I generally attribute this predilection to something related to the appeal of the exotic, the innate human desire to always want what you can’t have, which is why I think I’ve always been more drawn to strange little cars from other countries instead of the big American iron I grew up surrounded by. The American cars that made up the background layer of the automotive quilt I was wrapped up in throughout my formative years may have had plenty of appeal, but for a long time I was blind to them.
But I’m older now, not smarter by any stretch, but something between more experienced and just simply worn down. Whatever it is, I now find myself able to appreciate some big American land yachts in ways that I just never felt before.
Maybe it’s because I finally have a fleet of tiny weird cars at my disposal, including a Nissan Pao, VW Beetle, and, most recently, a Citroën 2CV, so perhaps with those urges (temporarily) sated, I can feel free to appreciate things outside my usual circle of obsessions. Things like the first-generation (1973 to 1975) Pontiac Grand Am.
How many times have I seen these cars in my life? Plenty. Plenty plenty. And ridden in them and parked next to them and jump started/been jump started by them, all so many times. As a child of the 70s and 80s myself, the prime Malaise-era barges were pretty much everywhere.
And I feel like I never really looked at them, because if I had, I think I would have appreciated them a lot more. Look at these things! They’re downright exuberant! Those exaggerated, curving fenders, front and rear, the flowing lines, that bold beak-like nose, flanked by all those grille slats, the delicate use of thin chrome trim, the crosshair turn indicators, the airy greenhouse with those thin pillars, the whole damn thing! It feels very Syd Meade, a design from a future where drama beat out rationality, and we were all having a pretty good time as a result.
Also, note the cornering lamps below the side markers. I always like those.
I do kind of wonder why Pontaic seemed to only be able to shoot these cars at night at the same spot in a tunnel, but maybe they were doing the photography off the books and had to keep it quiet.
Still, look how flowy and elegant these damn things were! And that’s just the sedan; the coupé was, arguably, even more so, of everything:
The whole point of the Grand Am can be sussed out from its name: Pontiac took the “Grand” from the luxurious Grand Prix and the “Am” from the sportier Trans Am, creating what they hoped would be a sort of unholy, or, hell, maybe even holy hybrid of luxury and sportiness.
I’m not sure just how sporty these things really were – sure, they had massive 6.6-liter and gargantuan 7.5-liter V8s, but thanks to Malaise Era emissions magic, those engines made a meager 170 and 200 hp (250 hp with a really big carb) and they handled like a bar of soap escaping the tub.
But, who cares, just look at these exuberant things! On the coupé, they even came up with a name for opera windows I haven’t heard before:
Ooh, a “formal” rear quarter window! Classy!
Pontiac really wanted people to see these as an American take on GT cars, of a sort:
That commercial also show off one of my favorite features of GMs of this era: the “Endura” deformable plastic bumpers and front ends that you could squish with impunity:
Look at that! You can just scrunch that thing up, back away, and it pops back into shape! I’m not sure how many times you could really do this, but still, pretty cool. Also, I have to donate some props to the copywriter here, because the “pressing your nose against a window pane” analogy is spot-on and gives every nose-bearing mammal an instant and visceral understanding of what’s going on here.
The dashboards in these cars had a novel feel, too, with a bent shape and lots of round gauges. Those gauges could include an “economy gauge,” which, with those 6.6 and 7.5-liter V8s, was really more of a gauge designed to most effectively quantify your dissapointment.
Still, who was buying these things for economy? Look at that thing. It’s so swoopy and substantial and, well, seventies, in the best way possible. I just wish I appreciated them more when they were all around me.
These A-bodies of that era drive pretty nice. I’ve rode in many from El Camino’s, Malibu’s, Monte Carlo’s, Cutlass’s, etc. I do think the Grand Am is one of the better looking ones. In terms of power, one could easily swap an earlier engine, upgrade the original engine or do an LS swap.
Yeah, if you really want bad handling in this era you have to go FoMoCo. They emphasized a smooth, quiet ride at the expense of almost anything else.
Can confirm – had a ’78 LTDII in high school. Hoist the spinnaker and batten down the hatches! Heave to starboard!
Ford seemed to really get whacked with the Malaise stick worse than just about anyone else. Chrysler’s build quality fell off a much steeper cliff, but I don’t think they ever got as offensive visually and their balance of comfort/handling stayed more reasonable. Ford just seemed to completely check out on all fronts by about 1975
I always liked the Montes of this era but if I were to get a 70s American I’d probably end up with an El Camino just because it’s fun to say.
It’s also a better truck than the Tesla Incel Camino.
Always liked these, especially this year with the waterfall rear lights.
I see these, and all I think of is chipped and discoloured paint at the front of the car…
I’m so torn between the ’73 taillamp treatment and the later redesign (unsure of what year)…they both look interesting.
The rear 3/4 view is actually quite elegant, especially considering the styling at the time.Unfortunately, you’re just better off not looking at the front.
If you want a pretty face on a Colonnade you have to go Buick. At least in the early years; they reskinned the coupes in ’76 and it looked generic late ’70s box but not as actively ugly as the sedan and wagon’s update of the earlier front with stacked square headlights in a space intended for round singles.
