GM’s new colonnade mid-size family was the biggest news for 1973. Their styling was a bit surprising–almost shocking–after the long run of their predecessors as well as the competition. The coupes got the most dramatic treatment, with their semi-fastback roofs and bulging bodies. Clearly Pontiac’s Grand Am made the biggest visual impact, with its impact-resistant Endura nose. It also tried mighty hard to wrap itself in the mantle of a genuine American Road Car, the equal of the finest that Europe was increasingly sending this way.
Road and Track tested one, a rather mildly equipped 400-2V/automatic version, undoubtedly the most commonly sold version, and came away with some positive impressions. But ultimately it was still just an American car, with many of the usual virtues and vices.
GM was clearly going after the growing European sport sedan market with three of its new Colonnade cars, with the Cutlass Salon, Grand Am, and the Monte Carlo’s new Mercedes-inspired front suspension geometry. R&T set out to test all three, starting with the GA.
It may have been sitting on a rather modest 112″ wheelbase, but it–and the rest of the gang–were neither small nor svelte, measuring over 208″ long and weighing over two tons.
R&T was none too impressed with the “gee whiz” styling, which seemed to imitate hoods from the 1930s, fenders of the 1940s, and the general decadence of the 1950s. True that. Overwrought, unless of course you like that sort of thing. It sure wasn’t an American BMW.
The interior got better marks, although not for space efficiency. The gauges on the dash were round, legible and there was even a thin veneer of genuine mahogany. And of course the isolated aspect when rolling along the freeway was a positive, and included the typically good air conditioning and sound insulation.
The 170 hp two-barrel 400 V8 rated good marks, with enough oomph to spin the tires a bit on an aggressive take-off. 0-60 was acquitted in 10.3 seconds. If one wanted more get-up and go, there were a number of engine options, all the way to a 310 hp 455, the most powerful engine offered by any domestic maker in 1973. Somehow that seem more appropriate in a Firebird TA.
Fuel economy was poor, averaging 11 mpg. That sucks. And the engine exhibited the all-too common maladies thanks to tighter emission controls: lean surge at suburban speeds and poor cold starting, plus an odd occasional forward surge.
The Grand Am’s road manners combined handling and ride that was better than earlier domestic attempts at “road cars”, but the suspension’s limitations due to lack of sophistication were still there. As usual, the ride and handling was good on good roads but deteriorated as the road conditions did: the front end floats when coming out of undulations at speed, and there was too little suspension travel, one of the key limiting factors in all American cars then. This is what separated them from the Europeans, who had longer travel and yet managed to keep their relatively soft springs under control with excellent damping.
Under these conditions, things “get dicey” because of the numb power steering. R&T called it “power steering for parking, not for driving”. It’s not uncommon to hear praise for these Colonnades when equipped with handling packages (standard on the GA), but in comparison to the better European sedans, the gulf was still considerable. But then that’s not what most buyers of American cars cared about. So that’s what they got.
Braking was “satisfactory”. City-driving maneuverability was limited, due to its size and width as well as visibility.
R&T summed it up by saying the GA was designed for effect, and it got that. Folks either reacted very positively or sneered at it. Polarization isn’t exactly a new phenomena.
Did the would-be track star leave any dents?
The stupidity of articles like this never ceases to amuse me. The bewigged “editors” of road.and crap may have been obsessed with Krautmobile crap in 1975 and thus WRONGLY assumed GM Pontiac and Americans knew what BMW was. The idea that a company like Pontiac which sold 502000 cars in 1974 would be building cars to imitate the joke numbers of little Bimmer boys 13600 cars sold here is pathetically DUMB. That’s literally 35 TIMES more cars sold. GM hadn’t gone totally senile yet. If you sold a product that outsold some joke import 35 to.1 would YOU copy them?????
Thanks for your inspired comment! It’s been way too log since I’ve had the pleasure to read on of this caliber. It reminds me of the early days of CC when GM fanbois were still out in full force.
