I’ve been occasionally writing on the best cars I saw at the Arizona classic car auctions in January since I got back from the trip and my list of cars to present here is finally nearing its end. So far, I’ve curated profiles of all-original cars, low-mileage cars, and wagons. The following are my favorite vehicles that don’t necessarily fit any of those categories. These ones are either restored, or the seller didn’t specify anything about their history. This is not an exhaustive list of the best cars, just my favorites of the ones I saw, so it’s hardly a well-balanced representation. Today’s batch will cover about half my favs from the General, in chronological order, with the other half coming tomorrow.
As always, take or leave my commentary, click on links for more photos and info, or just scroll through the pictures for drool-inducing beauties from GM’s glory years.
1946 Chevrolet 3100 pickup. There’s nothing like a really nice old truck to make you smile. I’m not a huge truck guy, but I spent a good amount of time gazing at this winsome old Chevy. It was the luscious colors that got me.
Foresty green and black go so well together and you could practically go swimming in the deep glossy finish. The gold striping and script didn’t hurt, either.
One of the coolest features of antique pickup trucks is the wood beds, unrealistically immaculate on restored trucks like this.
Got lumbar support?
Seller-supplied photography is first class. Somewhat below first class is Chevy’s bench seat, which does not fill me with a desire to travel very far in this truck. But I’ll look at that paint all day! $60,500
1965 Buick Riviera GS. I couldn’t make it through a series of auction favorites and not profile a Riviera! Fortunately Barret-Jackson obliged by providing at least two to choose from, including this gorgeous restored gold Gran Sport.
All three 1st gen years are great and welcome in my driveway any time, but I like the 65 the best with the concealed headlights and cleaner rear end. 65 was also the only year for a Gran Sport model, which got dual 4bbl carbs on the Riviera’s 401c.i. engine good for 360hp (vs. 325), larger exhaust, posi-trac, and engine accents.
Riviera interiors were almost as beautiful as the bodies. Prices definitely reflect the widespread love for these cars. $137,500
There was another beautiful 65 GS at B-J, in red, which sold for $101k. Usually at B-J customized cars bring as much or more than stock examples, but in an interesting reversal the two custom Rivieras at B-J seem to be relative bargains. A seemingly very high quality 1963 went for $44k and an at-least-decent condition 1964 was only 20k. That last one may not be much of a deal, though, unless your tastes run to lowriders with matte paint. It would take a good amount of work to make it suitable for polite society again.
1961 Pontiac Catalina convertible. 60s Ponchos are a favorite of mine, as the next few cars will show. It’s pretty obvious from the angle of this photo that Wide Track wasn’t an empty slogan. All full-size Pontiacs in 1961 came standard with a 389c.i. engine. The Catalina came with a 2bbl carburetor making 267hp with the Hydramatic, but this one has the optional 318hp tri-carb setup. The seller states this is an older restoration and the car has 76k miles, but whether it originally came with the tri-carb is not stated.
The condition still looked excellent, with no obvious flaws. Pontiac in the 60s had some of the best looking dashes and their way-cool translucent steering wheel is present and accounted for here in fine condition. $35,000
1965 Pontiac GTO. GTOs are a staple at classic car auctions and popularity shouldn’t make them any less special. The pioneering muscle car has a certain magic that’s not a trick. B-J had 17 GTOs from 64-71, but only one 65. It’s hard for me to pick the greatest Goat year. If I had to, I’d probably go with 1965. The 64 is similar, but the 65’s rear and especially front treatments are so much better. For my money, from the A pillars forward, the 65 GTO may be the coolest looking muscle car of them all. And the rear 2/3s aren’t too shabby either.
The pictures don’t capture the color real well, which was a very rich-looking (Montaro?) red. This was a restored car, with not-necessarily OE tri-carb 389, 4-speed and A/C. It had a few unobtrusive non-original enhancements, like electronic ignition and radial redline tires, making it more of a high-quality driver than a trailer queen which is probably why it brought the not-unreasonable price of $50,600.
Unlike Rivieras, GTOs followed the customs-are-more-expensive rule of thumb. While this was the only 65 GTO, there was an interesting 65 Tempest convertible customized to be a non-GTO GTO that sold for just a hair more. The most expensive GTO was a custom 69 Judge convertible for $319k while the most a stock car brought was $275k for a 69 Judge hardtop. Apart from a 71 for $165k and a 69 for $110k (profiled in my low miles article), there were several very nice Goats available for well under $100k.