Unless it has Bordello red soft Corinthian leather I’m not interested.
For a true bordello interior you need velour…
You could get bordello red velour on these! No leather, though, at least if you insist on the real stuff – red was also available in all-vinyl.
Mmmmm… Velour, the Alcantra of the 1970’s (even though Alcantra was invented in the 1970’s)
Dash, door cards, headliner,…
Oh and PLUSH carpet too.
It’s in the uncanny valley between sport and luxury.
Spolux?
Spoxury.
Sporxury. I think the “spork” reference works.
The Grand Am hit the streets around the same time I got my license. Pontiac pushed these as driver’s cars. Used to see quite few coming through the garage where I worked usually driven by leather-coated wanna be mobsters who’d gotten too fat to get in and out of a Trans Am without a crane.
If the Endura nose and a Rubbermaid trash can collided, what would happen? Would they cancel each other out and create a tear in the fabric of space time?
I like the ad copy “The qualities you’ve admired in the desirable imports.”*
*Fuel economy, reliability, and build quality excluded.
I’m a fan. Mainly because I had two of these in the 1980s. They were both white, like the one in the embedded YouTube video. The first was a ratty 400 with an automatic, then a proverbial little old lady saw it at my parents house and had an identical one in her garage. Her passed away husband’s old car. It was another white car, with a four speed and rally IIs, which she sold to me for $700. I loved that car. Sold the auto, then gave the manual car to my older brother when I left for college.
The rear 3/4 view does it for me. The odd plastic nose was unusual, and not in a good way. My the time I had mine in 1982 all the paint on the nose was cracked. At the time there were no replacement decals available for the red and blue stripes on the hood, so I repainted the stripes with a pinstripe brush. That was more frustrating than replacing the broken wheel studs in the back.
When I was a kid there was one up the block from me one day, also like the commercial, white with red and blue stripes running out to the point on the nose. I thought it was pretty stunning.
Side note, white cars at that time were fairly uncommon.
Interesting. I never thought about that, since pony cars had white available with racing stripes or a flaming chicken, and 60’s Mustangs were often Oxford white.
When I looked down the street in the 70s I’d see light blue, dark blue, medium blue, red, copper, light and dark brown, maybe a yellow, probably an orange, a few light and dark greens…and maybe one white and/or one black.
I miss the days of chromatic cars.
The 1973 Pontiac full-line sales brochure showed 19 paint choices (1 each white, silver, black, plus 16 other colors).
I was a wee lad but very much alive when (a few of) these were on the roads.
I thought they were weird and ugly then and my opinion hasn’t changed.
Those economy gauges in malaise era cars remind me of how, right before the current screen era, pretty much any new vehicle that wasn’t a bare bones stripper came standard with a tachometer. Every anonymous crossover, every massive pickup, every appliance-mobile was fitted with something that used to signal sport or performance, often touted as such in ad copy.
I know people who have no idea what that gauge is telling them other than that their vehicle is running.
Not only that but other gauges such water temperature, oil temperature, etc. They have now been replaced by warning lights or even nothing at all…
A lot of those ancillary gauges are functionally idiot lights dressed up to look like gauges.
Are you telling me my hybrid’s engine water temp gauge is faking the information?
I am going to return it to the dealer.
That’s right, but it shut up the magazine testers who were always looking for as many gauges as possible regardless of utility
Even worse is a stripper model with a manual and no tachometer. I had a Ranger with a 2.3 and 5-speed with no tach. It was sub optimal for sure.
I refuse to buy a manual car with no revcounter.
One of the cars on which I learned to drive stick was an ’87 Pontiac Le Mans (yeah, that one) hatch without a tach. It was so disappointing, had a Pontiac arrowhead where it should have been. At least the car was red I guess.
I think the desire to be around malaise vehicles is mostly rooted in just how utterly bland and generic everything on the road is now. Would 70s American vehicles be my first choice? Absolutely not. Would they be more fun to see than and endless sea of gray crossovers? Absolutely yes.
To me, this is exactly it. I feel like every form factor and price point that was produced, esp. if by multiple competitors, gave some difference in styling. These days it feels to me that once you’ve picked a price point and style, the options have converged. People try to convince me that the modern safety standards have basically forced the form factor of modern cars. Maybe partially true. I think it hit me even last night as I saw my first ad for the new Outback. It’s lost all of its wagon-ness.
Agreed…would you also agree that on new cars that most interiors (well, the dashboard view) pretty much look somewhat similar? It just seems like every review I read on here (at least on all the mainstream vehicles) that they are like that. They have less personality between each car and it’s sad. Not that I care about any new car anyway ha ha…was just curious what your opinion on this was. Thanks!
To me, they’re a little more varied on the interiors, but ofc we still don’t see weird/cool upholstery colors much anymore. And screens, while theoretically allowing for VERY varied user experiences end up making them all look even more similar when you step in. And since any modern car I want to be in has car play and android auto, the infotainment screen of any car looks like one of two options.
