Almost 20 feet of cool, this 1974 Pontiac Grand Safari may be as eye-catching a 1970s station wagon as you’ll find. I have no doubt that driving this car in public would almost cause a crowd to gather anytime you stop for gas or groceries, with many photo opps and selfies being taken. The seller has it listed here on eBay in Guttenberg, Iowa, and they’re asking $28,500, or you can make an offer. Thanks to Zen for the tip!
Pontiac offered a somewhat lower trim Safari wagon (is that redundant?), the Catalina Safari, which came with a standard 400 V8. It was also available with woodgrain accents, so sometimes it’s hard to tell without the badging that reads Grand Safari whether it’s the top (with standard 455 V8) Grand Safari or not. I don’t see a flaw in this car inside or out, and the seller has included dozens of photos, so please click on the eBay link and check out the photos. The first-generation Pontiac Grand Safari was made for model years 1971 through 1976, the last year for the big wagons for GM, for the most part.
Speaking of checking things out, here’s a 1974 Pontiac brochure showing the whole lineup, and even better, here’s one showing just the three big Safari wagons available, the LeMans Safari, Catalina Safari, and top-tier Grand Safari. Sporty isn’t exactly what most people think when they see a 19+ foot long station wagon, but being a Pontiac adds to the mix, and those Rally wheels are great. I believe this color is Fire Coral Bronze.
You sharp-eyed viewers who are also auction fans may recognize this car; it recently sold at a Mecum Auction for $17,600. That seems like a much easier price on the wallet, but if I knew anything about car-flipping, I wouldn’t be eating Pop-Tarts. As expected with a car having fewer than 60,000 miles, the interior also looks fantastic. This car will easily seat a dozen teenagers for drive-in movie night. Not legally, of course… The seller includes a few underside photos, and it doesn’t look quite as nice as the topside does, but hopefully it’s solid. The back seat looks perfect, as does the rear cargo area and the third row seating area.
The engine is Pontiac’s 455-cu.in. OHV V8, which was rated at 215 horsepower and 355 lb-ft of torque when new. Power is passed through a THM-400 automatic transmission to the rear wheels, and this is an 11-11 car, as in 11 seconds to 60 mph and 11 mpg. Unfortunately, the selling dealer doesn’t mention how it runs or if everything works, but I have to believe that it runs well. Any thoughts on this beautiful big Pontiac wagon?
What a beauty!! The rims, the color combination, the 455, everything about it. Somebody went heavy handed with pen when ordering this one. To put things in perspective, if memory serves me right, our ’70 Olds Ninety Eight had a 126 inch wheelbase. This wagon is 127, so, this definitely is a big car, and you need that torque of that 455 to haul it around. Scotty is pretty much on the money with the 11-11 ratio. Maybe it would be a bit quicker to 60 than that, but with emissions controls already starting to choke it down probably about right. Thanks Scotty.
Driveinstile, I just checked on wheelbase & the ’70 98 also has a 127″ wheelbase regardless of model.
Except for delay wipers, (am I picky?) this wagon sure is loaded up including cornering lamps. The driver door looks a little rough on the bottom seam but may be just surface. Other than that it’s virtually new inside and a great color out with the wood grain.
Jon, I just looked it up, I will now procede to smack myself in the forehead….. Now!!! 127 inches it is. So, the same size then. I’ve only been misquoting that for 4 decades now give or take. I completely agree with you about the woodgrain going with the color on this one too. And the body colored rims really add a classy touch as well.
You are not picky. I always look for two options, cornering light and delay wipers. If a car has both, then likely it will have everything else I want. I believe 75 is the first year GM offered delay wipers on all mid and full size cars. I ordered my 75 Cutlass with them. In 74 was the first year for GM to have delay wipers, and only on Cadillacs, full size Olds and Buick. Chevy and Pontiac didn’t make the cut.
I don’t think delay wipers arrived until 1975. This car is perfect though.
Yes, the delay wipers(“controlled cycle” was the term Pontiac used) were first available on the 1975 Pontiacs.
Also, the color-matched Rally II wheels weren’t offered until the 1976 model year, but they make a great addition to this sharp wagon. GLWTS.
Not all “shaggin’ wagons” are vans.
The clamshell tailgate still works!
That tailgate was the bugger, particularly if the glass broke in the double welded roof. I knew of a Buick dealer that rented a crane to pick one of these up by the nose to get the broken glass out of one back in the late 1970s.
I had a 1972 Chevrolet Kingswood Estate wagon back in the day. Green with the woodgrain sides.
Love the rally wheels.
$28,000 is vastly overpriced no matter how nice.
It’s a WAGON!
Limited market, limited buyers most of which are CHEAP!
Having said that this is a nice wagon for someone to enjoy.
Wagons are not known as show cars and still have limited appeal at collector car auctions and to the average collector car enthusiast!
I can’t see one of these without remembering a problem one we had at the dealership. It belonged to a local cemetery. And it was fully loaded including a 455 engine. It ran hard but not long. After 20 minutes of highway driving it would just quit running. Everything you could think of was tried. Gas tank venting, ignition system, cooling system, fuel supply system, the works. It just didn’t want to run longer than 20 minutes on the highway. Tow truck would bring it in and it would start right up. The district service engineer spent a week on the car with the same results. For some reason a buy back wasn’t an option. One of the techs came up with a goofy idea. When our district service manager came in. We would take him to breakfast which lasted all day. ( and included alot of beer) When our service manager and him came back from “breakfast” at about 5:15 pm they made sure that he had plenty of coffee in him and he had had a good “service visit” with our dealership. The cemetery’s car never had another issue and we never heard about the Pontiac corporate car. (Too chicken to ask) Back then, swapping an engine would go pretty fast!
