I read about them GM folks tankin the Pontiac and I got some pissed, just before I got the news that Chrysler was goin to tank the whole shebang. Now I’s truly pissed.
Pontiac used to be a fine brand of car, back in the day when it was almost upscale from the a Chevy. That’s how you told things about a person. If they drove a Chevy, they were OK. If they drove a Pontiac, they was doing well enough. Drive an Oldsmobile and you might have been almost wealthy, while the Buick driver was someone who had’er made. Caddy? Pimps, doctors and funeral directors drove’em.
It was sort of the same with the Ford and Mercury cars and the Plymouth, Dodge and Chrysler. But that was a long time ago and things were simpler back when I was a lad, back before metricalization when breaking the ton meant goin more than 100 miles an hour.
Nowadays you break the ton on the highway just gettin to Timmies, but she’s measured in kilometers, so’s it don’t count. Oh and Ethyl Lead was on the pumps.
I has had a bunch of cars over time. First one I remember was a 54 Pontiac with a sun visor over top. Body By Fisher and black as a well-diggers arse at midnight she was. Bought it used and it’d overheat in the winter. I sold it when the head warped like Bobby Hull’s stick.
There was another Pontiac if I recall rightly, a 1978 Phoenix before they went all front-wheel drive toy cars. Motor was out of a Buick originally but they slapped a Pontiac badge on it. Had a high-windin six holer and would go like hell if you pushed her. Wrote that one off twice, one in a crash and the other time when it rusted out and I couldn’t find enough metal for the pop rivets to keep the cops off my back. It had a plywood passenger floor for a while.
I think Gary used it up to the farm to haul wood for a few years, then it just up and died when he forgot to put oil in it three years in a row.
Which I think is my way of sayin, I’m sad about Pontiac going away. Now the Pontiac is either a Holden out of Australia or some Korean piece of crap that they badge up as anything they want. Pontiac, Chevy, Kelvinator, Viking. GM’d label a bag of bread as a Pontiac if there was a buck in it.
Which I think is whats wrong with GM and Chrysler. For so long they’d sell crap and we’d buy it, so they stopped tryin.
Sometimes a good one would slip out. Back in the 80’s Chevy Canada had built a bunch of cars for Iran, with three on the tree, air, and all the heavy duty suspension out of the cop car division.
Then some hostage thing happened and they couldn’t ship them to Iran. Some of the dealers got’em really cheap.
Problem was they were all in colors like Fawn Green and Chemo Piss Yellow. As long as you could hold with your friends laughing at you, they were tough, plain bench seats and like friggin anvils. You had to really work at breakin them. Which told me they could make a good car if they wanted to, but didn’t.
Since the disability I don’t have a car no more, as the MTO isn’t keen on my drivin, but I do get into the cars of friends and taxis and the occasional bus, so’s I still keep up. Most I’ve been in are too small by half and have a motor what sounds like you run a frozen squirrel through a planer, if they make any noise at all.
Davey’s got some appliance from Nissan these days, but she goes well enough for a city car, which is where he does most of his drivin.
I’d give a buck for a 72 Ford LTD Wagon about now, with that nasty old blue oval 400 what came with the trailer option. But no fake wood kit, thanks. Room for at least a dozen cases, all the camping gear and six buddies going away for the May 2-4 weekend. There was room on the roof rack and the back-back fold down seat well could hold enough Palm Breeze to make Saturday go away for good.
If you stepped on it, you could hear the secondarys open up and suck the leaves off the trees. Take out the air filter and you’d scare the pukes on Carling Ave with a station wagon that’s smoke both rears, as the trailer package had a Locker in’er.
I guess that things have changed a lot. Gas is pricey and the parking spaces aren’t rightly built for a station wagon no more.
Which kinda makes me sad with Pontiac going away and Chrysler goin down the tubes.
They could’ve done right, but didn’t choose to.