Of course Pontiac didn’t need to imitate those pathetic Nazi tin cans like BMW; Pontiac and GM were at the top of the world. Why would they give a rat’s ass about the fact that BMW’s sales in the US were growing like a weed?
But Pontiac quickly put a stop to that in the 80s with their “Wal-Mart BMWs”, the Grand Ams with the twin-kidney grilles. That put a stop to those pesky Krauts; now BMW is just a dstant memory and Pontiac is riding hgh!
I’m glad there’s at least of a few of us who really know out history and understand the car business.
Have you heard: Tesla is now outselling BMW!
Have you heard that even with BEV monopoly it took Tesla a decade to sell 1 million units?
What’s your point? It took BMW more than a decade to outsell Pontiac. Or should I say kill Pontiac?
American cars are made for American roads, to suit American tastes. Nothing wrong with that, and not much to comment about, usually.
But when the conversation is about how “European” the car is, with its 400 cubic inch engine, automatic transmission, soggy suspension, two ton of weight and over-powered steering… well someone, somewhere is missing the point.
I’m sure these can be made into very decent cars, in the right context, but as you rightly point out, that context has nothing to do with being a good “European car”
That 310 hp 455 never made it into any midsized cars beyond a few prototypes, as far as I know, although it was listed as an option for the Grand Am coupe, in the early sales brochures. Mention of it did make it into the text of a some early reviews of cars like the Grand Am, and gave buyers a lot of false hope.
As far as I know, the only engines offered were the 170 hp 400-2bbl, a 400-4bbl with maybe 185 hp, and I think the 455 had around 230? I have a feeling that 0-60 in 10.3 seconds might be a bit optimistic, as well. I have a bunch of old MT, C&D, R&T etcs from the 70’s packed away somewhere, and I remember one of them had a test of a Grand Am, and I’m pretty sure they got a 0-60 time of something like 12.8 seconds. It was a 4-door though, as I recall. I do remember it having a 400-2bb/automatic, but can’t remember what axle ratio it had.
Still, these were nice cars. Unfortunately, market tastes were shifting, and domestic buyers cared more about upscale pretensions, than any attempt at handling. Witness the success of the ’75 Granada, for evidence of that! And anyone who wanted something European-inspired wasn’t going to go for something this big, no matter how well it handled. And, at its price point, the Gran Am probably cut it a bit too close to the Grand Prix, which buyers overwhelmingly preferred.
R&T is never optimistic re. U.S. cars’ 0-60 numbers. The 400 2bbl was a decent performer, better than the Olds 350 4bbl. The 400 4bbl dual had 225hp, the 455 dual had 250hp. A firmer suspension, over the Grand Am, could be ordered and is even alluded to in the article, “the GTO suspension”.
Compared with the Cutlass Salon, when properly equipped with the 455 4bbl dual and the firmer suspension (above the Salon package); it is hard to pick a winner here.
But yes these had really grown (vs. the previous gen.) into full-size cars (and the 71 “full-size” (vs. the previous gen.) had really become megalon-class sedans.
To paraphrase C&D “this growth business had to stop.”
According to Motor Trend, the only 455SD engines that actually reached customers were under the hoods of Firebirds. Pontiac trotted out some GTOs and Grand Ams for the magazines to test, printed the promotional literature, and then had the EPA catch them with EGR defeat devices. The 455SDs that did reach customers in Firebird Formulas and Trans Ams were not as fast as the ones that the magazines tested, but they may have put out as much as 290 net horsepower. Meanwhile, the 455SD Le Mans GTO and Grand Am test cars were scrapped and zero customers bought Pontiacs with 310 actual horsepower in 1973.
https://www.motortrend.com/features/hppp-1001-1973-pontiac-gto/
@Chaz, from reading the period magazines, I got the impression that GM marketed the Pontiac Grand Am, the Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon, and the Chevrolet Nova LN as being cars equipped and tuned to compete with European sedans.
