Big, bold, and beautiful. Those are the “Three B’s” that I would assign to the 1963 Pontiac Bonneville seen here on ebay. The tipster on this one is the always-accurate Curvette, and the price asked is $26,500 for a car that’s sitting in Tallahassee, Florida. It will wait almost twenty more days, unless you hit the full-price “buy it now” button in the meantime. Are you tempted to make space in your garage for this Saddle Bronze two-door and its 220-inch length?
Make no mistake, you’re not buying a muscle car. Oh, for sure you’re getting a muscular engine, with 389 cubes of displacement to motivate your adventures. But the Bonneville is a full-sized car, in the categorization of the day. The muscle car was a mid-sized car with an engine just slightly large (can an engine ever be too large?) for its mid-sized category. And, in an ironic twist, this car has a manual transmission that will make driving the Bonnie feel like you’re in control. Anyone who has driven such a set-up with the three-speed manual is welcomed to weigh in on what the experience is like. That engine, by the way, is offered with a claimed original mileage number under 62,000.
The seller claims that the car is in excellent running condition and that there’s no rust or body filler. There’s no word as to the quality or longevity of the paint job though, and generally, the ad doesn’t say much in the way of real detail. It’s easy to say, though, that the styling can’t be beat. The “Coke bottle” design was still in the future when this car was new on the showroom floor, but this design lacks nothing. Check out the chrome trim appointments and the stacked headlights. How about eight-lug wheels?
This comes down, then, to a simple question: Is this car worth mid-20K money? If you believe the “go find another” people, then finding the car is more than half the battle, making it worth spending a bit too much to get what you want. Worst case scenario, you drive this car for a couple of years and get $18K or $20K back out of it in a fire sale. That’s not enough of a loss to delay retirement or not send your kid to a good college. Still, considering that there’s a lot more market for a GTO, and that one of those can be had mid-30s, maybe you want to get out your slide rule and figure out where the sensible money sits on this Bonneville. The seller does, after all, say that he will entertain your best offer.
I don’t get the glory of 8 lug wheels, especially when they’re hidden behind wheel covers. Is there a functional advantage on a street car? Would a 5 lug wheel be any problem? What’s the deal?
What looks like wheel covers is actually the center portion/brake drum of the wheel. These are two piece wheels, the lug nuts you see near the perimeter are where the two half’s bolt together.
Steve R
Exactly! NOT wheel covers. They are indeed glorious.
I think I say this goes for many people, the Pontiac 8 Lug rims are one of the nicest wheel designs to have come from GM. If it weren’t for the front disc brakes becoming more mainstream, I think these would have carried on well into the 70’s.