Been awhile since Ive been on this board, and Im about to get back into the A/G Bodies very soon... almost 90% sold ob a 79 LeMans. But anyway...
I come from a family with a big Pontiac heritage... Im 37, so I missed the best days of Pontiac, but I was old enough to remember Pontiac's last Hurrahs vividly and have been involved with Ponchos since I was old enough to hold a wrench.
My Grandfather was a Pontiac Man, two of my Uncles, my Mother, & myself... lots of Ponchos have passed through my family... one of my Uncles had worked at a Poncho Dealer for about 30 years, started as a broom & lube boy & became the head tech... (now GMC-Buick...) my Mom was the oldest of her siblings, so my Aunts and Uncles were 10-15 years older than me. As a little kid, fairly new Grand Prixs were known to me as the second "most cool" car to own after the Trans Am... GTOs were still everywhere, as were most of Pontiac's meanest cars. They screamed Macho, still had power, and Pontiacs were just cooler looking cars... that faded away quickly as the 80's rolled in and GM emasculated Pontiac.
Anyway, as I read through this thread, I see some thing missing that should be made known to Pontiac fans snd Grand Prix owners in General and a lot of credit needs to go to John Z. DeLorean and his team who made Pontiac and the Grand Prix a GREAT car. Im not going to try and include EVERY detail, but will give a decent amount of history behind this car. If it wasnt for John Z. DeLorean and the 1969 Grand Prix (1st G-Body) nothing on this site would exist... ALL G-Bodies and many Chrysler and Fords owe their heritage to them.
By the late 60's, the Grand Prix had become just another version of the Bonneville/
Catalina platform... big, heavy, & selling poorly... John Z made it his personal mission to create an all new platform, from which, Pontiac/GM could start capture a segment of the market that he saw a future for... the personal luxury performance car...
That car rolled out with A LOT of fanfare and hoopla in 1969... the '69 Grand Prix was John Z. DeLorean's 2nd most important contribution to American Automobilia after his '64 GTO. He took the A-Body LeMans-Tempest frame/chassis, stretched it out with a very long hood and a very short deck, crammed it full of detail, incorporated unique cutting edge technology, and designed it around the driver with a fighter cockpit feel... he added a nod to his idea being influenced by the Dusenburg and offered it with J & SJ Models ("S" for Sport). Thus was Born the GM G-Body. To keep it profitable, it didnt come standard with tons of options, but he ordered that it have nothing lower than 400 cubes and specified that manual shift versions be made readily available... he ordered extra quality control measures to make sure it was built "right" plus Olds and Chevy would get their own versions in 1970, if it proved successful. '69 Grand Prix sales quadrupled the amount sold in 1968... it was lighter, faster, better made, arguably better looking, & less expensive than other luxury performance cars at the time which were all based on heavy full-size chassis'.. and DeLorean spared nothing on the options list...a deal was also struck with Hurst... the Hurst Grand Prix SSJ.
Anyone who hasnt been inside a '69-72 Grand Prix should... especially the '69-70 models (built in 68 & 69).The New '69 Grand Prix was a huge hit. In 1970, John Z. was promoted to head Chevrolet and Francis James McDonald took over Pontiac... He was a major player in the demise of both Pontiac and GM.
