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pulltostart

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This is one gorgeous Bonneville (Vista)!  Thank Gawd I just had my time with Louise (the '85 Buick) or I'd be trying to figure out how to buy this car.  I usually run either really hot or really cold on the '63 Bonneville; I've always thought the '64 was a major improvement styling-wise to the '63 with just the right amount of tweeking.  But then I see a '63 like this and I have to say "there's nothing wrong with that car".  This one is fully-loaded, a true survivor with 60-something thousand miles...

 

Lawrence


pulltostart++4-29-2012-17-17-37.jpg
 
Lawrence,
I agree 63 was not GM's prettiest year. It was the only year dear old Dad skipped for his new Olds fetish. But that is a beautiful Bonnie and amazingly well optioned! Power locks were not all that popular.
I really should sell the Citroen and return to my roots!
 
Those wheels are quite rare, in particular on a 4-door sedan - usually they came on a Grand Prix. GM was late to use disc brakes and so most of their cars of this era had brakes that faded terribly under repeated use, such as fast driving downhill. This design  exposed the brake drum which was supposed to keep them cooler. I don't know if it worked but it certainly looked good.  When I was small a friend of my Dad's had a '62 Bonneville convertible he ordered with pretty much every option, three carburettor 389, power everything and such. He sold it to a friend after a few years and got a later Grand Prix with these wheels but missed the '62 so much he bought it back and then sold the Grand Prix. He kept the wheels and put them on the '62; I'll always remember how pretty they were. 

 

To my eyes the '63 Pontiac is handsome and clean, especially in comparison to other big cars of the early '60s. The white exterior and black vinyl interior is so very period and looks great on the car. I believe Tony Lapine was on the design team, certainly he was with GM in Detroit at the time. He then went to Opel and from there to become the chief designer at Porsche in '69 until his retirement in '89.
 
none of the volume 'mercan cars had disc brakes

in '63, even T-birds, Lincoln, Riviera had drums, albeit finned on the Bu-ack. Itwasn't until the late-ish 60s that they began to become an option or standard, Mopar for example it was the early '70s before they were standard. My 70 Fury 'vert still has drums all around, and though my 71 Fury had optional discs, drums were still standard.

Nice '63 Bonnie there! and a 4 door HARDTOP to boot, a body style never found with most foreign automakers. A neighbor had a '63 in Navy blue back in '63.. a beautiful car!
 
Exactly, and none of them stopped well. In repeated use they faded, in the wet they were prone to pull to one side. The big problem with fade was wheel diameter because this limits the maximum diameter of the brake drum. None of those cars had more than 15" wheels - the same diameter as a VW Beetle - yet they were big, heavy and powerful cars with most of the weight on the nose. Pontiac at least addressed the problem with the wheels shown above, although they were an expensive option. Studebaker had discs in about '62, Lincoln got them in '65 as did some Mustangs and I think the Thundrbird, but even into the late '60s many Cadillacs, Oldsmobiles and Buicks had four wheel drums. It's especially odd when you consider that the Corvette had very good four wheel discs in '65, why didn't GM think non-sportscar drivers deserved safe brakes?

 

I remember in the '80s when my grandmother pretty much quit driving we made it a point to use her '64 Ford wagon to take her places so the car got some exercise. In most respects it was a damned good car - reliable, powerful (with the Thunderbird 390) and even the A/C always worked - but we never took it out in the wet as it was just plain scary.

 

The black and white color combo on the Bonneville reminds me of another car from my childhood - my sister's best friend's mother bought a new Buick LeSabre in '69 or '70 in the same colors. Hers had a black vinyl top, and while that year Buick isn't quite as pretty as the '63 Bonneville it was still very handsome. Her husband had a '62 Pontiac of some variety and took very good care of the cars - by the mid '70s both were IMO quite a bit prettier than most newer American cars as GM, Ford and Chrysler went on a binge with opera windows and hood ornaments.
 
I like both of the designs on the '63 and '64, if you remember correctly, they repeated the design themes on the fronts in '65 and '66, the chrome sided stacked headlights on the '65, the unexposed stacked lights on the '66s. And yes, they were differently shaped, but I thought the '63s and 5s especially dramatic. And on an unrelated rant, I'm sick of seeing gorgeous '60s and '70s cars with bro wheels, the 20 to 30 inch chrome monsters with skinny black tires. Leave these cars alone!
 
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The eight lug wheels are the real deal. Catalina was Pontiac's cheapest full sized car, comparable to the Biscayne/Bel Air series cars.
 