Whether they were or not, the fact is that the United States had serious air quality issues that in some locals were heavily influenced by automotive exhaust, and automotive exhaust is produced in quantities that are proportional to the amount of fuel being burned. For me, that is what is wrong with a car that gets 11 miles per gallon while being slow and not particularly roomy.
By the late ’80s, emissions controls meant that exhaust itself was clean, so fuel economy is now only a pollution concern for people who believe in man-made climate change, but Detroit’s urge to produce the least efficient vehicles possible whenever they have the chance does have something wrong with it. The new 9,000-pound Hummer pickup is a perfect example.
I think this car was searching for a market that didn’t really exist. Pontiac was on top of the trends a decade earlier when it was all about American V8 muscle, and I think they were trying to move in the direction the enthusiasts were going. But they tried doing it with a car that was never going to impress fans of European stuff no matter what they did.
Grand Am, Laguna, Cutlass Salon – all of them tried new top trim levels that seemed more European (to various degrees) but none of those attempts really took. Americans stuck to their Cutlass Supremes, Malibus and (for the dwindling few) the LeMans.
Did this car mark the beginning of American manufacturers’ inferiority complex, and the mindset that European = good, American = bad? Cadillac, for example, still has not recovered from this mindset.
There’s nothing wrong with a manufacturer trying to create a market for something that doesn’t (yet) exist – although in the case of the Grand Am, they couldn’t fully commit to “Europeanness”, with that name and red-white-and-blue fender badge and pinstriping. Could have been called the Lucerne or some alphanumeric.
We had a new ’74 Grand LeMans coupe with Radial Tuned Suspension that couldn’t have been that different from the tested car. Truly massive for a car with a relatively negligible (and neglected) rear seat. It seemed to be a truly absurd car not many years later.
I was a design student at the “old” Art Center when these cars came out; they WERE the talk of our small group of Transportation Design majors!!!!! Of the Olds, Buick and Pontiac my favorite has always been, and remains, the Grand Am coupe. The sculpting on the Buick and especially the dog jowled Olds left me cold: over worked but under done. Actually rather bizarre.
Some of us had a brief drive with the Pontiac, thanks to a certain instructor. Compared to my then daily driver, a ’56 Chevy 150 coupe with a ’66 327 the nu Pontiac felt quite amazing. Gee, what a surprise! Of course, had we been able to run Mulholland or Angeles Crest I’m sure our impressions would have dramatically changed. 🙁 On the surface streets, at basically legal speeds around ACCD, well the car was pretty darn good. Location is everything! DFO
Correct me if I have this wrong, but wouldn’t Grand Am sedan with 4 spd. V8 have been a total unicorn? Who else was offering that configuration? While Pontiac were offering multiple V8 auto. coupes. Moot point, as OPEC was about to wipe them off the map.
I suspect that the R&T test car had red and blue pin striping… some kind of “America” package if I recall correctly.
(Photo from https://www.hollywoodmotorsusa.com/vehicles/534/1973-pontiac-grand-am)
As Colonnade schnozzes go, I vastly prefer the 74-76 Chevy Laguna S-3.
the 1973 Monte Carlo had better handling due to suspension advances ordered by DeLorean – he actually reversed engineered using Mercedes as the template
the Monte Carlo was a great handling car – my dad got a 1973 w/ a 4 barrel 350 and dual exhaust and it really was fun to drive and it was the great sales success of the 1973 GM models
the Grand Am was supposed to be the success, but it was a dog
My college girlfriend had a ’76 Monte Carlo that I always enjoyed driving. Way, way bigger than my ’74 Celica (especially that 6-foot-long hood), but it handled really well and didn’t feel nearly as big as it was. For the mid-70s, these cars were a revelation.
the 1973 Monte Carlo had better handling due to suspension advances ordered by DeLorean – he actually reversed engineered using Mercedes as the template.
