Ace Wilson’s Royal Pontiac, Royal Oak, MI.
Downtown Motors, Pittsburgh, PA.
Boomershine Motors Pontiac, Atlanta, GA.
Boomershine Motors Pontiac, Atlanta, GA.
Graves Anderson Pontiac, Walla Walla, WA.
Milner Pontiac, Tulsa, OK.
Ace Wilson’s Royal Pontiac, Royal Oak, MI.
Olin and Ayres, Buick-Pontiac, Brodhead, WI.
Rosenthal-Hayman Pontiac, Alexandria, VA.
Those were the days!
I had a 1959 Pontiac Bonneville…what a car. I Had to sell it when my free trip to South East Asia came in the mail.
I love ’60s Pontiacs. Pontiac was really on a roll during that decade.
Are the two smaller cars to the left in the fifth photo taken at Graves Anderson Pontiac, are those Opel Kapitan? I remember Opel Kadetts being sold at Buick dealers. Did Pontiac also have a sales agreement?
They area Vauxhalls (British GM). Sold by Pontiac for a few years in the late Fifties c
I think I had a matchbox sized car as a small boy. I don’t remember ever seeing one on the road so I wondered what that was all about. But I did decide it was a “foreign” car and maybe not sold here. I could possibly have gotten it from my aunt who lived in Canada
Thanks dman, I figured someone here on CC would know the answer.
And Sean p, whatever little exposure I had to British marques was through Matchbox toys, too.
How many of the small Euro imports did the big 3 sell in the 50s?
Pontiac sold Vauxhalls (for only a few years)
Buick sold Opels
Ford sold both English and German Fords
Don’t think Chrysler had anything to import; they held a minority control in Simca in the late ’50s but didn’t own the brand until the next decade. The Rootes acquisition came later and the Mitsubishi deal later still.
Correct. Pontiac dealers had the Vauxhalls, and Buick dealers got the Opals. This arrangement lasted from about 1958-`60. By `61, GM’s new compacts took their place.
Wasn’t Ace Wilson a noted Pontiac performance dealer? His pic doesn’t look very inviting!
I know that Royal Pontiac was a performance dealer. There were rumors that Pontiac would send factory-fresh cars to Royal Pontiac for a “massaging” before they were sent to the magazines for review and testing (but in the guise of a totally stock car).
One “massaged” Royal Pontiac I seem to remember reading about was a 64 GTO sent to a magazine for testing against a Ferrari (?). Years later it was determined the GTO had a worked 421 in it.
Yes. The Royal “Bobcat” treatment was a super-tune, and offered in different levels/packages. Thinner head gaskets, lifter restrictors ( to forestall pump-up ) for more RPMs, distributor recurving, recalibration of the carburetor(s). You could even get your combustion chambers cc’d and blueprinted.
The install could be accomplished by Royal, but they also sold a lot of kits through the mail for self install/adjustment. Tests of the time showed quite an appreciable improvement over the “factory” engines.
I believe they also did the Catalina Bobcats in the early ’60’s for drag racing. Aluminum hoods, front fenders and front and rear bumpers.
I forgot about those, but yeah. I also heard of what they called “Swiss cheese” Catalinas that were lightened by drilling as many holes as maintaining structural integrity would allow. Maybe some of the bodies were acid dipped? I’m not sure if that was a Royal thing or not though.
The hood striping on the new Firebirds in the last picture doesn’t look familiar – could that have been a dealer add-on?
They could be “Macho T/A” models – which were (I think) quasi-official Trans Ams that were modified by a Phoenix company. But I’m not sure if they were sold nationwide, so these examples may just be copycat hood striping. I’d like to know, since those Macho T/As were mighty rare, so it would have been unusual for a dealer to have two of them.
I believe that the Firebirds in the last picture are Macho T/A’s. There was a dealer in Alexandria Va that sold them.
I’m guessing the mast radio antenna on the blue LeMans in the Tulsa showroom was dealer installed, as they were imbedded in the windshield glass at that time. Radio delete car with a dealer installed radio?
Having worked at Sears in the early 80’s, I have used a 1″ hole saw more times than I can count. Installed many aftermarket radios and antenna’s drilling through sometimes new vehicle fenders! The base of that antenna on the LeMans looks about right for an aftermarket antenna.
GM didn’t start with the antenna in most of their vehicles until 1970. It was introduced on the 69 Grand Prix. Looks like a factory antenna to me. The car is a ’68.
In the 70s, Rosenthal Pontiac and (Masonic) Temple Buick were at the seedy industrial western edge of downtown Alexandria while the eastern third was becoming high-rent, historic, tourist-trappy Old Town, with US Route 1 and public housing between. One of the nearby “massage” parlors was raided and found to have a B&D dungeon in the cellar. A Metro stop opened across the street, the railyard to the south was pulled up, and soon the whole neighborhood was torn down for charmless multistory office buildings, condos, and hotels.
I remember being unimpressed by the crude interior finish of the new FWD Phoenix in its showroom, but I believe it was gone when I drove a Fiero and bought a Turbo Sunbird at Brown Pontiac, a block from Rosenthal Chevrolet in Arlington. I’d have been happier with a V6 Phoenix hatchback, then in its last year, and the price probably wasn’t much higher, but it was off my radar. Rosenthal was notorious for their aggressive salesmen.
and really bad “service departments”. I utilized “Bob Peck, Chevrolet” in “Ballston”. (The “1980’s”, new name for “Parkington”.)
I like the interior shot of Ace Wilson’s Royal Pontiac in Royal Oak, MI (#7). It reminds me of a local restaurant that was once a showroom for Sands Motors in Bellingham, which was around in the ’60s and ’70s.
