1998 Pontiac Trans Sport on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Junkyard Gem: 2001 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP

John DeLorean began his career working on Packard's Ultramatic Twin transmission, but he made his greatest mark on the automotive industry during his 1956-1969 tenure at GM's Pontiac Division. There, he helped develop the first production car engine with a quiet timing belt instead of a noisy chain, among other engineering feats, but his real fame came from the development of two money-printing models based more on marketing than machinery: the GTO and the Grand Prix. While the GTO gets all the attention now, the Grand Prix set the standard for the big-selling personal luxury coupes that sold like mad for decades to come. Today's Junkyard Gem is an example of the most powerful Grand Prix available at the turn of the century, found in a Denver-area self-service yard during the summer. The Grand Prix got front-wheel-drive for 1988 and a sedan version for 1990, but then something very beneficial happened in the 1997 model year: supercharging! Various flavors of the venerable 3.8-liter Buick V6 engine (itself based on the early-1960s Buick 215 V8 and thus cousin to the Rover V8) received Eaton blowers, starting in the 1992 model year. The Grand Prix didn't get its introduction to forced induction until the 1997 model year, but it kept the boosted option until the final Grand Prix rolled off the line in 2008 (the final Pontiac followed within a couple of years). This one made 240 horsepower, making it King of Grand Prix engines until the 2005 model year (when the GXP and its 303-horse V8 engine showed up). The very last year for a Grand Prix with a manual transmission was 1993 (there had been a three-pedal Grand Prix drought from 1973 through 1988, just to put things in perspective), so this car has the mandatory four-speed automatic. The Grand Prix lived on GM's W platform for its last two decades, making it sibling to the Impala, Regal, and Intrigue in 2001. Until the 2004 model year, every W-Body Grand Prix was built at Fairfax Assembly in Kansas City (no, the other Kansas City). Production of the final generation of Grand Prix took place in Ontario. It seems fitting that this car's final pre-crusher parking spot would be between two other GM products of the same era: a Monte Carlo and a Vibe. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

General Lee takes on Bandit T/A in classic Hollywood car showdown [w/poll]

You don't have to be born in the 1960s or 1970s to be able to recognize the General Lee from The Dukes of Hazzard and the Pontiac Trans Am from Smokey and the Bandit. These old school four-wheeled stars seem to transcend demographics thanks to the miles of film that show the orange 1969 Dodge Charger and the jet-black 1977 Pontiac Trans Am performing seemingly impossible stunts.
The folks at Hot Rod magazine are obviously hip to this fact, and they put together a fun video in tribute of the instantly recognizable duo. Hit the jump to watch on as Sam Young and James Smith replace Bo Duke and The Bandit for a bit of dirt-road shenanigans in a pair of otherwise well cared for classics. We're not so sure we'd call it the best chase scene ever, but it sure looks like a lot of fun.
More importantly, which of these two cars would you rather own? Have your say in our poll below.

Looking Back At Oprah's Free-Car Giveaway 10 Years Later

Molly Vielweber's Pontiac G6 appears unremarkable at first glance. It wears forest green paint, rolls on five-spoke aluminum wheels, and it has a sizeable scrape in the driver's side door, the scar of a decade's worth of hard use. You wouldn't notice it parked at a big box store or cruising on the highway. Pontiac made hundreds of thousands of G6s in the 2000s, and a lot are still on the road. It's unremarkable in every way except for the front license plate, which reads, "Oprah 6." But this is not just any G6. This car is a part of television history. Vielweber won her G6 10 years ago at a taping of The Oprah Winfrey Show, when Oprah kicked off her 19th season in dramatic fashion by giving all 276 members of the studio audience a free car. It was an unprecedented stunt that changed lives, generated controversy and ultimately failed to provide enough of a marketing lift for Pontiac, which would be shuttered just over five years later. September 13 marks the 10-year anniversary of the memorable event, which caught everyone, including audience members, by surprise. In a masterful display of showmanship, Oprah dialed up the suspense to match the enormity – and cost – of the event. First she gave away 11 cars, which would have been a landmark TV promotion by itself. But then she coyly announced: "I've got a little twist." Models circulated throughout the audience carrying silver platters loaded with white boxes wrapped in red ribbon. One contained a set of keys, Oprah implied, for another audience member to win the final car. "Do not open it. Do not shake it," she commanded the crowd. Finally, with the suspense built to a fevered pitch, everyone opened their box. They all had keys. "You get a car! You get a car! You get a car! You get a car! Everybody gets a car!" Oprah exclaimed. "Everybody gets a car! Everybody gets a car!" This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Everybody did get a car. But not everyone kept it. William Toebe attended the show with his wife, Jillaine, and he immediately thought of the tax implications, which stretched to $6,000 or more for some audience members. It was a tough reality for many in the audience that day, some of which had been selected based on their need for a new car. "That responsible part of me stepped forward and wondered 'where am I going to get the money to pay the taxes?'" he recalled.