That is not true. Mercedes was used as the inspiration, but the front suspension was essentially cribbed from the 1970 F-body. I wrote a little about the history of the suspension and discuss the specific geometry used in the Monte Carlo in this article:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-for-sale/cc-for-sale-1973-chevrolet-monte-carlo-a-curbside-classic-for-christmas/
How was that statement “not true”?
While the upgraded Monte suspension didn’t copy the parts contained in a Mercedes (“reverse engineer”), Delorean did copy the (high positive caster) steering feel of one via various suspension changes to make the Monte handle, He was trying to copy that famous Mercedes locked-on steering feel.
This was a nice morning read. It would be interesting to see what the GA was capable of were it packing one of the more potent engines under the hood. The 4bbl 400 with dual exhaust was rated at 230hp, and the 455 had 250hp.
I never liked the Colonnade coupes with any style of quarter window other than the big triangular ones they clearly were meant to have, and the Pontiac slotted ones don’t work for me. Fortunately you could get the Grand Am as a four-door with the Colonnade sedan’s unique 6-window treatment.
I think the big-cube-only policy crimped Grand Am sales in the wake of the first gas shock since WW2. If it had been available with the full gamut of Pontiac V8s down to a 305 and whatever 6 they were using (whether Chevy inline or Buick V6) that could only have helped its’ sales.
There *was* probably a good untapped market for something very American (which this is), more grown-up than the muscle cars which were fading fast anyway but sportier than a fluffy Brougham – but in the face of gas that was suddenly not just way more expensive but actually scarce, that market suddenly didn’t want to feed 400-plus cubes.
Calling it European was muddying the message. It was, especially as a sedan, a GTO for people who had bought the original but were now married, maybe with kids, and wanted handling and comfort with their sporty A-body.
I was a high school senior when these came out and while I liked the Colonnade Malibu, these stunned me and not in a good way. In hindsight, this was really the harbinger of the plastic cladding that would dog the Grand Am for two more decades.
As for the whole “European” aspect, even as a teen I couldn’t understand how wide rims and high effort power steering and sway bars made this thing European. Peugeots and Volvo’s had skinny tires and lots of body roll. And as Mercedes got bigger and more likely to be V8-powered, they actually seemed to be getting more Americanized in some respect. At the time, to me “European” was more about space (and powertrain) efficiency anyway. I think the US market Ford Focus was perhaps the first to really seem European, far more than the Taurus and certainly the Pontiac 6000 STE.
Yeah. Here we are 49 years later, still waiting on that standard.
This was certainly a flashy over styled car, kind of a bigger Tran Am. I would say that it was the evolution of the GTO but the GTO always came off as more understated than this, even in orange! Maybe GM, which was thinking of cancelling the F car, was exploring models that would appeal to that demographic. I’ll admit that I really liked this car when it came out but it certainly wasn’t “European.” A real European sporty car was the VW Scirocco which I also loved.
Eleven miles per gallon, and this was an intermediate! I’ve had cars that got worse gas mileage back in those days, luckily things improved somewhat after 1975 with the adoption of the catalytic converter. I like big cars but they sure are wasteful.
Of all of GMs “European” flavored cars I still think this is the best they ever made. When they actually downsized and made their cars more “sophisticated”, at least as they considered FWD in marketing, they came off as cheap bland store brand knock offs like the 86 Grand Am. This one may have been American through and through with just a veneer of Europeanness as thin as the mahogany on the dash(it’s veneer in Mercedes too in reality) but the 73 Grand Am had an identity, even now despite it being a “malaise” era product is fairly memorable and noteworthy.
The really silly part of the Europhile pandering is it’s not as though GM didn’t already use a substantial amount of European cues in the styling department dating back to Harley Earl. But now that the suspension engineers started doing the same the marketing department is suddenly ready to use that as a sales pitch? Just sell the car for what it is. Don’t open yourselves up to comparisons to cars that are apples and oranges in execution.