1967 Pontiac Firebird Sprint. Early Firebirds are a less-common Camaro alternative and a favorite of beak fetishists everywhere. Being the least expensive 1st or 2nd gen Firebird among the 22 at B-J may have added an underdog appeal to this one’s considerable charm. I was attracted to the shape, colors, and whitewall/Rally wheel combo before I even noted that it is a Sprint.
Sprint, of course, means that it has the 230c.i. straight six with an overhead cam, 10.5:1 compression, and 4bbl carb, among other goodies, that cranked out 215hp, 50hp more than the standard six. That’s still well shy of the entry level V8, which was a 250hp 326, to say nothing of the available 325hp 400c.i. GTO engine. But with those, you’d miss out on the lighter, more balanced, more “european” feel of the Sprint, not to mention better gas mileage.
No frills Tempests and Firebirds actually came standard with a lower output version of the same OHC six. Sprint referred to the high-output specifications, not to the OHC six itself.
No details were provided about how much work the car has had done. If it’s mechanically as good as the cosmetic condition, I’d say it’s worth every dollar of the $29,700 it brought.
If you missed out on this 67, there was a 68 Sprint, too. It was blue and explicitly stated it’s been fully restored, which probably accounts for the higher $41,800 bid. The Sprint engine package was also available on the Tempest/Lemans, and surprisingly one of those showed up at B-J, too: a 67 convertible in very nice refurbished condition for only $19,800.
1967 Pontiac Grand Prix convertible. 1960s Pontiac sweetness comes in numerous flavors, including full-size luxury. B-J served up a tasty dish of it in the form of the one-year-only GP convertible.
It’s very unusual at an auction to be able to photograph a car with its top both up and down. I photographed the car when I found it and when I happened to walk past it later, for some reason the top had been raised. One can never have too many photos of a car like this, so out came my camera!
Why, after four years, with the convertible market already softening, did Pontiac decide they needed a droptop personal luxury coupe? Perhaps they heard of the demise of the Thunderbird convertible for 1967 and wanted to pick up some of those customers. It was an almost cost-free gambit, since the GP shared its B-body and wheelbase with the Catalina, which had long offered a soft top body. Given that, one might expect the GP convertible to have lasted the one more year it was on the B-body. Pontiac must have been very disappointed by the sales of 5,856 of the 43k GPs total sold that year. The number doesn’t seem that low to me. It’s low by early/mid 60’s convertible standards, but not bad by late 60s/early 70s standards. The GP’s proportion of convertible to hardtop coupes is similar to Pontiac’s other models that year, so who knows what they were thinking in cancelling it?
The body may have been enhanced Catalina, but the interior was more Bonneville. It would be hard to find a roomier and more pleasant place to go top-down cruising.
As neat as this car is, it’s debatable what the purpose of the Grand Prix was at this point. The original 63 had been a departure with its smooth, trim-free sides, which were fairly unique among upscale cars at the time. By 1967, all Pontiacs had trim-free sides and the GP was just a slight variation on the full-size Pontiac menu. Customers noticed, and sales had been dropping every year. This trend would reverse in fine fashion in 1969, when the GP moved to the A-special body and became much more unique.
Assuming no major unrevealed deficiencies, this may have been one of the better buys at B-J. $26,400
Tune in tomorrow for some more greats from GM!
My favorite auto design of all time: 1961 Pontiacs.
My parents had one, a red Ventura, with the 267/389 and the Roto-Hydramatic 375 transmission. As a high school senior, getting the red Pontiac for a date gave me more confidence than if I took my elderly 1953 Chrysler.
Unlike current times, in 1961 an 8 year old car was really old.
Even now, the sight of a ’61 Pontiac front end shakes loose vivid memories of long gone and fondly remembered times. That blue ’61 Catalina convertible is a beauty.
Jeez, there’s really nothing here I wouldn’t be more than happy to own. That ’61 Pontiac is especially up my alley out of this group.
Sweet, looks like I hit my target audience about right. I could have predicted you’d like the Riviera!
This was a common dashboard design, and even today we see similarities. It’s just that the dash on the passenger side is so “in your face”, not recessed. It encroaches on your personal space as you look forward. Perhaps I’m getting too claustrophobic, but I feel that way with a lot of interior auto instrument panel designs like this.
Agree. In this case older is better:
Good observation, that dash does have kind of a “modern” layout, or at least modern in the 90s-early 00s sense. Perhaps starting in the 90s airbags were responsible for dashes being so “in your face”, as there was limited space to put both a passenger airbag and glovebox. Integrated HVAC ducting takes up some space, too, which cars in the 50’s and early 60s didn’t have to worry about.
