1960 Pontiac Catalina Base 6.4l on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Junkyard Gem: 2006 Pontiac Solstice

The debut of the Pontiac Solstice, back in 2005 for the 2006 model year, stirred up much excitement in the automotive world. Sales were brisk at first, and then they weren't so great… and then Pontiac itself went under The General's cost-cutting axe. One thing I have learned during my junkyard travels is that even sought-after sports cars eventually reach a point at which they start showing up in the big self-service junkyards. For example, the BMW Z3 began appearing in such yards about five years ago, along with the Audi TT. While the Honda S2000 still appears to be exempt from this process, today's Junkyard Gem shows that the time has now come for the Pontiac Solstice/Saturn Sky. The first Z3s and TTs I saw in the U-Wrench-type yards were crash victims, not worth fixing, and that's the case with this Solstice. In a few more years, I'll start seeing the occasional Solstice/Sky discarded due to general worn-outness. Someone grabbed all the undented front body parts and the transmission (these items, presumably, being valuable), but no junkyard shoppers have felt like pulling the non-turbo 2.0-liter Ecotec. The interior seems dirty, probably from exposure to the elements while sitting outdoors in this Colorado Springs wrecking yard, but not in bad shape otherwise. Perhaps the car's owner celebrated a return from Iraq with the purchase of a sporty new Pontiac, 13 years ago. These cars have an enthusiastic following, so I wasn't expecting to see a junked one so soon after production ceased. I felt the same way about the Chrysler Crossfire, however, and I found two of those last year. What's next, a 2002-2005 Thunderbird? This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Such optimism!

Junkyard Gem: 1988 Pontiac 6000 LE Safari Wagon

The Detroit station wagon was fast losing sales to minivans and trucks as the decade of the 1980s progressed, but Pontiac shoppers still had plenty of choices as late as the 1988 model year. A visit to a Pontiac dealership in 1988 would have presented you with three sizes of wagon, from the little Sunbird through the midsize 6000 and up to the mighty Parisienne-based Safari. Today's Junkyard Gem is a luxed-up 6000 LE, complete with "wood" paneling, found in a car graveyard in Fargo, North Dakota. Confusingly, the "Safari" name in 1988 was used by Pontiac to designate both a specific model — the wagon version of the Parisienne/Bonneville— and as the traditional Pontiac designation for a station wagon. That meant that the wagon we're looking at now was a Safari but not the Safari in the 1988 Pontiac universe. The 6000 lived on the GM A-Body platform, as the Pontiac-badged version of the Chevrolet Celebrity. Production ran from the 1982 through 1991 model years, with the A-Body Buick Century surviving all the way through 1996. The LE trim level came between the base 6000 and the gloriously complex 6000 STE (which wasn't available in wagon form, sadly). I visited this yard in Fargo after judging at the Minneapolis 500 24 Hours of Lemons in Brainerd, Minnesota, last fall. Up to that point, I had visited 47 of the Lower 48 United States, with just North Dakota remaining, so I made a point of doing a Fargo detour in order to check that state off my list. I'm pleased that I found such a good example of the 1982-1996 GM A-Body in this yard, because the most famous of all the A-Bodies is the 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera driven to Brainerd by the inept Fargo-based kidnappers in the film "Fargo." This Minnesota-plated 6000 had some rust, but just negligible levels by Upper Midwestern standards on a 31-year-old car. The interior looked very good, with the original owner's manual still inside. The 6000 LE boasted "redesigned contoured seats and London/Empress fabric," which sounds pretty swanky. Something less swanky lives under the hood: an Iron Duke 2.5-liter pushrod four-cylinder engine, known as the Tech 4 by 1988. The Iron Duke was, at heart, one cylinder bank of the not-quite-renowned Pontiac 301-cubic-inch V8; while fairly rugged, the Duke ran rough (typical of large-displacement straight-four engines) and made just 98 horsepower in this application. Pontiac offered a couple of optional V6s in the 6000 in 1988, but no Quad 4.

Trans Am Depot teases 2014 GTO

Here comes the Judge. Court is in session. The verdict is in. How many more tired clichés can we come up with? It hardly seems to matter, because it's happening: Trans Am Depot has announced via the teaser video below that it is launching a 2014 GTO, complete with Carousel Red (bright orange, really) paint and full Judge badging.
The car is based on Trans Am Depot's 6T9 Goat, which, in case you don't get the reverential references, is meant to mimic the look of the 1969 Pontiac GTO. As with the company's other cars -including the 2013 Hurst Edition Trans Am we recently drove - the GTO will be based on the current Chevy Camaro, which means two doors, V8 engines and rear-wheel drive, just like the muscle cars of days past.
As for actual details of what's under the 2014 GTO's hood, we're completely left hanging. We'd expect some sort of power adder (turbo, supercharger or possibly some other form of a highly massaged version of the Camaro's V8), and we certainly know that GM has any number of hi-po crate engines to choose from.