1977 Pontiac Grand Prix Sj Coupe 2-door 6.6l on 2040-cars

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Michigan floods from breached dams consume Pontiac Fiero collection

“WeÂ’ve never had an event like this,” Michigan's city manager Brad Kaye said in a Detroit News story. "What we're looking at is an event that is the equivalent of a 500-year flood." Kaye is referencing the catastrophic flood that occurred in central Michigan this week after heavy rainfall was compounded by two breached dams on the Tittabawassee River. Reports say the flooding forced evacuation of up to 10,000 residents, swallowed entire towns, and destroyed thousands of properties. No casualties have been reported, according to the Detroit Free Press, but car enthusiasts will be sad to learn a Pontiac Fiero shop and collection called Forever Fieros was decimated by the natural disaster. The Tittabawassee River is located about two hours, or roughly 140 miles, north of Detroit. It starts 20-30 miles further north and flows southeast as a tributary to the Saginaw Bay Watershed. Along the way, the Tittabawassee is held up by several dams, including the Edenville dam that failed and the Sanford dam that was breached during torrential downpours. According to NPR, the federal government took away the Edenville dam's license in 2018 and suggested it could not last through a major flood. Unfortunately, that prediction was proven accurate.  Forever Fieros is located in Sanford, Michigan, which is just below Sanford Lake, which is created by the Sanford dam. So when the Edenville dam north of Sanford broke, water from Wixom Lake flooded Sanford Lake, and a berm next to the Sanford dam was overwhelmed, according to MLive. Technically the dam did not fail, but the end result was the same: an entire town underwater. The Tittabawassee reportedly crested at 35 feet, or 10 feet above flood level and 1.1 feet higher than the previous record set in 1986. According to The Drive, the man in charge of Forever Fieros, Tim Evans, had time to attempt to save his vehicles from floodwater. He reportedly moved about 12 cars to a street that doesn't typically flood, but the water level was simply too high for that to matter. A floating pole barn also reportedly struck and damaged the  Forever Fieros building.  Worsening the situation is the fact that Evans was planning to hold an auction to sell many of the Fieros. As seen on Industrial Bid, he planned to sell 12 Fieros, Fiero GTs and a Fiero Formula, ranging from 1984 through 1988. The lots included a 1984 pace car, a Lamborghini Countach kit car, and a Fiero Cosworth Pontiac Super Duty 16-valve DOHC engine.

NHTSA could add 1M cars to GM recall

The Detroit Free Press is reporting that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration may expand a recall campaign for faulty brake lamps. The agency is currently looking into complaints that certain 2004-2011 Chevrolet Malibu models as well as some 2007-2009 Saturn Aura sedans may have brake lights that do not illuminate when the driver presses the pedal. Alternatively, the lamps may also illuminate without input from the driver. General Motors recalled 8,000 Pontiac G6 models from the 2005 model year for the same problem, and NHTSA is currently investigating whether to add 550,000 more G6 models built between 2005 and 2009 to the list for the same issue.
In addition, investigators are currently examining 97 complaints from Malibu and Aura owners with the same trouble. If NHTSA adds those models to the recall campaign, more than one million units could be covered. GM, meanwhile, says there have been no accidents or injuries as a result of the problem.

This junkyard '91 Grand Am is as hooptie as it gets

I spend a lot of time in junkyards. A lot of time. With all this experience, I have learned to recognize a perfect hooptie when I see one, a car whose final owner got every last bit of use out of it when its value was hovering right about at scrap value. This 1991 Pontiac Grand Am that I spotted in a San Francisco Bay Area self-service wrecking yard a few days ago, from the final model year for the third-generation Grand Am, checks all the hooptie boxes just right. First of all, it's a low-option coupe with the wretched and unloved GM Iron Duke engine, a rattly, gnashy, thrashy 2.5-liter four-cylinder kludged together using off-the-shelf parts from the Pontiac 301-cubic-inch V8 during the darkest years of the Malaise Era and used in cars whose buyers just didn't care. Most of the paint has been burned off by 25 years of harsh California sun, but the car spent sufficient time in a damp, shady spot for lichens to build up here and there. There are skeletons-with-sombreros stencils sprayed here and there, plus a big moonshine-guzzling skeleton mural painted on the hood. Goodbye, property values! Still, someone felt some affection for this car, giving it the name "Good Ol' Snakey" and painting that name on the decklid. We can assume that the Iron Duke was a bit loose by this time, probably leaving a serpentine trail of blue smoke behind the car at all times. So, the combination of cheapness, ugliness, menace, and who-gives-a-damn functionality make this Grand Am an excellent example of a pure hooptie. Within a couple of months, it will be crushed, shredded, shipped out of the Port of Oakland, and reborn in China as refrigerators and Geely Emgrands. Somewhere in Northern California, though, a few of Ol' Smokey's friends will remember this car fondly.