
That was a good one.
The Wikipedia article on this car has an interesting story about a “Pontiac ET” model the brass rejected.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_Custom_S
Some Pontiac dealers and tuners, I guess, saw or had heard of the “Pontiac ET” and they created their own thing like the Tempest Magnum 400 offered by Knatel Pontiac http://ultimategto.com/cgi-bin/showcar.cgi?type=lot&pic=/1970/70_00306_2
Another one, Stampede Pontiac-Buick in Calgary, Alberta did also its own thing with the Le Mans “The Jury” as a low-cost alternative to the Judge. I guess. There one picture at http://amateurdebeauxchars.forumactif.com/t19185-1970-pontiac-lemans-the-jury and a scan from a old magazine at http://www.myspace.com/1964gto/photos/12025364
My first-grade teacher had a ’69 Le Mans when I was in her class in 1973. It probably had the six and the two-speed.
I ran the prices from the one ad through an inflation calculator and found that the non-stripper Custom S cost, in 2011 dollars, only a grand more than the bare-bones Tempest. So why in heaven’s name would anybody not buy the Custom S over the Tempest?
Maybe the payment for the Tempest was already a stretch. Maybe it was the insurance. Maybe most people didn’t know or care about the difference. Surely most people didn’t appreciate that OHC-6. Why buy a six when “I could’ve had a V8”?
In ’69 Dad told us we were getting that new rubber-nosed GTO. Then one day we weren’t. Must have been the insurance.
I had the same thought. But there were folks who went for them, like my father and his stripper ’68 Dart. Truth is, I hardly ever saw a true base Tempest coupe of that vintage. The kind of buyers that went to a Pontiac store inevitably bought at least the Custom S or the LeMans. Dart and Valiants are in a different league.
I would agree. I think that GM buyers were more style-concious in those days, and were less prone to get cars with a below-average level of pizzaz.
Ford and Mopar buyers, on the other hand, . . . . .
I took my road test in 1974 in my brothers 69 Tempest. 350 2bbl 267 hp. The car was pretty fast. I bought a 69 bonneville 428 9 years ago, found it in wisconson in really good condition with 48 k original millage. I have rebuilt the engine from the bottom up with 428 HO heads and rebuilt the 400 turbo as well. the car runs and rides like a dream. my brother bought that 69 tempest in 1971 and I have been a true Pontiac beliver ever since
like this very prim and demure secretary ready to take dictation…
The first thing I’d tell her is “Take off that silly tweed jacket so I can get a look at you…” Though perhaps I shouldn’t say that as a man who will have a secretary some day… lol.
These weren’t bad as long as you ordered them correctly. – Though that just described GM for the majority of the companies history.
In my *dreams* that secretary is wearing the I dream of Jeannie costume beneath that silly tweed jacket.
I’d like to think there was a secretary •somewhere• who got a car with all the high-performance? fruit instead of the bare minimum, & wasn’t afraid to use it, either.
A friend of my mom’s (another young mom of course) had a LeMans coupe from this era, and traded it for a Colonnade-era Pontiac wagon when it got unwieldy for the kids. (Similarly, my mom had a two-door Impala hardtop, and traded it for a Torino wagon when it got unwieldy for us.)
The Pontiac “Yes” ad, speaking of Sterling Cooper and ads, is almost certainly an intentional echo of this one for Coke:
From when Coke was the best penetrating fluid you could buy
Great car and a great piece on it. I think that most of these Tempests got turned into GTO clones a long time ago.
When I was a kid, the Bordner family next door had a whole string of Pontiacs. The dad preferred more basic models, including a 67 LeMans Sprint with the OHC 6 and a 70 Firebird 6. But the mom, well, she was a GTO girl, with a 66, a 68 and a 71. One of the older kids had a 67-69 Firebird as well.
John DeLorean got transferred to head up Chevrolet early in the 1969, IIRC. In fairness to his successor, the 14th floor execs were calling more and more of the shots by that time, and any exec that was less of a renegade than DeLorean (meaning about all of them except for maybe John Beltz at Oldsmobile) was going to have trouble getting anything done.