John Z. DeLorean was headed to be the President of GM, but his taste for the Hollywood Lifestyle and arguements over how GM should be run led him to walk away from GM... back at Pontiac, Francis J. McDonald immediately began to make "Changes" @ PMD. He began cost-cutting measures and removed almost all of the quality control measures DeLorean had instituted. He also began to pull the Dragon's Teeth from Pontiac's performance edge, and routinely butted heads with Pontiac's Sales and Engineering Departments. He also pushed for less options being Standard on all models and also pushed for even more luxury options/trim models to expand Pontiac's sales potentials. Another new development within GM was Cost Cutting and McDonald was a big supporter. A big piece of its first inception was the NOVA Project... originally Chevy'small car... it was planned to be GM's first attempt at "Corporate Badge Engineering". Pontiac was to be its first victim in 1971... the 1971 Ventura... essentially a rebadged Chevy Nova with Pontiac trimmings.. and even came with the Chevy 307 as its only V8... Project NOVA stood for Chevy Nova, Oldsmobile Omega, Pontiac Ventura, & Buick Apollo... Between 1970 & 73, a number of the players involved with Pontiac's Performance and Greatness of the 60's began to leave and/or transfer out. Sales numbers slid, & a number of Pontiac's Performance models were put on short leashes... Francis J. McDonald was promoted to head up Chevrolet in 72-73 and Martin J. Caserio was appointed the Manager of PMD... he breathed some life back into Pontiac's Sales and Engineering departments, however he was keen to follow the marching orders from GM Senior Management. Cost-Cutting was becoming an increasingly more powerful beast within GM, horse-power and torque took a back seat to Uber-Luxury... but Pontiac managed to squeek performance out of its engines, as did Oldsmobile. Pontiac however, had some latitude because of the Firebird & hot-selling Grand Prix, while Oldsmobile and Buick were forced to take the same road towards luxury barges. Pontiac held the performance torch, while the rest of Detroit focused on the Faux-Luxury Nagahyde-covered and Gold-Plated Desires of the Disco Era. In '75, a new Uber-Luxury Grand Prix entered the Pimp Race... the "LJ". In '76, Pontiac was forced to kill off the 455 & rumors swirled that the venerable 400 might be next. For the first time, the Pontiac 350 was not only available in the Grand Prix, but was the Standard engine and the 400 became optional. Pontiac also released a Special Pontiac 30th Anniversary Edition alongside the all new '76 Black and Gold Trans Am S/E 30th Anniversary Edition... 1977 was both a Great Year for Pontiac and a punch in the head by GM's Brass, from which it never fully recovered... Sales for the F-Body was going into 1977 wasnt good and GM Brass considered killing it, while Chevy engineers condidered saving it by basing it on a new Front Wheel Drive chassis on the drawing boards. GM Brass also handed down an edict that Pontiac 400 and 350 production was to be discontinued at the end of 1978. The recently cobbled together Pontiac 301 V8 Economy was going to become Pontiac's V8 and become part of the new "Corporate" production scheme. The Grand Prix wasnt faring well either, the 301 now became its Standard engine while the 400 was its top dog. The new 301 was poorly mated to the Grand Prix and could barely do the job, because it wasnt designed to move a heavy car like the '77 Grand Prix. More news was that an all new down-sized G-Body platform was to be released for the 1978 model year. Pontiac Sales figures were slipping, but when things looked pretty dismal at Pontiac, a wildly successful movie was released... "Smokey and the Bandit"... overnight, The Pontiac Trans Am S/E became infamous and Trans Am Sales skyrocketed, as did most Pontiac Models, including the Grand Prix... however, "Corporatization" at GM was well under way. GM had been putting various engines in various makes and had been doing so without telling buyers... Notably with Oldsmobiles... this led to a major Class Action Lawsuit against GM which they lost... GM was ordered to either replace the cars or refund the buyers... GM offered the cars and disclosed that some cats would not come with Oldsmobile engines... so in the end, GM still won. Anyway... in '78, and with the boost from Burt Reynolds and Jackie Gleason... Pontiac could do a lot more... the Grand Prix unfortunately, was limited to the 30... no more 400. Pontiac did, however, make available a bunch of options that made the Grand Prix a lot more sporty... Ttops, Snowflakes, CB Radio, Viscount Bucket seats... but the bean counters