I’d like to think that the 1969 Pontiac Grand Prix shown here on Ebay makes sense to purchase. The price sure does, as the number is just a tick over $9000. And the location is good, as it’s a Cali car and is available in sunny and dry San Diego. Curvette found this one for us, and if you like the big, flat hood and the equally flat Pontiac-emblem wheel covers, this could be your next ride. Does it hurt that it’s red? Who am I trying to convince, you or me?
I’ve always liked this generation of GP, the third by count. It was featured from 1969-72 and was by the reckoning of the day built on an “intermediate” platform. Engine choices for this generation were the 400-CID mill found in the car in question as well as 428 and 455 offerings, with just the first two being available for the 1969 model year. Known as a “personal luxury car,” the Grand Prix invited the driver into its cockpit with appealing “Strato-bucket” seating, with no sign of a bench anywhere near. Once nestled behind the wheel, the pilot would find instruments canted towards him or her for maximum focus.
With collector cars heading up to and past the $20-grand mark on the regular, this would seem to be a deal worth snagging. This GP has a $6,000 engine rebuild and AC that actually puts out loads of cold air. So why doubt this car? For one thing, it is a re-list, at a lower price than what it was apparently going for the first time around. Makes you wonder whether it’s worth the $19K that the ad claims Hagerty would peg the value at, or what someone else saw that caused a no-sale last time around.
The car is kind of optimistically promoted, until you see that there are rust bubbles in more than one place. The paint, in general, looks like a cheapo-respray, and it’s noted to be old at this point, to boot. And one thing you non-Californians might want to unpack once you know about it is this: the license (8G) dates from about 2021. That means the car was unregistered at some point prior to that. What evils has sitting around created? The ad says the seller bought the Model J “from an old ranch property” a while ago, and that he has done a lot of work even past the engine rebuild, including carb work and more. It just seems like that’s an awful lot of time, energy, and money for a car that’s selling at what must be even money if not a loss. If it all checks out, this is a good price for a toy. But whether you’ll go anywhere upwards on the value scale depends on how much work you can do yourself to put the exterior surfaces right. Are you up for the challenge, or would you just cruise your sub-$10,000 acquisition and see what looks you got from those you passed by?
This looks to be a fairly solid GP with a few minor issues on the surface. I actually like the color combination. Buyer would need to get it on rack for frame and floor inspection, as getting one of these on jackstands is like razing the Titanic. And check around that vinyl roof, the bubble is concerning around that trim. If it checked out, I’d install new shocks, dump the atrocious hubcaps and shoe her up with a set of 15X8 Pontiac rally wheels. You could drive it for a season and get the bugs worked out before eventually performing a repaint. And by the way, store those hubcaps!
All GM of this era bubbled around the roof line, esp on this kind of roof. Im thinking a cpmpetent body man would say replace the entire quarter panel. If it runs good, getting the body fixed would be about $6000, depending on work done. Reasonable price, if frame and floors good