We suppose it’s going to take a government standard on vision(there is one already proposed) to stop this sort of monkey business in a critical area of car safety – outward vision.
Ahahaha!
Oh yeah that went well, instead of fixing the visibility problems they made them worse by fattening up the A pillars and half assedly “solved” the problem with what back then would have probably been derided as American car gimmicks in backup cameras and lane departure sensors if the likes of GM came up with them.
In my memory, my best friend’s parents bought a 4 door GA in a pinkish beige, but I’m certain it didn’t have those bucket seats, so maybe he just wanted them to get one instead of a LeMans. Before we traded it in ’77, I was able to drive our ’73 Century with 350/4 bbl, and the most memorable sensation was congestion, with cowl squeaks.
The entire “European” sales pitch was a set-up to explain why these cars weren’t muscle car performers, help explain their prices, and test a marketing angle. There were a lot of glued-on appearance packages during this age, and this one was one of them.
1973 was the first year we got a look at what ugly bumpers did to the front of our cars, and it was rather hideous. Chrysler avoided this by using giant rubber bumper stops on internally beefed-up, but original bumpers, but GM, Ford and AMC tried to make the new cow-catchers appealing. The Endura bumpers used here and on the Laguna signaled a possible solution. Actually, what covered the front of these two GM “sporty” cars ended up being launched on all the cars by 1980 as either coated bumpers, bumper inserts or malleable front ends.
The Colonnades were over styled. The Pontiac rear end was the worst of the bunch. Tapering to a point meant a trunk lid that made the trunk a luggage compactor. It meant horizontal tail lights that looked like they were flattened to point upwards. This is the only year of the Pontiac that tried to use this severe design element. (The 1974 put the tail lights on the rear fenders vertically to lift the rear end and somewhat square it off. Then the rear bumper was chrome and didn’t match the front bumper.
Pontiac took a slick design on paper and clay, but ended up with a car with an almost bustle-back look, without the bustle. Within a few years, Pontiac tried to correct this. The 1973 had the purest design and it just didn’t work.
The car was too big on the outside to be sporty, too heavy to be sporty, too small on the inside, and too thirsty to be practical.
I think they complied with the bumper regs the same grudging, scornful way they did with seatbelts and head restraints and emission controls and a large proportion of other newly-regulated aspects of vehicle design, construction, and equipment, and then only after spending mountains of money, effort, and time fighting the regulations. Which is a pity, because they had massive engineering talent in their employ. If they had put even a fraction of those resources into meeting the goddamn regs instead of making war on them, it would have been to everyone’s benefit.
All of which to say there’s a sturdy case to be made that the US auto industry deliberately treated vehicle regulation as a passing fad to be snuffed out by whatever means necessary, and one of their oftenest-used tools in that war was to comply with the regulations in the nastiest possible ways in an effort to spark popular and congressional backlash against the regulation of vehicles. Oh, your brand-new car is hard to start, stalls, knocks, hesitates, gets lousy gas mileage, buzzes at you if you don’t fasten the complicated and uncomfortable seat belts, and has ugly bumpers? Gee, »tsk« what an awful shame. Not our fault; the government made us do it. Guess you should run go write to your congressman or something.
I remember when the Grand Am came out we had fun squishing its nose at the dealer parking lot.
In the July 1973 Popular Science there was a road test of the then current 4wd vehicles. In the 2 lane change maneuver the IH Scout was the fastest and matched the time Popular Science got with the Grand Am at 60 mph.
Could we get the data page, please?
Ask and you shall receive.
My apologies for having to make you ask.
My high school buddy had a 1977 LeMans Sport Coupe, which is basically the same car as the Grand Am. At the time, I was driving my dad’s 1979 Impala four door and the difference was vast. The LeMans was cramped inside and had terrible outward vision. The Impala had plenty of room and big windows. The footprint of both cars was within a few inches of each other. Not surprisingly, both cars drove very similarly.
The 11 MPG of the featured car reminds us that the good old days weren’t always so good.This is the same year as the first gas crisis.