The 14th floor really hated DeLorean. He was actually going to be fired back in ’64 when they found out about his end-run loophole with the GTO (DeLorean made it an option instead of a separate model line). Of course, when the GTO became a wild success, that couldn’t happen.
Ironically, because of DeLorean, the 14th floor started monitoring and dictating, more than ever, the actions of the other divisions. It’s worth noting that the Chevy Vega was the first car to come out of that environment.
And the 14th floor would eventually get their revenge on DeLorean, too. When he finally made it to the 14th floor, he didn’t last long. DeLorean may have quit but it’s generally accepted that he would have been fired if he hadn’t.
Pardon my ignorance of GM politics, but it makes no sense to me why HQ bucked deLorean’s plans. I thought GM divisions were supposed to be more autonomous, like separate companies as some people here have said, hence unique drivelines, etc. And I thought the bottom line was ultimately all that mattered in this corporation, so if Pontiac made money, who cared how it was done?
And it’s hard to believe Ed Cole, such an innovator while at Chevrolet, would object to innovations by Pontiac. Was he just a Chevy partisan after promotion to HQ, or is he another example of the Peter Principle?
Early 60’s General Motors Brass did not like the horsepower wars. They banned (officially) participating in any form of racing in 1963, and prohibited their divisions from producing mid-sized cars with large engines. DeLorean was really off the reservation. Speaking from experience there is only one thing the top guys dislike more than a subordinate ignoring corporate policy, and that one thing is being wildly successful while doing so.
DeLorean was a dead man walking from the moment they found out about the GTO. He threatened their control and thereby threatened their power. It is a tribute to him that he survived as long as he did.
In retrospect, GM Brass may have had a point. The cars were vastly underdesigned for the amount of horsepower they were putting into them, and the insurance companies eventually put a stop to it.
DeLorean was a marketing genius, but he also had personal issues which limited his shelf-life as a top executive.
People have been converting Tempests into GTO clones since almost day one. Back in 1970 I helped a friend make one out of his ’66 Tempest 326 auto. The engine was a 389 tripower 4sd out of a wrecked GTO. Fortunately he had the whole pedal assembly and clutch linkage which made it a lot easier.
I don’t remember seeing a Tempest Sprint either, but there was of course the contemporaneous Firebird Sprint, with the same little side stripe. Quite a nice-looking car, and apparently it did get a heavy-duty suspension, floor-mounted shifter, and more horses than the standard six …
There were a few friends’ families that had a LeMans as the second car, with a station wagon as the fmaily hauler. I never saw a stripper (car) either. Most everyone had well equipped cars – power steering, brakes, A/C, rarely power windows or locks.
Always liked these a friend years ago had one 400 motor but it had lots of money spent under the hood and went well 4 speed box a classic 70s street rod, I havent seen one in years now good find.
I suspect that the reason the grille looks so furry in the clue photo is that it got sprayed with gray primer without being cleaned first.
To comment on your “rarer than rare”…after college graduation I ordered my first new car, a 1967 Tempest Custom Convertible with the Sprint package and 4-speed. As I recall about the only other options were power steering and brakes, radio and vinyl interior. It was burgundy/black/black. I had it about 5 years and 40K miles and sold it to a co-worker.
I still dream about that car.
The ’66 and ’67 Sprints were a bit more common; I remember seeing a few here and there. And they got a fair bit of coverage in the magazines. But I didn’t even know they still offered the Sprint package for ’68; never saw one or a test of one, or any other mention of it.
During the late sixties I was really enthralled by the Pontiac Overhead Cam 6. I had the opportunity to buy a ’69 Firebird with the Sprint 6 option at Dealer cost-and turned it down. I’ve kicked myself ever since, I could of had a collectors item.
Hey, that’s a pretty darn nice stripper car for the high school raffle compared to what came along a few years later. By 1975, at my high school, the raffle car was a stripped down Pinto. It was the ultra basic model with the trunk instead of the rear hatch. I had to go to a shopping center one afternoon with the sad looking thing and try to convince people to buy tickets.
