1962 Pontiac Bonneville 4 Door Hard Top 32k Miles, 389 V8 300+hp! on 2040-cars

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Wanted: 1967 Pontiac GTO for a special Father's Day

Jim Sharp of Elkhorn, Wisconsin needs a red 1967 Pontiac GTO to make his dad's Father's Day, possibly his last one, something extra special.
Back in the '60s, Jim's dad, Ken, drove a cherry red 1967 GTO to California for a job. He met a girl, got married and decided his wife's 1965 Ford Mustang was more fuel efficient than the Goat and the GTO was sold. As the story almost always goes, Ken has had seller's regret ever since.
Jim always meant to find a 1967 GTO and, with his dad's help, restore it. But life got in the way, time slipped by and Ken was recently diagnosed with esophageal cancer and given about three months to live.

Junkyard Gem: 1987 Pontiac Firebird

From 1967 through 2002, the Pontiac Division offered the Firebird, close sibling to the Chevrolet Camaro. By the third generation, which debuted for the 1982 model year, it became more difficult to tell the two F-body cars apart at a glance and the Pontiac-exclusive engines of the earlier years disappeared, but the Firebird still retained its own personality and its own position in the GM marketing hierarchy. I still find the occasional 1982-1992 Camaro as I search car graveyards for interesting stuff, but the corresponding Firebirds have become scarce in recent years. Here's a base-engine-equipped '87, its Bright Red paint (yes, that was the official name for the color) faded by the Colorado sun as it awaits the crusher. Firebird shoppers had their choice of three engines in 1987: A 5.7-liter Chevy V8 (210 hp), a 5.0-liter Chevy V8 (205 hp) and the same 2.8-liter 60° V6 that went into the Fiero and countless front-drive GM sedans (135 hp). This car has the base engine. The third-gen F-body didn't weigh much (3,105 pounds for the '87 with six-banger, about what a 2020 Corolla weighs), so 135 horses was tolerable. Plenty of these cars got T-5 5-speed manual transmissions, but this one got the two-pedal setup. Camaro wheels, of course. Our Friend the Carburetor didn't disappear from new cars until the early 1990s in the United States, though electronic fuel injection had become very commonplace by 1987. Still, GM considered this car's EFI worth a door-handle brag. It's not worth fixing up a mashed six-cylinder third-gen Firebird, so we can see the route this car took to its final parking space. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. When you're about to be beaten to a pulp by catcalling, Olds-driving thugs, run to the Firebird! This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. So much big hair in these late-1980s Pontiac ads! Featured Gallery Junked 1987 Pontiac Firebird View 24 Photos Auto News Pontiac Automotive History Coupe Firebird pontiac firebird Junkyard Gems

Question of the Day: Most degraded car name?

When Ford came up with a not-so-sporty version of the Pinto and slapped Mustang badges on it in 1974, that was a low point for the Mustang name. When Chrysler applied the venerable Town & Country name on perfectly functional but unglamorous minivans, it saddened many of us. But perhaps the biggest demotion for a once-proud model came when, in 1988, General Motors imported a misery-enhancing Daewoo from Korea and called it the Pontiac LeMans. The original Pontiac LeMans was a great-looking midsize car with fairly advanced (for the time) suspension design and engine options including potent V8s and a screaming overhead-cam straight-six. The Daewoo-based Pontiac LeMans was a cramped, shoddy hooptie that served only to ruin the LeMans name forever, while stealing sales from the Suzuki-based Chevrolet Sprint. Sure, using the once-respected Monterey name on the Mercurized Ford Freestar was bad, but Mercury didn't have long to live at that point. I say the downward spiral of the LeMans name was the most agonizing in automotive history. What do you think? Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Auto News Ford Mercury Pontiac Automotive History Classics questions ford pinto names