2006 Pontiac Gto Black 6-speed Manual Borla Exhaust Volant Intake Good Condition on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Detroit City Council vetoes Autorama stunt, objects to Confederate flag

Detroit's Autorama hot rod show will stage its 67th annual event next month, and wants to kick off with Burt Reynolds tribute. The plan is to re-create the Mulberry Bridge jump from " Smokey and the Bandit" using a movie-correct 1977 Pontiac Trans Am. But the Detroit City Council voted 7-1 to prohibit the jump. Why? Because the Trans Am's front license plate holder displays the former Georgia state flag, a portion of which is the Confederate national flag, and the city council doesn't like that. In the movie, Bo "Bandit" Darville was a Georgia driving legend, and the flag on the car was Georgia's flag at the time. Councilman Scott Benson laid out the council's position when he said that the car "still proudly flies a Confederate flag, which is a symbol of oppression, slavery, as well as home-bred American terrorism. So this body said we are not going to support that type of symbolism nor the audacity to support that type of activity in the city of Detroit." It seems part of the council's ire comes from the same event two years ago. A stunt group called the Northeast Ohio Dukes re-created a "Dukes of Hazzard" jump in 2017 using a series-correct 1969 Dodge Charger, complete with a Confederate flag on the roof. Benson said the stunt group "expressly said they would not display that [Confederate flag] symbol during the jump." Not only was it displayed, but when driver Raymond Kohn gave interviews after the jump, his driving suit featured the Stainless Banner on the collar. Seems the council has been grinding its axe in silence for two years. Now Benson accuses Autorama of "a history of supporting images and symbols of racism, oppression, and white supremacy." Autorama is certain to take place March 1-3 at Cobo Center. This year's show will have around 800 cars on display, along with a special exhibit of 17 low riders and a Batmobile built by Flint native Carl Casper. Even if the Bandit car doesn't make the jump, the Trans Am and other memorabilia from the film will be there. A spokeswoman for Autorama said, "We are continuing to work to try to resolve this with the city." Related Video: News Source: Detroit News Auto News Government/Legal TV/Movies Pontiac Convertible Classics Detroit pontiac trans am smokey and the bandit

Junkyard Gem: 1991 Pontiac Grand Am LE with Quad 4 Engine

GM introduced the N-Body compact platform with the Oldsmobile Calais and Pontiac Grand Am for the 1985 model year and continued building N-based cars through 1998. Most of these cars weren't interesting from an enthusiast standpoint, but a handful rolled off the assembly line with raucous DOHC Oldsmobile Quad 4 engines and manual transmissions, and those cars were plenty of fun. Here's a 1991 Grand Am with that rare setup, photographed in a self-service yard in California's Central Valley. The base engine in the 1991 Grand Am was the 110-horsepower, 2.5-liter pushrod Iron Duke, an engine that might have been fine on a Romanian tractor in 1953 but had no place on an American street car as the 21st century approached. Fortunately, GM started bolting the modern 2.3-liter DOHC Quad 4 engine into 1988 cars, and this was a proper four-cylinder. The Quad 4 ran a little rough and uncivilized, and it had its share of reliability problems, but you could rev the piss out of it and it made good power. In 1991, this engine was rated at 180 hp. That made this 2,592-pound sedan pretty quick. Unfortunately, the slushboxization of America had progressed with depressing rapidity during the 1980s, and by 1991 most Grand Am buyers — even the ones who opted for the Quad 4 — chose the automatic transmission. That didn't happen with this car, though — it boasts a rugged Getrag 5-speed instead of the happiness-amputating three-speed automatic. Yes, that's the kind of odometer reading you'd expect to see on an Accord or Maxima from this era. Someone loved this car and took care of it. Here we see an interesting mix of 1980s and 1990s car-radio technology. CD players in cars were still costly luxury items in 1991, seldom seen in affordable cars like the Grand Am, while 1980s-style slider-style EQ controls were on the way out. This Delco unit straddles both decades nicely. I seek out Quad 4-equipped cars during my junkyard travels, and I have photographed quite a few: this '89 Cutlass Calais, this '90 Cutlass Calais, this '90 Grand Am, this '91 Quad 442, this '93 Achieva SCX, and this '98 Cavalier Z24. It's a shame that Buick never put the Quad 4 in the Reatta, which was a fine car ruined by a somnolent and obsolete V6. The music in this ad is even more early-1990s than Crystal Pepsi. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

GM knew about fatal Chevy ignition problem decade before recall

Well, this is not good for General Motors. Following a report last week that GM was recalling 778,000 Chevrolet Cobalt and Pontiac G5 compacts over concerns that the ignition could switch out of the "run" position without warning, USA Today reports that the Detroit-based behemoth knew about the issue, which affected 2005 to 2007 Cobalts (the Cobalt shown above and in the gallery is from 2010) and 2007 Pontiac G5s, all the way back in 2004.
The information comes from a deposition in a civil lawsuit against GM, obtained by USA Today, which claims that a GM engineer experienced the issue while the then-new model was undergoing testing. The issue was "solved" when a technical service bulletin was issued in 2005, informing dealers to install a snap-on key cover on the cars of customers who complained about the issue. According to the Cobalt's program engineering manager, Gary Altman, the cover was an "improvement, it was not a fix to the issue."
The case where the depositions were made was from 2010, and involved Brooke Melton, a 29-year-old pediatric nurse in Georgia who was killed on her birthday. At the time, police claimed she was going too fast on a wet, rural road, although it later came out through the black box that her car's ignition had come out of the "run" position at least three seconds before the accident (the max amount of time a black box records before a wreck), disabling her airbags, power steering and anti-lock brakes. According to USA Today, police said Melton was "traveling too fast for the roadway conditions," although it's impossible to know if she'd have been in the wreck, which injured the occupants of another vehicle, had her 2005 Chevy not shut off. GM settled the Melton family's case, although the details remain confidential.