About that Pontiac in the last post

[UPDATE] To the folks that might have wandered over from the link at Jalopnik's Blog Hoonage post, thanks for the visit. Please come back around often and see what's happeing here at Wasted Electrons. I can't promise hoonage every day but there is usually interesting stuff happening.

Terry asked for more details about that shiny black beauty and I suppose its only fair that I indulge his questions. Its a 64 Gran Prix that I bought after the 62 Oldsmobile F85 that I had been driving threatened to burn oil from the crankcase faster than gasoline from the gas tank. I think I paid $250 for the Pontiac.

It was a pretty dandy car for a teenaged kid to be driving, 389 cubic inches of raw power, power steering and brakes and air conditioning and power windows that all worked as intended. It had a shiny, ribbed metal console between the red vinyl bucket seats and a chrome plated vacuum gauge mounted in front of the central shift control.

Of course I had to modify it. I added a FM stereo, under dash converter so I could keep up with all the new rock and roll being dished out by these radical radio stations. A Lear underdash 8-track tape player went into the car as my financial circumstances improved and later, 2 6"X9" speakers were added to the rear deck. That installation turned into a major challenge as the car manufacturers didn't leave cutouts for speakers that size back then. Much cutting and grinding of steel and cussing from inside the cavernous trunk took place before I got the boomin sounds those big speakers promised.

I had this car at the onset of the first Gulf fuel embargo in 1973 and premium gas jumped up to 55 or 60 cents per gallon. That 4 barrel carburetor's thirst was killing my dating budget! So I scrounged from a buddy a 2 barrel manifold and bought a rebuilt carburetor from the auto parts store where I worked and did the swap in Dad's garage. The fuel mileage didn't improve by very much and I always missed that 4 barrel moan when I took the opportunity to punch it on my way out to pick up my regular girlfriend who conveniently lived out in the country.

The car did play a significant role in my dating life, not the least of which was the fact that the girl who took a liking to me thought I must be pretty rich to have such a big black car. That wasn't true, by a long shot, but she did start dating me and much of our relationship began and flourished in that automobile. Modesty prevents me from being more specific and the woman involved reads this blog but use your imagination and you won't be too far wrong...

Anyway, what happened to it? Eventually it ended up with an electrical charging fault that I couldn't fix with my amateur skills. An uncle of my beloved pestered me to sell him the car in spite of its problems and he took it to a garage operated by one of our regular customers at the auto parts store where I worked. I snuck out one evening and removed the license plates so he couldn't drive it away from the garage after he refused to finsh paying me after getting the bill for the repairs. And he sued me in small claims court. I counter sued. When our day in court arrived, he told the judge that he though I lied, I showed the judge the Bill of Sale and the title, which I had retained and the judge ruled in my favor. I gave the court the title and the uncle was ordered to pay the court to get the title- which he did after he got done being furious. After that the car gave him pretty good service for a number of years. I don't know what happened to it after he was done with it.

So that's the story of the big black Pontiac.