Pontiac Straightline Archives

 "Between 1980 and 2006," the MIT report begins, "the average gas mileage of vehicles sold in the United States increased by slightly more than 15 percent -- a relatively modest improvement."

The study by MIT economist Christopher Knittel seems silly to most of us; we KNOW the answer here. Without looking at the spoiler photo above, those of you reading Inside Line, who've spend more man-hours researching car information for fun than Knittel ever will for his profession, know why our fuel economy numbers haven't risen as high as they could.

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Categories: Auto Industry,Pontiac

CNN doesn't use a lot of exclamation points, so when we saw the title "Poppy Harlow crushes car with tank!" we're pretty excited. (And not just because women named Poppy are attractive.) Then we watched it and now want to go to Minnesota.

Poppy and CNN take us to Kosota, Minnesota where Drive a Tank operates a service that lets you, as the name implies, drive a tank. They've got a few British tanks at the facility including 'Larry' the 120,000 pound Chieftain Main Battle Tank.

Would you?

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Categories: Miscellaneous,Pontiac,Videos

Even without a Chevy-badged replacement for the Solstice, GM is doing an excellent job at retaining former Pontiac owners. 

In a recent study by Edmunds AutoObserver, a full 39.9 percent of Pontiac owners who traded in for a new vehicle this year picked up a new GM. These results are the highest GM has seen from Pontiac owners since 2007, a year when Pontiac was still in business.

In comparison, 9.4 percent of owners jumped to Ford while Toyota and Honda have each snagged 7.4 percent.

(AutoObserver)

Categories: Auto Industry,Pontiac

Looking for that perfect Christmas gift for your dad, favorite uncle, or I don't know, a certain Edmunds editor in chief? Well, may I suggest a set of these new cufflinks featuring the logos of classic GM performance cars: vintage Corvette, C5 Corvette and Firebird. I mean, what looks classier with a French cuff than a Screaming Chicken. Oh, who am I to snark? I rock these.

Vintage Vette Cufflinks

C5 Vette Cufflinks

Firebird Cufflinks

Categories: Chevrolet,General Motors,Pontiac

The guys at Hot Rod have put together two of the most famous on-screen cars of all time: the General Lee and Bandit. It's all too common to remake Bullitt, but a fictional mashup is surprising and really, really cool. Who knew Hot Rod still had it in 'em?

Watch the video after the jump, and catch the story on newsstands (I had to look it up) in the November issue (which comes out in October.)

What other fictional mashups would be cool? Bullitt vs the R34 from FnF? With the jumps. Doc Brown's DeLorean vs Kitt?

Side note: Replace these two cars with a rotating fleet of semi-performance cars, trucks and two-door SUVs and you've got a fairly accurate portrait of too much of my formative years. We had a lot of fields...

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Categories: Classic Cars,Dodge,Pontiac

According to the woman working the finish line at this year's Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, this was the longest race ever. Part of this was due to the volume of cars, but mostly, it was because there were multiple red-flag scenarios. One of them was an exploded engine spilling oil everywhere and ruined the run of two other cars (who were given restarts). One was Dallenbach's broken axle and one was this Pontiac Sunfire driven by Bobby Regester. Regester's won the event before with this car and he was going for broke again this Sunday when things went from bad to worse to...well...not that terrible at all considering.

A friend of ours once asked Robby Unser whether he preferred going off the course above or below the tree line. "Below," he said, "because at least I know I'm going to stop."

(Youtube via Jalopnik)

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Categories: Motorsports,Pontiac

Does anyone even remember that Red Bull is an energy drink company and not a motorsports constructor? Do you even connect the motorsports with the drink? They've taken a gimmick and turned it into one of the coolest brands for car guys in the world.

As proof of this theory we have a Red Bull sponsored drift event....on the streets of Atlanta.

I assume it went like this: "Hi, Georgia? Yeah, It's Red Bull. We're renting Atlanta. The helicopter full of cash will be there soon. Yeah, the energy drink people. We've got racecars-- a Hyundai Genesis and a Pontiac Solstice. Drift cars. Yeah, we're gonna lay a ton of rubber all over your bricks. Great! See ya soon!"

So here's Rhys Millen and Ryan Tuerck doing exactly what you'd do if you could rent a city.

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Categories: Hyundai,Motorsports,Pontiac

http://www.insideline.com/features/2011-ducati-diavel-carbon-test-and-video.html

Kurt Niebuhr for Edmunds

Inside Line (and the internet come to think of it) runs thousands of photos a week of cool cars. These are our favorites .