were nit-picking and CAFE regs kicked any hope of the 400 engines out the door. The LeMans and Grand Am suffered the bean-counter axes and piss-poor quality control turned buyers away in droves. For 1979, Pontiac added a manual transmission to the option sheet, but it wasnt advertised well and sold poorly. For 1980, Pontiac was hoping to offer a bit more excitement with some proposals for a Turbo 301 aka Turbo 4.9L option on the Grand Prix, Grand Am, and Trans Am/Formula... but it was all cut short by the bean counters and a poor quality reputation the T301 was earning... mostly due to poor quality gasolines, poor assembly line installation, & untrained techs working on a system they didnt understand. Bean-counters also nixxed the 4 speed option because of poor sales, but Pontiac did its best and offered a retuned version of the 301 available on the Grand Prix SJ. Late in 1980, with 1981 production about to close and '82 production about to begin, Pontiac was preparing the '82 Firebird and '82 Turbo 4.9L Trans Am for release... GM Brass killed the 301 & fledgling T301 (aka turbo 4.9), despite greatly improved reliability with Pontiac using the stronger T301 block for all 301s and the use of GM's CCC engine management system in '81 to help keep the T301 out of detonation. Oddly enough, Buick's horrible customer experiences with the Turbo 3.8L caused Chevy to end the Turbo Monte at the end of 1981 ('80 & 81 Turbo Monte)... Buick's Turbo engine would somehow survived the axe and continually improved each year, eventually earning a high seat in Muscle Car History, Meanwhile, the Pontiac Turbo 301 would be relegated to the Shame Pile, save for those of us who see the potential of the little Turbo Poncho..... Sadly, its often scorned as not being a "Real" Pontiac Engine, however it is 100% Pontiac... and a big FYI... the Iron Duke/Quad 4/Tech 4 is a "Real" Pontiac Motor because in reality, it is a T301 block cut in half... an idea Pontiac Engineers used to try and mitigate 301 Production costs.
With all due espect to a few posters, 1981 was actually the last year for a Pontiac V8 to be offered in the Pontiac Grand Prix... the 301 4 barrel SJ option, which was detuned part way through the year... For 1982, the LG4 Chevy 305 became the only engine on the V8 list.... this would last through to the end in 1987... Sadly for the Grand Prix and its siblings at Pontiac, like the LeMans & Grand Am were all destined to become FWD cars. The Grand Prix gradually became more and more emasculated after 1981... most sold were dealer-ordered and featured lame-duck "Odd-Fire" Buick 3.8s and came with a bench seat rather than Bucket Seats. Not long after, the LJ and SJ options were dropped and replaced by the LE "Limited Edition" and "Brougham" cookie-cutter luxury nameplates as trim option... Some Savvy Grand Prix buyers could still option out a Grand Prix to look the part, with a Landau Roof, Ttops, and Bucket Seats but were limited to the LG4 305... Why Pontiac did not offer a "Performance" option is unclear.
From a "We Build Excitement" view in 1983... Pontiac only had its hot mid-year release of the '83 Trans Am w/a L69 H.O.305/T5 or 700R4/3:73/WS6, Turbo Duke Sunbird... and the soon to be released, '84 Fiero 2m4 Iron Duke... many of Pontiac's offerings were relatively mundane otherwise. However, Chevy stuffed the L69 into its '83 Monte Carlo and revived the SS... Olds & Hurst paired up once more and created the '83
Hurst/Olds with a potent H.O. version of the tough Oldsmobile Rocket 307, and Buick tinkered with its Turbo Regals and
Grand National... 1984 was virtually a repeat except for Buick's addition of fuel injection to the T3.8, thus creating a caged monster... 1985 was much the same as '84, except the new Tuned Port Injection 305/700R4/3:42 was available in the Trans Am WS6 alongside the L69/T5/3:73 combo, and the GP was again stuck with a LG4/200R/3:08 axle as its best offering. For 1986, the Grand Prix continued to meow and mid-year Pontiac released a relatively cobbled-together 2+2 Grand Prix body package to get the chassis/body into NASCAR... however, outside of an aerodynamic nose and rear glass, the Grand Prix 2+2 offered no performance, worse, thy didnt even offer buyers the Deluxe Seats... many had body deformations along where assembly line workers had hastily cut apart the stock roofline and packed the area with filler. In 1987, the 2+2 was dropped and the Grand Prix continued quietly along through its last year... the New Grand Prix was slated to become a fully Corporatized Front Wheel Drive available in both 2 door and 4 door variations, and its top performer would now be a V6 variant of GMs Corporate drivetrains.
