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Rare One Owner Red Can Am on 2040-cars

Year:1977 Mileage:115954
Location:

Bradenton, Florida, United States

Bradenton, Florida, United States
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Get yourself, or your sweetheart a great Valentine's Day present, it's even the right color!

This is a one owner 1977 Pontiac LeMans with the Can Am performance package, and as far as I know the only one in this color, all were made in white, this one is not.  The short lesson is that there were either 1,177 or 1,377 (Depending on your source, no one seems to pin down a hard number) LeMans Sport Coups converted into Can Ams by a company called Motortown Corporation in 1977 as a GM project to resurrect (sort of) the GTO.  The project got cancelled by GM when the stamping machine that made the rear spoilers broke and was down for most of the spring.  With hundreds of white LeMans SC's sitting in the yard at the factory, GM management eventually pulled the plug on the project and sent the last batch of about 450 machines to be modified after the stamping machine was fixed.  There isn't much else to say, if you're looking for one of these then you know what we are talking about, if you've never heard of it before, ask questions and I'll try to answer as best as possible.

When I purchased the car, I was working at a Pontiac dealer in Ypsilanti Michigan and was told it was sent in with the last batch of Sport Coupes that went off to Motortown for conversion to the Can Am.   Supposedly our Sales Manager was a golfing buddy of the VP of Pontiac at the time and he is the one that slipped the red one in at the last minute.  I can't verify that, but that's what the manager of the dealership told me when I bought it and hey, it's a good story.  I purchased this in August 1977 as my first new car and drove it for twelve years as my only vehicle.  I had it restored in 2000 although the numbers don't match anymore, the heads got lost but I acquired a set of factory correct units and the motor is in stock configuration.  The last 10 months the car has been sitting outside and there was a leak that allowed water to do the damage you see in the photos of the interior.  The engine and drive train, in fact the entire car, only has 15,000 miles on it since it was restored, the tires have less than 500 miles on them and are a year old.  If it were not for the rusted out floor, you could drive this car anywhere, although the gas bill would be a bit high.

The car is equipped with the Pontiac T/A 6.6 (400 C.I.D.(Option W72)) engine with 4 bbl carb rated at 200hp at 4,000 rpm, and 325-lbs.ft. of torque at 2,200 rpm with a TurboHydramatic 400 transmission running a G80 code positrac rear end.  Some Can Ams were built with the 6.6 Litre (403 C.I.D. Oldsmobile) engine with 4 bbl carb., but this one sports the Pontiac motor.  The interior is the standard LeMans bench seat, Can Ams were supposed to have bucket seats with a console and floor mounted shifter and full gauge package from the Gran Prix, this car did not get that.

The only options of note are A/C which works very good and an AM/FM Stereo radio with 8 Trac tape player which does not work, but the car was and still is an eye catcher and in its day, a heavy hitter in the stoplight wars.  That may sound like a bit of a stretch by today's standards but in the mid to late seventies, many cars barely boasted 150hp.  The Pontiac 400 has A LOT of torque at low RPM and it can still give a good account of itself from 0 to 60.  I installed headers and a custom exhaust along with the old Trans Am style side splitter tailpipes.  The shaker hood is functional and at wide open throttle not only does the car feel like it's pushing you into the back seat, it sounds like a P-47 Thunderbolt on wheels.

This is not a garage queen, as I said above, I drove this car for over twelve years both city and highway, it has traversed the country and never let me down.  After restoration I drove it only on short trips to local car shows and up to a year ago, almost every day to work, I would have continued had not the floor started to give out.  She runs fine on pump gas and all I've used in it for the last ten years is Chevron with Techron additive fuel to keep the system clean.  The oil has been changed religiously every 3,000 miles using Mobil 1 fully synthetic motor oil, and the transmission has Amsoil fully synthetic fluid in it.  The cooling system has been drained and refilled every two and a half to three years and belts and hoses changed at the same time.  As stated above, the tires are just about a year old with about 500 miles on them and filled with nitrogen.  The car drives straight, no pulling left or right and cruises fast or slow, your choice, although at 70+ it gets a little noisy with the 3.23 rear and that three speed automatic, but power is instantaneous if your foot gets itchy as more than one tail light gazer can attest.

It's tough to let this car go, but circumstances are forcing my hand, this is a good solid eye catching machine that makes everyone take notice when you pull in wherever you go, be it the grocery store, the beach, a hamburger joint or a national car show.

Hello Kitty plate not included.