My father had a 67 Le Mans with a 326ci engine, a 2hole carb, and a 2 speed auto. It was white with a high quality red vinyle interior.
We had a foreign exchange studet named Martin and we stayed in touch with him after he returned home. Later, he and his brother came to visit. They had nothing but distain for American cars, but nevertheless accepted my father’s invitation to drive the Pontiac on a six week tour of parts west of Iowa. When they returned, they couldn’t say enough good things about the car. They loved it
That’s not an uncommon experience.
My brother signed with the Cleveland Indians out of high school and got a $3000 signing bonus. It was 1968 and another brother of mine was an engineer at Pontiac Motors. They optioned out a Le Mans in dark green that had every high speed option available from Pontiac. Basically the most powerful GTO with a Le Mans label.
I drove it once, the clutch required a lot of muscle.
Chalk it up as another GM Deadly Sin…or a deadly tendency, anyway. Go to the effort of breaking ground with an OHC motor – and then not sell it; cripple it behind a two-speed slushbox. Let the buyers think it’s “just another six” and have them order just another V8.
Pontiac was in a habit of doing that. The slant 4 was a truly interesting concept, with the “rope drive” and a rear transaxle; and yet the first I knew of it was right here. Those cars were all around when I was a kid, and yet nobody knew or talked about what a unique drivetrain they had, or how it gave perfect weight balance.
Engineer it, and then not sell it – and have the R&D cost wasted as it’s dropped. What, did the suits WANT this stuff to fail? Did they find badge-engineering more exciting? Probably.
And that, in the end, was why GM did in fact fail. They had the people and the resources; but they had this burning drive to do things on the cheap. To screw the public; to make cookie-cutter cars that fell apart exactly when paid for. The public, unfortunately for them, had other ideas – and took their expectations elsewhere.
I forgot to say in my post that Martin was from Germany, and would tell me stories about his family traveling over the Alps in a VW 1200cc with 37 horsepower. No wonder he liked the Pontiac
Glad to see Tempest called its correct name!. What annoys me is younger car fans, born long after 1970, calling any 64-72 LeMans/Tempest/etc a “GTO”, as if that was only mid sized car Pontiac sold in the 60’s. Another myth online I’ve seen is ‘Mustang was Ford’s answer to the GTO in 1964’ NO way!
One time Jalopnik posted a ‘Found on street’ 69 Custom S and called it ‘some kind of weird looking GTO’, I was ready to reach into the internet and shake the ‘auto writer’.
And yes young car buffs, some GTO’s came with bench seats and column shfiters, even vinyl tops and automatic trans. Only the 74 had a ‘small block’* 350.
* The is no such thing as a Pontiac small block motor.
My apology for this very late addition to the above comment string, which just appeared in the CC search : My father purchased a ’68 Firebird Sprint with the M4. I bought it from him and drove it until ’83 when the rust mites had pretty much eaten its fenders away. Sold it Iowa Red Title to a collector, not a salvage yard, but no idea what occurred from that point, although it was parked in his driveway with new plates a couple weeks later. Means it had passed its initial state inspection. THAT WAS A REAL FUN DRIVE. Went where it was pointed, and got there fast! Very comfortable. Easy seven hundred mile days. Great mileage while doing that. And the OHC 6 itself was its own kind of beautiful, almost a work of art just in itself. Have often wondered how this particular OHC 6 would work today, updated with modern electronics&fuel injection etc. [Or the Chrysler Slant 6, particularly its hemi version that I understand was only sold&driven in Australia.] The number of near misses along the way since WW2 in TheStates’ car business remains incredibly frustrating. Just another real-life example of the good dieing young, apparently. [Used to be amusing to observe the station attendant start to open the Firebird hood. That lever was way underneath&back. Almost all the time I had to explain how to find that, but once or twice the attendant just reached and then answered, “Yes,” when asked if he–they were always men forty&thirty years ago–also drove a ‘bird?
