The 1970s Ventura was Pontiac’s version of the successful Chevrolet Nova. The GM division was lacking a compact from 1964 to 1970, so rather than cook up something completely new, they borrowed the Nova, changed the front clip and taillights, and sold it as the Ventura II in 1971 (the Ventura had been a full-size car the year before). The seller has a 1973 edition, but it’s in the process of being modified, from a crate motor to a new roofline. A work-in-progress, this nearly Nova is in Mebane, North Carolina, and is available here on eBay. The starting bid is $9,500 (no takers yet), and there is also a reserve to be met.
Pontiac called the car the Ventura II for two years, then dropped the II part in 1973. They scrapped that name in 1978 and went with Phoenix instead. When the X-body platform was retired after 1979, they slapped the name on the new front-wheel-drive Chevy Citation derivative (which was not such a great car). The early Ventura’s had a Chevy inline-6 as standard but went with Pontiac’s own 350 cubic inch V8 when a buyer specified eight cylinders.
This car has a very interesting story. The seller bought it 15 years ago from the original owner’s family at 38,000 miles. It now has 46,000 on the odometer, so the car has been used on a limited basis annually. The seller was unhappy with the performance of the original 350 V8, so he took it apart and decided that installing a new Chevy small-block crate motor would be cheaper than fixing the factory motor (really?).
He didn’t like the taillights, so he replaced the panel and lights with those from a 1968 Pontiac Firebird. Then he replaced the suspension, converted the brakes to 4-wheel discs, swapped the bulkier bumpers with those from the prior generation, and more. But the biggest change might be with the roof. He pulled off the vinyl top covering, didn’t like what he saw there, too, and modified the roof to go with the smaller side windows like on the 1968-72s. There’s a lot more, like the interior being taken out of the car, but the bottom line is that you’re going to have some work to do to finish what the seller started.
He needs to follow through on his “unique” vision. I am guessing that nobody else on the planet shares his vision but there’s a chance that I am wrong