  • I reserve the right to end the sale of this machine at any time.
  • The car is sold as is and where is, no warranty implied or stated.
  • The buyer is responsible for all shipping / transporting costs.
  • I will assist and cooperate with shipping companies if needed, I have bought and sold other cars over the years and know the way things work.
  • A $500 deposit is required immediately after the auction ends and an email with your contact information.
Thanks for stopping by.

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Auto blog

Lutz says Washington killed Pontiac, next G6 was to be ATS derivative

Tue, 29 Oct 2013

How many people think Buick or GMC should have gotten the axe instead of Pontiac? You can't see it, but I'm raising my hand. Autoweek reports that former Vice Chairman of GM, Bob Lutz, has indicated that things didn't have to end up the way they did.
"The Feds said, 'Yeah, how much money have you made on Pontiac in the last 10 years?' and the answer was, 'Nothing.'"
In a talk given at the Petersen Automotive Museum for the Inside the MotoMan Studio series, Lutz says "The Feds said, 'Yeah, how much money have you made on Pontiac in the last 10 years?' and the answer was, 'Nothing.' So, it goes. And when the guy who is handing you the check for $53 billion says, 'I don't want Pontiac, drop Pontiac or you don't get the money,' it doesn't take you very long to make up your mind." Lutz even added that the next-generation Pontiac G6 would have benefitted from the rear-wheel-drive platform of the Cadillac ATS. How awesome would that have been?

STUDY: Ford owns brand loyalty in 2009; Scorned Saturn, Pontiac buyers will look outside of GM

Fri, 16 Oct 2009

Ford buyers appear to love their cars more than customers of any other automotive brand, returning back to the American automaker when it comes time to purchase their next vehicle. According to a study by Experian Automotive, six of the top 10 vehicles for customer brand loyalty wear badges from the Blue Oval. That includes the Ford Fusion (62.4 percent), Ford Edge (57.9 percent), Ford Five Hundred/Taurus (56 percent), Ford Freestyle (51.9 percent), Ford Escape (49.4 percent) and the Ford Focus (47.57 percent).
Other vehicles making up the top 10 include the Toyota Prius (52 percent), Chevy Impala (51.7 percent), Toyota Camry (47.8 percent) and Toyota Corolla (47.56 percent). This brings up an interesting question: With the closing of automotive brands like Saturn and Pontiac, where are those buyers to turn for their next automotive purchase?
Apparently, not back to General Motors. According to Experian, Pontiac owners are most likely to look to the Ford lineup for their next car or truck and Saturn shoppers will switch to Toyota or Honda - not particularly surprising given that Saturn was meant to compete with import brands. Experian predicts that GM's overall market share will fall from 20 percent to about 17.5 percent, with most of the slack being picked up by Ford, Honda and Toyota.

German prosecutors have recorded calls between VW bigwigs talking dieselgate

Thu, Mar 21 2019

It's barely possible to believe how poorly Volkswagen continues to handle dieselgate. Depending on which day you catch the news, the German carmaker embodies the corporate venality of "Michael Clayton," the comic blundering of the Coen Brothers' "Burn After Reading," and the every-man-for-himself vengeance of "Reservoir Dogs." Today is Tarantino day, with news that German prosecutors have recordings of phone calls between former Audi and Porsche development boss Wolfgang Hatz, ex-Volkswagen Group executive Matthias Muller, and current Porsche executives Oliver Blume and Michael Steiner. Hatz made the calls to the trio in November 2015, two months after Volkswagen admitted its diesel-particulate sins to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Hatz was still employed at the time, and in his company car. Who recorded the calls? His wife. Hatz and his missus apparently saw the storm coming and started stacking defenses early. Hatz's wife, who can be heard encouraging Hatz during at least one call, sent the recordings to Hatz's attorney from her mobile phone. According to a Google translation of the German newspaper Handelsblatt's report, she included the note, "Here is a very long, but quite informative conversation on the current situation with useful formulations." The report in Handelsblatt said that in Germany it is generally "not allowed" to record a conversation and pass it on to a third party. We don't know how the authorities will handle this matter, since prosecutors found the recordings in e-mail attachments on Mrs. Hatz's mobile phone. Remember, when the diesel scandal broke, VW spent months saying that only a small number of low-level personnel were behind it, and all of the higher-ups had been blindsided. Ex-CEO Martin Winterkorn claimed to be "stunned that misconduct on such a scale was possible in the Volkswagen Group." Winterkorn successor Matthias Muller said, "according to current information, a few developers interfered in the engine management." Former VW USA honcho Michael Horn told a congressional committee that "a couple of software engineers" programmed the software for reasons no one could understand. In the recorded conversations, Hatz apparently called Muller to find out how VW planned to treat him.