My Dad did me a real favor buying a 10 year old 67 For me To drive when I got My License. Later When I had my Mustang GT 89, 10 yrs old, it felt much like(Better-ConV) the V8 FireBird as I Remember it.
I just bought this 1969 custom s for 3000.00runs and drives. What’s the scoop on them as to a gto
Well, Custom S’s were not pure ‘muscle cars’, just a trim level for the mid size Pontiac line, which used to all be called Tempest.
C-S replaced the Tempest Custom trim of 1968. It’s pretty much like a Cutlass S, a step up from base line.
I own a 69′ LeMans Custom S. I came across this article trying to find what the current value of my car might be, as well as how many were actually made that year and how many are still in existance. I enjoyed the reading and just wanted to comment that, aside from the music and alarm I installed, she is truly original….not spoilers here!
I can’t give you a value, only a compliment. Beautiful car. It’s cool you kept it original. I’d take those wheelcovers over Rally II wheels any day.
Very nice! Also glad you kept it as close to original as possible. My brother owned a Custom S with the 350 2 barrel while he was stationed in Georgia in the late ’60’s. I was about 14 when he brought that back home, and thought it was just one of the cleanest designs. Still love the looks of them. I’m hoping that I can purchase one in the next year or so.
Weird- I have a brother named Bruce. I had a Custom S with the 350 2 barrel. I was in the Army Band stationed in Georgia in ’69-’70. He would’ve been 14 when I owned it. Are you my brother?? Ha!
I’ll ask you when we go to the Phila Auto Show in a couple of days!!
That was a really nice car. I traded it in on a new ’72 VW super beetle. Bad bad move!
69 Custom S at the barracks. Me with the cigarette
I had one the same color in high school 1974.
Hi, I saw your car and wondered if it is a blue vinyl top and blue interior. My wife had one like it and we thought someday we’d try finding one for her.
My sister and brother in law had the car in the pic. Bought new in spring of 69.
Last week I bought the exact car featured in this article. A little more run down than it was when the photos were taken but very cool to see my car before I bought it. I’ve stated to restore it and bring the pontiac 400 engine it has back to life. I’ll post a photo or two when it gets a little further down the road
Congratulations; it needed a good home. So it has a 400, for sure? It must have been swapped in. Keep us updated.
The previous owner did swap out the original pontiac 350 for a 400 with a big cam and tossed in a hurst dual gate shifter which he intended to use as a street/ strip car. Unfortunately it was mostly a driveway car till I bought it. Here’s a little back story on this car which is fairly close to the narrative of your article. The car was originally a lime green metallic Tempest with green interior and a 350 purchased in Eugene by a father for three girls attending the University of Oregon. When the girls graduated and went on to have jobs and families the Tempest was parked in a barn in Cottage Grove where it sat for about 30 years till the young gentleman I purchased the car from got a hold of it. So I’m the 3rd owner of the car, moved it out to the Oregon coast where we will start the restoration. Still unsure of the direction I’ll be going as far as the restoration is concerned but the lime green paint with green interior won’t be part of it.
I always feel a certain sadness when pictures of these glamorous cars from Detroit’s Golden (or even Silver) Age also feature styleless, soulless, utterly vacuous Japanese appliances.
Although I’m not a Pontiac driver, I’ve always preferred Chevys, Oldsmobiles and Buicks, I thought Pontiac was doing a good job with the Tempest and GTO in 1968 and 69. The face looks way more attractive than on 1970 and later Pontiac Tempest, GT-37, GTO, LeMans.