Personally, I have no problem with Pontiac’s 67 design. The car is roomy enough, it doesn’t suffer much from losing some visual space in the dashboard. The 78+ downsized A-bodies come to my mind as a design that was trying to maximize visual space, which they did an excellent job at, though I don’t find those dashes particularly appealing.
’68 GM big car dashes had dense padding and steel panels, ’69 looked like, felt like, and were hollow plastic.
Love the 1960s Pontiacs! Most all of them including the full-sizers! Just wish the prices of the 1967-1968 Camaros and Firebirds were cheaper! I’d love to own one.
I personally know the 67 GP convertible. Owned by a friend here in Phoenix. The Tyrol Blue paint is the same as the car I took my drivers test in 1967, my Moms 6 month old GP hardtop. It was a good car. but had a few issues. fixed by the time of the auction. it was a good purchase at 19.6K. Friend was asking at least 20K when offered to me. down from the original 24K. The vagaries of the market….*sigh*
Thanks for commenting, interesting to hear! Your post got me thinking and I realized the price on the windshield conflicts with what I wrote. I apparently goofed and put the wrong price in the article, the official sale price is actually $26,400. That includes all fees, so the gavel price was $24k exactly, which must have pleased your friend as it matches his original asking price (of course, B-J still gets to take their cut). You always take your chances in a No Reserve auction, but B-J tends to get pretty good prices.
I obviously waited too long to buy a Sixties Riviera. Six figures, wow. (Except for the restomodded ones, which I would have to unrestomod.)
The first car brochure I ever owned was for the full-size ’67 Pontiacs, so its always a pleasure to see pictures of one. They aren’t as nice as the Pontiacs from earlier in the decade, sure, but there was a lot of fascinating detail for a six-year-old to study.
Either of those Pontiac convertibles would find happy homes with me.
On the Rivieras, I always considered the front of the 65 an upgrade, but the changes to the rear never looked right. That blank area under the decklid stares at me and asks “where did my taillights go?”
Sign me up for the 46 Chevy pickup its a beauty, I remember one at a junkyard I part timed at while at school it got a Bedford 4 speed fitted to replace the 3 speed Chevy effort it was a nice old thing to drive and it towed dead cars to the yard for wrecking, Bedford 214cube truck engines were a popular swap into Chevy 6s full pressure oiling and an extra 1000rpms made old prewar Chevs go quite well.
As much as I like Rivieras, I have to lament their breaking through the 100K price ceiling.
I know that restoration costs are extremely high, I remember when a 10,000 dollar paint job was mind blowing, I imagine that the average first rate restoration paint jobs are twice that now. Add in redone mechanicals, interior, chrome, etc. not to mention the countless hours of labor. The owner of the car can have quite a hefty investment tied up in the car. Some of those cars are worth the money, they might not be able to be duplicated for their selling price, but many are just bid up by frenzied bidders. It’s good for the sellers and auction companies…. but.
The real problem is that a guy, holding onto a worn out, wrecked, rusty, tired, Riv is going to think is now worth 20-30 grand as a “builder.” I’ve seen a few first gen projects for sale in my club magazine for five grand or even less. A normal guy could buy a car like this and with a lot of work, and a bit of money invested, end up with a nice driver quality car. The price escalation has hurt the hobby by making it difficult to get a toe hold in the process. This has been going on for a long time with different types of vintage cars. Yes, no one is forced to pay any price for an old car, and the seller is certainly free to make the maximum return on his property, but it just takes a lot of fun out of the hobby.
To me, there is no car worth 100k, that says something about my financial position, but it also says something about my attitude towards cars. Luckily there is an alternate universe of interesting and affordable 10-20 year old cars available to people like me.
Agreed; there are well cared for 10-20 year old cars that can be enjoyed without the worries of rust repair, reliability etc. And they can be driven without fear and easily replaced.
Preach it! I agree, 100k is too much even factoring for inflation. Fortunately there are still some cool 60s cars that are more approachable, such as some of the Pontiacs here.
That 1946 Chevy 3100 series pickup’s seat is incorrectly assembled .
From 1976 through the 1980’s my shop truck was one of these and when first bought it killed my already crispy back so one day I took it all apart and discovered all it needed was to hook the hooks on the lower edge of the seat back into the loops on the rear edge of the lower cushion and Et VILOA ! .
A nice comfy seat that wasn’t all slippery and still had good original upholstery .
I can’t believe $60K
-Nate
That 60k is shocking, especially when really nice Advanced Design trucks can be had for less. But in this case who knows, maybe it’s some combo of rarity, condition and auction mania.