What you're seeing on this car is more than wheel covers.  They were a special 8-lug wheel and had to be ordered together, and greatly upgraded the appearance of the car.  They were available on the entire line I think (Bonneville, GP, Star Chief, and Catalina).  The Catalina shared the same 120-inch wheelbase as the Chevrolet, the Bonneville shared a 123-inch wheelbase with the Olds 88 and (I think) the Buick LeSabre and Wildcat.  The Bonneville line consisted of 2-door hardtop, 4-door hardtop, convertible, and wagon (only closed sedan in the line).  As close as they came to a 4-door sedan in the Bonneville was the Star Chief, which had some Bonneville trim, but not all.

 

L
 
1964

This is the model that I think totally "tops the charts" - 1964 Bonneville Brougham.  Not the best photo/image, but clear enough if you squint.  Pontiac used nice artwork for their ads during this time period and unfortunately, not a lot of photographs exist, at least as advertisements.  I like how in '64 they cleaned up the front end - squared off the headlamp frame and removed the applied trim on the fender and LOVE how they plastered "B O N N E V I L L E" across the quarter panel and stretched out the letters for ever.  This is one of my all-time favorite GM products.

 

Lawrence

 
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Pontiacs

Around 1968, my dad bought a '63 or '64 Pontiac (I'm thinking more likely '64), that wasn't a Catalina, but don't think a Bonneville either. After research, I believe it was a Star Chief. It was a beautiful blue-green metallic that Pontiac called Aquamarine, with a coordinating interior. This car was like new when he got it, and he kept it for several years.

We had several Pontiacs through the years. The first I remember only vaguely; an early 50's that was light blue. When I was about 4, we got a '59 Catalina in black with a white roof. Replacing it was a '67 Tempest in Montego Cream (light yellow-beige). That later became my first car. They then got a '73 Buick. The last one was an '80 Grand LeMans in black. It was basically a Chevelle with different front and back. After that, my parents bought Chevrolet Caprices.
 
Lawrence,
thanks for clearing up the wheel issue. I knew there was a special wheel out for these cars and they really were beautiful. Now I wonder if Olds used a special wheel on that vintage Starfire and 98's. I remember dear old Dad bitchin' about getting one of the covers off for a flat. They didn't just pry off. There was some sort of clip that had to be unlatched from the cover and wheel before it would come off. Amazing I can remember this and have no clue what I had for breakfast yesterday.
 
Canadian Pontiacs, etc . . .

I think '64 was the year the Grand Prix had that beautiful concave rear window, although maybe '63 had it as well. Very elegant and made the car look like much more than a Pontiac, although a loaded Grand Prix cost a lot more than the average Pontiac as well.

 

Canadian Pontiacs are interesting as sometimes they didn't have an exact US equivalent, such as having high-line trim on a slightly shorter wheelbase. Engines were generally from Chevy not US Pontiac, and Chevy made better engines. I'm guessing that GM made most Chevy engines in Canada but not Pontiac engines.

 

One funny by-product of this was the Pontiac division "stealing" the original Camaro Z-28 engine from Chevy to go racing in the late '60s Trans-Am races. At the time there was a 5 liter limit (302 cubic inches) which worked great for Ford as they had a 302, this is exactly why the Boss 302 Mustang was created. Chevy's 327 and 350 were too large, and since GM didn't officially race Chevy had to use their limited racing budget to come up with a very hot under 5 liter engine. By putting an obsolete 283 crankshaft in the 327 block they made their own 302, felt by many to be one of the greatest Chevy V8s of all time. It was only available in the first Z28s, back when that was purely an option number and not a marketing name - hardly anyone knew what it was. Those first Z-28s are now quite rare and valuable.

 

Pontiac wanted to go Trans-Am racing too, but their 326 engine was also too large and a boat anchor by comparison to the Chevy, it wasn't as strong and weighed more. However, the Firebird was offered in Canada with Chevy V8s so the Pontiac guys simply submitted Canadian Firebird homologation documents to the Sports Car Club of American showing the 302  . . . supposedly Chevy in Detroit was just livid but they could do nothing about it. 
 
Reply #9 has the wheels, drums, hubs-aluminum, listed for $122 and some change. Option 694, the window sticker I included may be somewhat difficult to read.

 

BY THE WAY: What's new with the qsd_dan 1959 Pontiac Catalina station wagon?

[this post was last edited: 5/2/2012-06:48]
 
In Canada they were called the Pontiac Parisienne

And didn't the Parisienne come with Chevrolet engines? I remember seeing a Pontiac Parisienne in Toronto with a 327 engine in it. Original equipment, there was a 327 marker on the side of the car.
 
I think the Canadian Pontiacs were basically Chevrolet running gear now that you mention it, whirlcool. They also made a Canadian LeMans that was still into production into the early 90's that was identical, other than the grill and name to the Chevy US version. Being so close to Atlantic Canada, we get alot of our neighbors that cross the border to shop here and it is quite common to see Canadian registered cars in parking lots.
 

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