Bought one of these in the mid-70’s as a high school senior for $250. Had weeds growing up through it, but I didn’t much care. Maroon with a black interior and previous owner had stuck a Buick (?) automatic in it – still had a clutch pedal hung, so I stuck an old Muncie 4 speed in it, put chrome reverse rims with baby moon caps on it (MT N50’s on back), jacked it up with the obligatory ladder bars on it and dumped enough Ponderosa Steak House paychecks into the engine that it could regularly embarrass my brother’s ’72 Charger SE.. Loved that car Joined the Navy and it found it’s way into someone’s garage after my dad got tired of it decorating his lawn while I was overseas…Highly under-rated cars without turning them into Goat clones…
I’ve always liked the 1968 and 69 Pontiac Tempest and LeMans cars, probably more so than the 1967 year. I’d buy a 4 door sedan version or the wagon version if the condition was right, and the price was within what I can afford.
Every time I see a GM A-body hardtop I kick myself a little. Back in ’83 as I was preparing to pass my driving test my father picked up a ’71 Chevelle Malibu for a song as my first beater. It was brown on brown with rust beginning to eat through the lower rear quarters. Before even sitting in the driver’s seat I committed my own deadliest sin and rallied for a ’78 Plymouth Horizon for my first car. To this day I have no idea why, and that Horizon lasted only 6 months and was probably the most uninspiring thing anyone could have imagined driving. The upside is that its replacement was a (Mitsubishi sourced) ’82 Dodge Challenger hardtop coupe, which was a fantastic little car in its day. I still lament the decision not to own that Chevelle. And too date I’ve still never owned a GM A-body, although I rarely see one from any of the divisions that sold them in the late 60’s and early 70’s that doesn’t inspire a hint of list. Great looking cars, and generally very well packaged. Truly on of the general’s greatest triumphs.
It is a shame the OHC6 wasn’t brought back in the late seventies. The tooling and development cost were probably written off when the engine went out of production, so assuming GM kept the tooling, they could have been made cheaply later. The Phoenix and Sunbird cry out for it and that early B/W T-50 five speed would have helped. The fuel injection system from the Seville could have made an interesting Sprint Trans Am. The Pontiac 400 would still beat it but not by much and only in a straight line. It would have beaten the crap out of a 301. A combination of the sophisticated 6 and the last Pontiac 400s could have commanded much higher prices, it was the it car in the late 70s.
So many GM engines of the period, either 4s that were too big to run smoothly or 90 degree V6s that also needed work. The OHC 6 could have shown a better way.
On this Tempest, the loop bumpers amaze me. I know it was a fad around then, but that looks like quite an expensive, heavy casting for a time when there were few bumper standards. Bumper standards have since weakened again, yet no one at any price has brought out such a bumper.
I suspect even if it did get traction within the company by the time it made it’s way into anything it would have been equally short lived. Inline sixes need a long engine compartment, in a longitudinal layout at that, neither of which was in the future for any new GM designs after 1980/81, unlike V6 engines which are perfect for(except for working on) cramped transverse engine bays. The V6 engine is synonymous with FWD, so reaquiring and refining the Buick V6 was a prudent move for GM.
I think it’s a bigger shame the OHC V6 died in the period preceding the sharing of drivetrains. It really should have been the six cylinder that replaced every other archaic one under the GM umbrella. It probably would have been phased out with the end of the RWD X body but at least it would have been forward thinking and competent for the times. Unlike the other ancient inline sixes and rattletrap early V6s they saddled the customers with
BMW still offers RWD inline sixes. I’m not implying they’re mistaken in doing so.
BMW is a holdout, they knew the intrinsic perfection an inline six offers and they stuck with it forever… for a price. The biggest downside to the inline six is it’s married to the longitudinal layout due to it’s length, and with GM putting all their eggs in the transverse FWD basket, the OHC 6s days would have been numbered no matter what.
Inline sixes will also make a comeback in the next gen (2016/2017) Mercedes E-class. Both gasoline and diesel.
Cool!
Lets hope this trend rubs off on the other car brands.
I don’t think the I6 would have fit in the H Body Sunbird, without major mods. The Chevy V8 was stuffed into the Monza, making it a chore to change spark plugs.
Custom S name confuses a lot of part time/casual vintage car fans*, calling it ‘some weird kind of GTO’. Was a one year wonder.
* See above post referring Jalopnik article about a Custom S. Like the Cutlass S, a step up from base trim, but below Luxury or the true ‘muscle car’ level.