In the ’90s and 2000s it was a fish & chips place called Boss Tweed. Now it is a popular noodle place. Every time I eat there all I can picture the mid-sixties Pontiac Lemans that was somehow left in there after the dealership closed.
In Pittsburgh I wonder if the ’47 Chev sedan delivery was traded for a ’49 Pontiac sedan delivery?
The Pontiac dealership building in our town still exists, though it was gone long before we moved here. Apparently it also turned into a restaurant, like the place Dead Swede mentions in Bellingham, named the Pontiac Grill (Grille?). And it’s still a restaurant, but now Japanese food. Seems fitting ….
I see a few Vauxhalls at Graves Anderson Pontiac, Walla Walla, WA.
My grandpa switched from Plymouth to Pontiac in 1963 and stayed with the brand right up to having a NOVA-based Ventura in 1975.
He liked the Catalina and his cars came in shades of green. Turquoise in 1963, Sage by 1968, and Avocado Green by 1972. The Ventura was also dark green. The Catalinas were very nice full sized cars with a lot of style. I remember one of his Catalinas had a clear green plastic segment at the top of the steering wheel. Very cool.
Best of all, they were the first cars I rode in that were air conditioned. It was heavenly to ride in cool comfort on hot Chicago days to the beach. My grandparents were young as grandparents go, and they had their own busy life which included my uncle who is only ten years older than I am. So they were energetic and active. Like half of all Chicagoans, they took off for Wisconsin and the U.P. to escape the heat, which I still do even fifty years later.
I like the photos because it shows such a bright future for an exciting brand. Pontiac was a big success. By the time I was ready to drive, the brand was no longer exciting, and known for being a Chevy with lots of plastic cladding and overstyled gimmickry. Sad to see it go, but even today, I’m not a big fan of these cars. Grandpa cars – is how I see them now.
I long for those days
Downtown Pontiac in Pittsburgh, PA, wasn’t downtown (or “dahntahn,” as locals say it) — it was in the South Hills, near the city limits and almost to the town of Dormont, PA.
But it was at the same location until 1999 or so. The property is still used by a car dealer, but the building is gone now.
It’s interesting to see the trolley tracks in the center of the roadway with cobblestone paving. I can remember both from back in the day growing up in Pittsburgh.
Me too.. That hill on “40th St” rumbled under our wheels countless times.
GM really mismanaged Pontiac.
From its heyday in the 1960s, when it finished a regular third in overall sales in the US, it slipped away to become a dead marque.
Pontiac was kept alive in the 1970s largely via the Firebird and its exploits on TV (Jim Rockford’s Esprit on The Rockford Files) and movies (Burt Reynolds’ Trans Am in the various Smokey And The Bandit flicks) but could not make the transition to the brougham era and thereafter wandered the market aimless and without a clearly defined purpose despite taking the starring automotive role in Knight Rider, which GM strangely tried to distance themselves from.
Nice Pic’s, takes me back, my grandpa had a 58 Pontiac, we had a 54? When I was born. Later we got a new 64 Catalina. Later in the 70’s I got a 67 Firebird & a 68 GTO for the wife, brother got a 68 Firebird. Then migrated to mostly Chevy’s, GMC (needed trucks) & Camaros..
I do remember Ace Wilson’s ” Royal Pontiac” and Packer Pontiac too, getting to the Detroit area to get parts to drag race. Also Plymouth and, Dodge. We had “Ramchargers” in the area. Don’t forget Ford. Dearborn Steel and Tube provided parts for them. And we got to see theses cars here in the Detroit area. Where I lived Those where the days.
I think my aunt/uncle got their “65 Lemans” @ “Hayman Pontiac”. “Rosenthal” hadn’t got involved with them yet.
That “WI” dealership looks “soo sad”.
Graves apparently bought out Anderson at some point and survives today as Dayl Graves GMC “since 1950”. Not it the same location though. The Ford dealer took over the pictured building at some point but it became a used car dealer and is vacant in the most recent street view pics.
I love those smaller 1950’s Poncho dealers .
Steiner Pontiac made it into the 1970’s before going belly up .
-Nate
We had Ed Schmidt Pontiac in Perrysburg,Ohio,1 block away from Dave Schmidt Chevrolet.
Wonder how many small towns Pontiac dealerships there were. I remember the one in Gonzales, Texas, that my grandma got her ’68 Tempest 4 door from. They provided the high school drivers ed cars on the even years, and we also got our ’70 LeMans 4 door from them. Our car was gold with a white top; a 2 door in this color combo is in some of the ’70 ads. Grandma’s car was white with a teal/peacock blue top, and I’ve never seen another one in that color combo. It had the same color (metallic color) vinyl upholstery; our ’70 had gold vinyl upholstery. Neither one particularly comfortable in Texas summers…..
The dealership was called King Pontiac GMC, owned by a man named Rufus King. The showroom was adjacent to the shop of the Texaco station he also owned.
His mechanics were less than honest; Dad would frequently be taking care of needed maintenance on her car when she came to visit. He also tuned up our LeMans on Christmas Day a few times, when it was nice weather.
The only new cars i ever bought ( i’m 78 ) were Pontiacs , a 1968 Lemans with the Sprint option ( overhead
Cam 6 , 4 brl , special cam , 10.5 to 1 compression, high output exhaust , and a 3 speed with HURST shifter . Verdoro metalflake green with an all white interior . Owned it 7 trouble free years , 105,000 miles. ) This one i wish i wish i had back.
A 1975 Grand Prix , arctic blue with an all white interior. A stuningly beautiful car .
Bought both at King pontiac in Gaithersburg , Md.