Calling itself a Catalina, this 1966 Pontiac “true” (according to the seller) barn find looks more like a Crashalina. Actually, it was so attached to its barn domicile that the barn decided to make an up close and personal contact by collapsing on it – can’t make stuff like that up. Anyway, this barn-battered Poncho is located in Englishtown, New Jersey and is available, here on eBay for a BIN price of just $1,800!
Being a Catalina, places this two-door hardtop at the bottom of the ’66 Pontiac totem pole, beneath the Ventura, Star Chief Executive, the Bonneville, and the Grand Prix. Still, a Catalina, available in a two-door sedan, hardtop (such as our subject car), convertible, and station wagon as well as a four-door sedan was a nicely equipped entry model. GM had the tiger by the tail in the styling department for ’66 – and it wasn’t just Pontiac, all of the General’s models had a stand-up and take-notice bearing. Popular? You bet, the Catalina put up a 354K unit production volume in ’66 with 79K of those being two-door hardtops.
Back to this “true” barn find, this example was supposedly lined up for a restoration project that never occurred. In spite of the barn attack, the seller suggests, “This is a good parts car or if you’re handy then restore it to your specs. A lot of good and hard to find parts left on this car. The frame is nice and solid floor are ok“. Parts? Maybe, most of the sheet metal is dented; perhaps there’s still some useable trim available, or a decent frame to replace another that has given it up.
Powerwise, there’s none. The standard engine was a 256 gross HP, 389 CI V8 but it and its automatic transmission are long gone. The seller doesn’t elaborate on the former engine room resident’s ID and GM’s VIN convention in the sixties didn’t provide a clue.
The interior has a bit of that windblown, foresty look about itself. There are lots of leaves and debris, the result of no rear window along with, missing instrument panel components, some sort of cheap-looking front seat cover, missing door panels, and destroyed rear upholstery panels but other than that…A total stem-to-stern makeover will be required.
Future plans? I’m not seeing any, I think the barn collapse kiss was a game-over move, especially in light of all of the other foibles like the missing powertrain. Again, there were 79K of these made, and knowing that, I think I’d keep looking for a better example, what’s your suggestion?
Looks like this one has already been stripped at some point in time, possibly to provide for the car on the right! :-)
100% correct , this was a parts car, and now he is trying to get big money to offset the 50 bucks he paid for it !
I’ll take it for whatever the scrap value is. No more than 500.00
Nothing to see here folks
Well if I had this thing sitting around I would do the same thing the seller is doing and see if someone bites , if no takers then scrap it
If you click on see sellers other items on ebay he has two other 66 Ponchos for sale – that’s probably where the parts went from this one – all three cars are over priced in my opinion by at least 50%.
Looks like the white one along side it got all the parts. We have an Auction House by us and they turn down what them deem un-saleable and laughable. Barn Finds what say you?
Scrap heap special max worth $25.00.
This one will require some work hours & maybe a Miracle.
Anybody unemployed with auto repair & restoration experience ?
Roof just needs to be jacked out everything else can be fixed and it just so happens that if bought it I already have all the parts and a parts car so this would be a good deal for me to buy at this price range