It’s why when i bought the first (and so far only) fun car in my life, it had a pretty maximally silly interior.
Thank you!
Two thoughts:
So then “Grand” means large, and “Am” means “Am.”
Can Am, Grand Am… isn’t the Am short for America?
Can Am was a sportier one, named for the Can Am (Canadian American) racing series.
So in the Can Am series, rubbing was allowed, but only if you apologized afterward?
Possibly. As I remember it, CanAm cars either had no width limit or just a large one, so rubbing was more likely.
Made me think of The Simpson’s monorail episode:
“Mono means one, and rail means rail!”
Congratulations, you got the joke. :thumbsup:
I yam what I yam an tha’s all I yam.
This car is the 70s definition of a butter face.
The insanity of two massive V8 engines being brought right at the start of two major 1970’s fuel crises was definite bad timing / bad idea.
Hindsight being what it is, you can use it as an example of American auto industry hubris – especially considering price caps put in place in early 1970’s ahead of the first oil crisis that artificially kept American oil prices low compared to the rest of the world (familiar story, I’m sure).
We can witness that hindsight today, as automakers write down billions in losses to EV development of models that are cancelled because they can’t sell without tax credits.
We’re witnessing companies maximizing write-offs, and a healthy dose of sanity being splashed around on model mix.
EVs are still selling, even without EV credits, Tesla/Hyundai/Kia/Toyota/etc all still sell.
But we’re kidding ourselves that the HummerEV isn’t a volume seller nor does it have any financial viability outside of America is daft – so, ultimately, wasn’t a good investment for growth.
This is one of those cars where I can sort of see why someone would like it. However, that someone is not me.
My dad had the Buick Colonnade (Regal) and it wasn’t as good looking as the Pontiac, but few were. It was obviously his humble daily but also used it for pulling his boat on occasion (a 24′ Chris Craft) which is simultaneously remarkable and foolish, but spot on for how everyone rolled in the 70’s. As a current boat owner who carefully calculated the size and weight of the vessel before purchase to be sure that our Grand Cherokee could handle it and still have a good safety measure under the towing capacity, I’m amazed and terrfied in retrospect at what my dad did back then. Admittedly, he only used it to get the thing out of storage and tow it to South Jersey for the season (about three hours, not many hills), but still.
I can’t get past how pretty much every malaise era car feels about the same to drive. Economy car. Station wagon. “Sports car”… No power; Floating; Driving from your couch; Terrible gas mileage.
They were like RC cars with replaceable plastic tops; They looked different but were all basically the same crap.
You say floating” and “driving from your couch” as if they are bad things. That is precisely the appeal of an old land barge!
Some people really like the feel of potholes, expansion joints, and mounds of cold patch asphalt
My aunt had one of these. The rubber nose looked it – it was obviously different from the rest of the car, and I wonder how well those things held up over time.
As for “sporty” or “GT” – I remember us coming home from a family reunion where my aunt had bragged about her “hot” car. So my Dad blew by her on the freeway like she was standing still in our ’64 Lincoln Continental.
I also had an aunt who had one of these with the larger engine. Reportedly she would occasionally smoke cars driven by macho youngsters at stoplights. They’d be sitting at the red light, revving their engine, she’d give them her “little old lady” smile, then mash on the accelerator when the light turned green. Gave her plenty of amusement.
The car also ties into last week’s story about Delmar’s unfortunate puking incident. I was riding in back with a couple of small cousins, heard the unmistakable sound of toddler about to barf and scooted up the side as far as I could and managed to get out of range. My relatives thought this was pretty darn funny and teased the cousin about it for years.
Right with ya, Torch. Once the novelty of the Colonnade designs wore off and entropy started to unfold as it did with all Malaise-era iron, I lost my appreciation for them. But Pontiac did possibly the best job adapting to the tougher bumper rules, and the style certainly was exuberant its own way. I would be happy to see one of these at a car show.
Speaking of which, about a month ago I saw a ’72 Imperial LeBaron coupe at a show, 50something-K on the clock, black with an avocado interior, all original, unrestored but near spotless. It was INCREDIBLE.
Of the Colonnades, these might have been the best looking…
…but they were the rarest too.
Far more common were – in descending order – the Monte Carlo (Best selling American car 1973), Cutlass Supremes (Best selling American car 1975-1983), Chevelles, Grand Prix, Centurys & Regals….
Someone in my neighborhood has a Grand Am and a Buick Century of this generation. The Pontiac is pretty nice. The Century was a donk and is now back to “normal” but has been painted entirely in a metallic mint green; and when I say entirely, I mean basically everything that isn’t a window or a head/taillight has been painted. Bumpers, grill, mirrors… everything.
Colonnades were ubiquitous. Just between my family and mom’s there was a Century, Regal, Monte, Cutlass, and if you count my Aunt’s then-boyfriends add another Regal and a Grand Prix.
These “dark era” advertisements that Pontiac used in the 70’s certainly have a vibe to them.
Pontiac went back to dark backgrounds for a few years just before the end, at least in showroom brochures. The Vibe was probably your best bet unless you could swing a G8.