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Junkyard Gem: 1989 Pontiac Sunbird SE Coupe

General Motors built the fantastically successful J-Body cars starting at the dawn of the 1980s and continuing well into our current century, on five continents. The Pontiac Division's version of the J started out being called the J2000 and the 2000, then got the Sunbird name originally used on the Pontiac-ized Chevy Monza starting in 1983. Here's a once-slick-looking 1989 Sunbird SE Coupe, found at a Minneapolis-area boneyard way back in 2016. The best-known of all the J-Body cars, here, was the Chevrolet Cavalier, but Pontiac far outdid even the most blinged-up Cavalier Z24 when it came to elaborate taillights. Because this is Minnesota, the car is a patchwork of various layers of junkyard-obtained rusty body parts. One fender has TURBO badges from a Sunbird GT. The other side has the correct engine badges for this model. That engine is a 2.0-liter, single-overhead-cam straight-four from an engine family originally developed for the Opel Kadett D. This one was rated at 96 horsepower when new. This one has the automatic transmission, so it wouldn't have been very much fun to drive. Check out that cool parking brake handle, though! And, hey, is that a full can of Colorado Cool-Aid in the foot well? You'd think a proper Minnesota Pontiac would at least be full of Grain Belt cans. It appears that Higley Ford in Windom, Minn., had this car on the lot at some point. Windom is closer to Sioux Falls than to Minneapolis. This final mileage total looks good for a car living in Tinworm Country. Pontiac built this generation of Sunbird from the 1988 through 1994 model years, though it was really just a facelift of the first-generation cars. Starting in 1995, the Pontiac J-Body became the Sunfire, and production continued until the J platform itself got the axe in 2005. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. In the 90s, fun will become the exclusive province of the rich. To which the Sunbird driver replies, "Bullish!" Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Junkyard Gem: 2001 Pontiac Bonneville SSEi

The General's Pontiac Division sold Bonnevilles from 1958 through 2005, which turned out to be well over half of the marque's existence. Named after the Bonneville Salt Flats, some Bonnevilles were huge but pretty quick, others were slow-motion land yachts, and some were nearly indistinguishable from their Buick and Oldsmobile brethren. The final generation, sold for the 2000 through 2005 model years, were among the quickest and most distinctive-looking Bonnevilles ever built, but they arrived in showrooms at a time when the clock was ticking for the division's very survival. Today's Junkyard Gem is one of those cars, an '01 with the hot-rod SSEi package. The Bonneville SSEi first appeared in the 1992 model year, just a year after the Buick Park Avenue Ultra was the first of many GM cars to get the 3.8-liter Buick V6 with an Eaton supercharger bolted on top. Production of the Bonneville SSEi continued through the 2003 model year, after which the GXP version and its Cadillac Northstar V8 took over. The 2001 version of this engine made 240 horsepower, good for plenty of torque-steery fun. Could you get this car with a manual transmission? What do you think? Some cursory research indicates that 1970 was the last model year for a three-pedal Bonneville, and even those cars must be incredibly rare. This one looks to have been in nice shape when it arrived here, with the original manuals still in the glovebox. By 2006, the Bonneville was gone; four years later, Pontiac was gone. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Stop all black Bonnevilles!

This 1988 Pontiac Grand Prix Daytona 500 pace car could be yours

Hopefully, the fans of GM's W-body '80s/'90s intermediates can forgive us, but we had pretty much forgotten — or had never really known — that one of the ways that era's Pontiac Grand Prix bathed itself in glory was by serving as the pace car for the Daytona 500. In fact, the Grand Prix paced NASCAR's marquee race every year from 1988 to 1992, and again in 1997, 1998, 2000 and 2003. That first year, 1988, the Grand Prix was all-new, making its debut on the W-body platform. It was also Motor Trend's car of the year. The 1988 Daytona 500 marked the 17th year in a row that a Pontiac was chosen to set the pace but the first time a front-wheel-drive car was so honored. The '88 Grand Prix followed a spate of Pontiac Trans Ams. This '88 Grand Prix, for sale right now on eBay Motors, is presented as an actual pace car, although fans could order a complete set of pace car decals for their very own GP. The pace car is based on that year's top-spec Grand Prix, the SE. In place of the standard car's 2.8-liter V6, however, the pace car uses a modified 3.1-liter V6, which is hooked to a five-speed manual transmission. This Grand Prix is otherwise largely standard fare excepting the roof-mounted light bar, the switches for which are located next to the radio. The mechanical odometer tucked into the digital instrument cluster shows just over 5,000 miles, and presumably, not all of them were acquired on the high-banked oval. With four days to go in the auction, bidding sits at $4,000 with the reserve unmet. Although the reserve is unknown, one clue is that this Grand Prix had been listed by a classic-car dealership in Pennsylvania for $18,500. Besides the debut of the W-body Grand Prix pace car, the 1988 race is also notable for its final lap: Bobby Allison held off his son, Davey Allison, to take the checkered flag, with the father-son duo enjoying a 1-2 finish. Now, who wants to re-live those Grand Prix glory days? Get on your Pontiac and ride!   This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.