If we missed any, let us know...

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Categories: BMW,Fiat,Honda,Lamborghini,Pontiac,Porsche

After 8 months of watching the oil pressure gauge on my 1974 Pontiac Trans AM Super Duty 455 sit on the peg without moving (even with the ignition off) I decided to dive into the issue yesterday. I've always liked having an oil pressure gauge versus an idiot light because it can give you advance notice to avoid serious internal damage, even though catastrophic oil pressure drops are quite rare. 

Over the last few weeks I'd checked with the local NAPA to confirm they had (or at least could quickly acquire) an oil pressure sending unit for a '74 Pontiac 455. I'd researched where the oil pressure sending unit was located (still learning my way around a GM engine compartment after 25 years of working on mostly Mopars) and I was ready to start working early in the day so I'd have plenty of time to deal with the inevitable, unexpected problems that crop up on these types of seemingly simple repairs.

Of course all my advance prep work was a complete waste of time.

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Categories: Classic Cars,Pontiac

The trending topic today on Twitter (besides the sponsored one) is #inhighschool. You get the gist: in high school ______ and you fill in the blank with something relevant to your interests. 

So here we're going to apply the #inhighschool theme to cars. 

In high school -- barring the exotics we all wanted -- what car did you REALLY want. 

Me? Firebird Firehawk...Shutup...it was awesome. I still want one. With the LT4 as pictured above. Only 29 made. Awesome.

(photo from LT1.net  -- go there for more Firehawk.)

Categories: Pontiac

We won't see a new Trans Am. We're used to that now. It could've been cool. Screaming chicken, T-tops, split grille...it would've been cool. But we've got the Chevy Camaro instead and one of the complaints we've heard over-and-over again about the 2010 Chevy Camaro is that there simply wasn't enough nose that the driver couldn't see. Second to that was that there simply wasn't enough chrome on the front. HPP -- Heide Performance Products -- solves both of these problems with this neo-muscle Trans-Am.

Of course, it opens itself up to a world of new problems. Pontiac must be rolling over in its grave.

But, if you like what you see here (you know what I mean) there's more after the jump and if you still can't get enough after that, well, it'll be at SEMA. Shocker.

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Categories: Chevrolet,Pontiac,SEMA Show,Tuners and Modifications

 Quick rundown on the Banshee: John DeLorean, then head of Pontiac, wanted to build something awesome. Something that would crush the Mustang in terms of performance and looks. So he build this. In 1964. Do you remember what the Corvette looked like in '64? Not this good. Even the '68 Corvette, which is strangely similar to this, looks as good. And there's the problem.

No way a Mustang fighter was going to get built that would steal sales from the 'Vette. Not from Pontiac anyway. DeLorean later left GM to build his two-seat dream which will be forever linked with 88 mph.

This is one of two drivable XP-833 Banshees made. A convertible with a V8 and this, with a straight 6. It's literally one-of-a-kind and could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

There are still 6 days remaining on the eBay auction and we'll be keeping a close eye on it.

( eBay )

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Categories: Concept Vehicles,Pontiac

There have been horrendous pace cars over the years. We include in this group the Oldsmobile Bravada, the Mercury Turnpike Cruiser and that eye-searingly awful Corvette.

But none of these auto-sport atrocities quite measures up to the unmitigated awfulness of the 2001 Daytona 500 pace car, the Pontiac Aztek. This mutant spawn of GM's terrible minivan was chosen...Oh, hell...we can't continue.

Categories: Crossovers,Minivans,Motorsports,Pontiac

Last we heard from ex Pontiac Ad man Jim Wanger-- the Godfather of the GTO-- he was speaking with Automobile magazine and he was pissed. Pontiac, the brand he sold and nurtured, was dead and, according to him, the marketing and management people at GM were to blame. "If there was ever a domestic manufacturer that ever had a really good set of names it was Pontiac - Bonneville, Grand Prix, Trans Am! And then all these little boys in men's jobs come along, and come up with insanely stupid 'G' names." Ouch.

Now he's back in the news, "thinning the heard" and unloading a dream-car collection that has car guys scrambling and their wives hiding the checkbook.

What he's selling? Next page...

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Categories: Pontiac

But almost. I actually planned to make that 2,800-mile drive -- from East Meadow, New York to Santa Monica, California -- in a one-owner, 16,800-mile Super Duty 455. I was going to call it the "Pontiac Farewell Tour," an ode to my favorite GM division before it was lost to the gods of bankruptcy (or the bureaucrats in Washington, depending on your point of view).