The Custom S was merely a one-year renaming of the Tempest Custom, one step up from the base Tempest. For 1970 the names were revised yet again while maintaining the same three levels, with LeMans Sport as the fanciest (non-GTO) model, then plain LeMans and plain Tempest.
This car reminds me of Todd from Beavis and Butthead.
Yeah, though I think he drove a primered Duster.
I think our pretty secretary is trying to convey to us red blooded American males, that she is quite turned on by men who drive Pontiacs. Bonnevilles or Grand Prixs are too flashy. She likes sensible men who appreciate all that a Tempest or a Custom S have to offer. Yeah right, after this photo shoot she probably went back to waiting tables at the Bamboo Room at the Ramada Inn.
Gotta say, this is exactly what I had in mind for my first car circa 2005, pretty much fit my teenage persona to a tee. Flat black, T-handle shifter(currently sporting one in my Cougar) Judge spoiler, I could see myself lusting all over this if it had a for sale sign near me. Only thing I’d change is the wheels, Big n little slot mags with the ass jacked up would complete the look 🙂
The Tempest/LeMans bumper certainly doesn’t have the impact the GTO’s endura did but it’s pretty damn attractive in it’s own right. I never knew there was a sprint in this body, that is one hell of a holy grail. Normally I don’t condemn Muscle car clones out of regular models as many do, but if anyone made a GTO clone out of a sprint they deserve jail time.
Paul,
Sorry about the “no homework” record…I graduated in ’64, 200th out of 207 graduates. My mom recently moved into the assisted living place across the street from LHS, I still get hives every time I visit her.
Hey; at least you actually graduated. I never did; I was so far behind in credits that I wouldn’t have had enough to graduate, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to go back another year so I just hit the road when I turned 18, midway through my almost-senior year. 🙂
Funny thing! I’ve seen not one but two of these on CL in the past 6 months – both appeared to be reasonably priced ($4-6K range) and both sold in not more than a day or two.
Great way to get an ‘affordable’ muscle car. I’d still love to have a 1969 GTO (Judge preferably), as I helped my friend mow lawns in high school and we mowed around one up on blocks in a doctor’s back yard (doctor’s kid had it, engine was gone for some reason, and it sat on blocks in the back yard – 400 4-spd ram air).
My grandmother used to own a 1970 Lemans sedan with a 350, in that dark green color. All seven of us would stuff into that thing for church on Sunday morning! I wanted that car (they owned it from new, up to 1984 or so) but they sold it before I found out about it.
At the age of 14 in 1965 I got to ride in a friend’s brothers 1964 GTO convertible. I have loved them every since but have never owned one. In late 1969 I helped a couple of friends convert a 65 Tempest 326 auto into a clone GTO using the drive train out of a wrecked & totaled 389 tripower 4 spd GTO. I have always liked Pontiac’s OHC 6 and agree a 2 speed auto killed it. However in a Firebird with the HP 4bbl version and 4 spd which another friend owned it was capable of giving a lot V8’s a run for their money. The only car I have ever ridden in or drove that the rear end exploded was this Firebird with it’s OHC 6. Had to walk 10 miles because of it. I have almost bought a few Tempests over the years but something always came up.
This is an ancient thread but if anybody scrolling through the comments but this is an update on the car pictured in the article. After 3+ years the restoration is complete. It looks nothing like it use to and does lean heavily towards a GTO influence but I kept the Custom-S banging and generally dont feel to bad about the modifications because, Hey it’s a Custom-S and nobody gives a rip.
Nice job! And a much better fate than I would have imagined when this car was first written up here…
My sister/ brother in law bought a shiny new “Custom S” home in spring of 1969. Was a nice car, good runner. It rusted like mad! Got replaced in “72” by a “Malibu”.
So old but I found this thread searching for more Sprint pictures.
I just got this one – 2 options, Sprint package and AM radio.
SO no PS, no PB, 3 speed floor shift. It will stay that way.