I have stated my case on these pages before about the 73-77 Le Mans, and those comments are more than applicable to this car. Needless to say, they weren’t my favourite cars.
I got to -er- had to drive a 75 Le Mans for a summer job, which I found ironic at the time. The job was going to another location to pick up the “computer report”.
I don’t know who talked the fleet manager at that company to buy Pontiacs as fleet cars in the first place. I thought Chevy, Ford, or Plymouth would have been more usual fleet choices. Anyway, the Le Mans was good to drive, but the absence of steering feel as alluded to in this article was demonstrable. It had some guts emanating from the 350 engine to the extent I was able to use it on the crowded Highway 401. Too bad about the styling. This Grand Am was not Detroit’s best work.
GM still had its styling mojo when the Colonnades were introduced; they were certainly different from what had been tried before, but not all was pleasing to the eye. As Dennis Otto pointed out, the triangular rear quarter windows suited the coupes best with their semi-fastback rooflines. Still, their shape was off-putting, and channeling Zackman here, they didn’t roll down or even flip out, a harbinger of what became standard industry practice.
The public voted with their wallets, overwhelmingly preferring the much smaller opera windows on these coupes. Other elements like the schnoz on this Grand Am and the “jowls” on the lower portions of the Cutlass’s fenders were not popular. But go figure, the Monte Carlo with its exaggerated hips was a big success; likewise the Cutlass Supreme and Regal coupes after the 1976 refresh with the slab sides and quad rectangular headlights.
Personally I thought the ugly duckling of the bunch was the ’73 Malibu with the uninspired grille and railroad tie bumpers at both ends. Only the quad-round taillights, echoing the Camaro, were a nice touch, but they lasted only that one year.
The sedans and wagons were far more practical with their longer, 116-inch wheelbases, which contributed to more rear seat room (and as we know, the longer wheelbase was used ahead of the firewall on the Monte Carlo and GP to create those 6-foot long hoods).
Count the (Pontiac and Oldsmobile coupe) Colonades as cars I’ve come around to. I used to dislike the entire 1970s, but a few have worked there way into my realm. Ford man, admittedly, but I vastly prefer these to Elites or LTDs or Thunderbirds of the era. . This Grand Am doesn’t look bad. The 11 MPG is a tough one, but I wonder if an overdrive transmission would help?
I always wondered if the bumpers on these cars (a Pontiac Grand Prix as an example) could be sunk in some, eliminating the filler panel. I think it would make a big difference in the front end.
Just google “bumper tuck” and you’ll see a number of examples of people having done just that. Like this ’74 Nova—very nicely done and certainly a big improvement appearance-wise.
Hmmm the pic didn’t post for some reason… trying it again.
I always loved the style of these, pretty radical at introduction. I’d love to “mash up” the ‘73 front end with the ‘75 back end.
Side note: A childhood’s friend’s dad was the lead chemist in developing the pliable soft nose on these.
Neat! Was he involved with this effort at GM’s Guide division, do you know?
Thanks Daniel!
You know if I could stap back into 1974 I’d have a 4-door I love the shape of this.
Love the interior and for me the shape is as outstanding as a Jaguar XJ6 of this era.
Collectible Automobile has pics of the ‘almost 1972 GTO’, essentially a Grand Am. The 1970 UAW strike pushed Colonnades to ’73, and big bumpers added. The fastback versions were penned during height of ‘muscle car mania’, as were the Gran Torino Sport roof and 71 Charger/Satellite. The 70’s were predicted to be ‘new space age’ looking from 1967-8.
Turned out the Colonnade “A-Special” bodies were the winners; Grand Prix, Monte, Regal, Cutlass Supreme. The fastbacks ended up low price lines, and got rear windows shrunk to look more ‘formal’.
Insurance surcharges hurt GTO name, so we got Grand Am lineup for ’73-’75. While lesser LeMans and Ventura got option package. Imagine if Pontiac went through with GTO name, would name ended up on the 1985-2005 Grand Ams?