And because I had just bought this 1974 Buccaneer Red Pontiac Firebird Trans Am Super Duty 455 I thought it would be fun to visit a series of hallowed Pontiac locations along the way. I had visions of touring Norwood, Ohio, where the plant that built this Trans Am, and so many other classic Firebirds (and Camaros), was located.

I wanted to go back to the dealship, in Rochester Hills, Michigan, that originally sold the car to a Pontiac executive in June of 1974. It's still open, and a photo of the car under the sign would have been way cool. Maybe I'd even hit Woodward while I was in the area, and stop by Pontiac, Michigan (yup, a town named for the car company -- back when towns could be named after car companies).

Ah, the best laid plans...

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Categories: Classic Cars,Pontiac

...and the situation never really improved after that.

Honorable mentions:

"Even then, Phyllis had to admit a tiny inkling that her Zebra-print tank-top wasn't going to be the last purchase she ever regretted."

"Human sacrifice to the God of Fugly."

"The only way GM could get people into an Aztek."

Categories: Caption Contest,Crossovers,Pontiac

Here's a little gem we found on the GM media site.

In the lower left, we see the rear quarter of the 2001 Pontiac Aztek. In the upper right, we have one Don Butler. This week he was named vice president of marketing for the Cadillac brand. But 10 years ago, he was launching the Aztek at the 2000 LA Auto Show. And that included surfing the mosh pit (yes, mosh pit) at the official Aztek party.

So take the plunge and enter our Friday Caption Contest. Then, hop on over to the Long-Term Road Test blog contest and try your wit there.

Categories: Pontiac,Trends

Burt Reynolds has been released from a Florida hospital following a successful quintuple heart bypass operation, his manager said today.

Reynolds, 74, is of course, the star of our Editor in Chief's favorite movie, Smokey and the Bandit.

Reynolds apparently told his manager that he has "a great motor with brand new pipes."

Feel better, Bandit!

MSNBC

Inside Line Feature: Smokey and the Bandit Turns 30

Categories: Celebrities,Classic Cars,Pontiac

You've heard of the Rockford Files, right? 1970s' TV show... James Garner drove a series of gold Pontiac Firebird Esprits of 1974-1978 vintage. Well, David Shore, who created the only funny medical show, House, is working on a remake of Rockford, this time starring Dermot Mulroney. You know, Dermot Mulroney, the object of Julia Roberts' affection in the strangely intriguing My Best Friend's Wedding.

We're sure Mulroney is already hard at work practicing his J-turns in empty parking lots. But what will he drive in the new Rockford Files? There has been no shortage of current-Camaro-turned-Trans-Am creations at SEMA, but we think a Camaro Z28 might hit the spot.

Any other ideas for what Rockford Jr. should drive?

There's precious little footage of the original Rockford Firebirds, but we found a short clip and posted it after the jump. Sadly, there's no 180 in this one, nor even a burnout.

TV Squad

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Categories: Celebrities,Classic Cars,Pontiac,Trends

You might remember a little American car called the "Pontiac." (Hint: It came after Pierce-Arrow). Well, some of "Pontiac's" greatest hits will go up for auction in Indianapolis, Indiana at the Mecum Auction there from May 19-23.

Why would the owner of such lovely 1960s "Pontiacs" choose the Mecum auction to sell of his collection? We're thinking it might have something to do with the fact that the "Pontiac" owner in question is named Dana Mecum, who is not coincidentally the president of Mecum Auction.

Anyway, five of Mecum's "Pontiacs" will cross the block (individually) including the sassy gold 1965 GTO, pictured above. That car, known as "The GeeTO Tiger" was given away as the grand prize of a contest during the 1965 NHRA Indy Nationals and wears gold Hurst wheels and a gold Hurst shifter. The car gets its name from a record, released by the Tigers on Colpix records, the B-side of which was titled "Big Sounds of the GeeTO Tiger," and was a recording of the sounds of the car at GM's test track, with some priceless voice-over work. (You really should listen to it).

Also up for auction will be these racing and/or promotional Pontiacs: 1963 Catalina 421 Super Duty "Swiss Cheese," 1965 GTO Riverside 500 Pace Car, 1963 Tempest Coupe 421 Super Duty and 1963 Tempest Station Wagon.

Go to www.mecum.com for more information.

Categories: General Motors,Pontiac