Dear Santa: It’s been a while since we talked, fat man. And let’s just say that I’ve got more than a bone to pick with you. Every year I’ve asked for one thing, a car that has tugged on my heartstrings like Tiny Tim does, and every year I get the joy of shoveling a couple hundred pounds of fresh fertilizer off of my roof. (What the hell are you feeding those reindeer, anyways? Dark matter?) I know that in the past, some of my requests were…well…expensive. I get that. A $50,000 musclecar fresh out of the paintbooth, ready to terrorize the world might be difficult to procure, even if I leave out some brandy with the cookies. So this year, in the hopes that you will do the right thing, I’ve willingly set my sights on something a little more realistic, something that will have a heartwarming end to the story. Trust me, Kringle, it’s foolproof.
In 2012 BangShift got tipped off about the existence of this 1974 Pontiac Grand Am. The Limefire Green sedan came out with a strange options list for a car sold in Sierra Vista, Arizona: a 400ci Pontiac mill, an honest-to-goodness four-speed manual trans, tachometer, dual exhaust, Honeycomb wheels, heavy-duty cooling, heavy-duty air cleaner, non-tinted windows, no air conditioning, a tilt wheel and undercoating. The buyer, one Lieutenant Colonel William B. Daum, set the money down on the Pontiac and drove off in one of the most strangely-optioned Pontiac A-bodies to exist. The figures suggest that four-speed colonnade Pontiacs might number less than a thousand, and who knows how many exist?
The car had made the move from Arizona to Chicago, Illinois since we last saw it, and the current seller has been tracking down the car’s history and some parts, including a replacement for the busted-up Endura nose. It’s not perfect in any regards, but the seller is very open about what is and isn’t right with the car. The LeMans deserves a restoration, if only to prove that at one point in time, the buyer could go into a dealership and dictate what kind of car they’d buy, instead of tolerating what the dealerships cared to order. Wake up the 400, clean up the visuals, and you’d have one of the strangest and coolest Pontiacs out there.
What do you say, Saint Nick? Think you can make good on this one?
Craigslist Link: 1974 Pontiac Grand Am
It’s cool, but it ain’t $6900 cool. Last time it sold, it went for around 4-5000 not that long ago – check the Performance Years forums for discussion of the car, including a bunch of posts by the previous owner.
It’s a neat car but just so you know, it definitely is not a catalog restoration car like a Camvellestang.
Too bad this car is too far away and out of my budget. I have known these 4 door/4 spd version since 1974 when my brother was shopping for a VW bug. The dealership has a burgundy one sitting on the lot. I do hope to own one of these unicorns in the future.
Unicorn for sure! It has a tach also, this thing is cool.
They say it has been talked about here before, and it’s up for sale again.
http://bangshift.com/general-news/car-features/buick-olds-pontiac-car-features/unicorn-sighting-the-4004-speed-1974-pontiac-grand-am-is-back-up-for-sale-moonshine-runners-your-car-has-arrived/#comment-144799
I’m such a dipshit sometimes. Posting a link on PY