Road and Track also tested a Cutlass Salon 4-door in 1973. They were a little more positive in that review. They like the styling, good visibility, the more practical 4-door layout, the HVAC and the radio. The Salon also had better driveability than the Grand Am. They said the Salon’s handling package “is a middling one, not so stiff as that of the Cutlass S but stiffer than the standard Cutlass.” They criticized the steering for having no road feel and said the “cornering is largely remote control at the wheel.” However, they claim that in pure cornering power that the Salon approaches the Mercedes 280 but it understeers more strongly. Like the Grand Am, they also complained of some floatiness in the suspension and that it bottom’s out to easily.
Performance-wise the Cutlass had longer braking distances than the Grand Am(189′ from 60mph), and the 350-4bbl was slower to 60 mph (11.1 sec) and through the 1/4 mile (18.1 sec). It also got 11 mpg.
R&T stated that compared to the BMW Bravaria, Mercedes 280 and Jaguar XJ6, the Cutlass Salon was in the same league for top speed and acceleration, but not in fuel economy, handling and braking. Ride quality was deemed to be approaching the BMW, which was they deemed the worst of the Euro cars. However, they also stated it was the quietest, mechanically simplest, easier to service, and had the best HVAC and radio. Overall they conclude the “Cutlass Salon is a pretty, comfortable, a lot of car for the money and thoroughly American.”
Yes, that review is due here any day, although now I’m not sure it’s necessary. You’ve given it, and very well too. 🙂
Yes, the 4-doors and wagons made a lot more sense, but that’s not where the market was for the so-called intermediate cars in the mid-70s. Coupes were all the rage, rear seat room (or lack thereof) notwithstanding.
I rode in one of those cars when it was a ten year old beater in the early 1980s. If that car was typical, Grand Ams aged very badly. The interior was literally falling apart, the doors sagged, the plastic nose cracked easily. The heater still worked great, though. There was absolutely nothing European about it, except for the window louvers. I remember those being a trendy and vaguely “continental” styling gimmick. The Grand Am was simply another flavor of the same old Colonnade. A diminished descendant of the GTO for the malaise era. Smaller, less powerful, smog choked, lacking any kind of inherent greatness or cultural significance, but still trying to stand out from the mundane, just a little bit. I always liked the styling. I remember the overall feeling that this car DID, in fact, manage to appear slightly more modern than many others from its era, even ten years later. But anybody who was into German cars in the 1970s would have never even considered a Pontiac. It just took a few more years before such comparisons started to be perceived as completely nonsensical by most people.
As someone mentioned above, it always seemed so weird to me that they had the Endura body-colored bumpers up front, with a traditional chrome bumper out back. Same with the Laguna. How hard would it have been to simply paint the rear bumpers body color to match? Would have made for a much more cohesive look.
BMW is not “Ultimate Driving Machine” brand, anymore. Now, are suburban CUV’s plodding along with the other look alike status symbol Utes.
Regarding ’73 Grand Am “…A diminished descendant of the GTO for the malaise era. Smaller,…” ? No way were the 73’s “smaller” then the 1964-72 A bodies.
M2 CS.
The 310 hp.455 was the super duty motor..only 1200 motors made in 73..all of them were put in SD455..Trans am.firebird 1973 cars..1200 made..and not grand ams….most of the grand ams were 400.170 horse motors still for the time 1973 this was a pretty good car.for it’s time..esp.the 2 door model
I purchased a 1976 Pontiac Grand Lemans, new, it had all the bells and whistles. I drove this car until 1986. At that time it had 225,000. miles on it with the original motor and transmission. This was the best handling car I drove in this time period. What made it an excellent handling car were Good shock absorbers and tires. I ran Michelin tires which made it a dream to drive. Sold it for $1,000.00 to and 80 yr old woman and she loved it. It was far better than the1973
Grand Am that was described in the article.