Did it have pts & condenser, pesky early HEI(recall on WHITE modules), or the crazy Unitized ignition?
I’m pretty sure that it had the “new” electronic distributor. But that assembly had already been swapped out with one from a different car. And for test, a hot wire was run to the distributor. Same issue. And it would only quit after 20 .minutes of 70 mph.it would cruise around town all day with no issues. We had some pretty sharp techs, no dummies worked on that car. Fuel system (including venting) electrical all checked out. We finaaly figured out that evidently the engine would seize up after a “speed run” but once cooled, it start right up! (Oil pressure never wavered) That’s why the engine swap. We had a ’75 Catalina that came back to the dealership on a tow truck about 1 hour after taking delivery. We turned the key and the engine was locked up. So our tech put it up on the lift and was preparing to pull the oil pan. Pulling the oil drain plug resulted in a large amount of coolant before oil came out. He was pulling the oil pan when he started yelling for help. The oil pan was full to the top of internal engine parts. It weighed a couple of hundred pounds! The customer claimed no warning lights, no noise, just stopped running driving down the highway. None of the camshaft pieces were longer than 2″ and the main webbing was a jigsaw puzzle. The funny part was that the customer wasn’t particularly upset. Just give me another car. Which we did!
Back in High School, our school had one of these for Drivers Ed, except ours was a lighter shade (gold, with the same faux woodgrain) – what a monster! Surprisingly, I don’t remember anyone of us hitting anything, and at the end of the school year, the dealership took it back, unscathed! This did help me in my future career as a transit operator (bus driver), though. If I could handle a car this big, a bus that was twice the length wouldn’t frighten me! It is a beautiful car, and someone will be proud to own it!
Almost 2 years ago I retired after 29 years in transit here in the Twin Cities. Drove MCI & Gillig & New Flyer busses.
I could parallel park those in our garage for fun.
As far as drivers, just when you think you’ve seen it all……. right?
Mum had one. Great car for a high school jr. if she only knew. It was butterscotch in color and it would go through gas faster than I could go through girlfriends
I like the old wagons, but I am not a fan of the fake woodgrain sides. Seems cheesy to me. This particular wagon has nice lines, but the woodgrain ivory colored border just wrecks the nice shape.
General motors used to build magnificent vehicle’s, like this one. 1974 was a particularly good looking year for Pontiac. This particular wagon is very well equipped. I like it a lot. i used to see the sound of the street. They are very rare today. Too many of them were junked and not saved. General Motors has lost their way. Mary Barra has basically destroyed the company. So sad!
Mary Barra does what she is expected to do. She is a token “uses a different bathroom than the old guard” poser. She came up through the ranks learing all the wrong things. I was at a,commercial meeting in Texas before she became “THE BIG DISAPPOINTMENT” she did a token talk.But after the question and answer session easily 1/2 of the attendees (The GMC dealers) were ready to chuck her out with the garbage. Another GM honcho bending to the whims of the Chevy dealers. (Spoiled idiots that they are) WHAA! It’s not fair to have a, competitor within the GM umbrella! They have taken commercial away from GMC and also have given up on commercial as a whole because the Chevy dealers are not aggressive enough (like the GMC dealers were) to keep it rolling. They have just given the business to Ford.
it’s been for sale for a while. clean with low miles. i was just in Harrisburg for the mecum auction and wagons clean, low milers like this bring the seller’s price. good examples are just too few and far between that’s why they hover around 30k.
hairyolds68, this car sold at a Mecum Auction in May for $17,600. That seemed like more of a reasonable price to me, but I don’t know enough about values.
“YOU GOT IT PONTIAC!” quote from 1970’s Pontiac commercials in Canada!
This Grand Safari is gorgeous….I just wonder when it is mentioned it can hold 12 teenagers to the Drive-In Theatre, is the very last back seat once lifted out of the floor facing towards the front of the station wagon or looking out the back window?
It faces rear so those would have to get some chairs out
The third row faces front on these.
The Safari always reminds me of a game show from the early 70’s: Split Second where they gave a car away if you were lucky enough to pick the one that started. They featured GM cars, Pontiac in particular.
I remember watching it when I would stay home sick from school.
I know, weird memory, but I was always into cars and thought a few others here might remember it too.
Here is the final episode where the guy picks a Safari.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpReqTbwQmc&t=1440s
I remember that show. Didn’t the car have to start when you turned the key? We had split session school days so from 8th to 10th grade I didn’t catch the bus until around 11:35 and started at 12:05. Different times.
Yes, that’s how it worked, And IIRC, if the car didn’t start, you came back the next day and if you won again, they would eliminate one of the cars, making it easier for you to win. I always thought that it was a hard show to win anything big on – if you were a prize hog, you would go on The Price Is Right or one of those shows.
Other favorites of mine were Concentration, Password, Wheel of Fortune (with Chuck Woolery), and Joker’s Wild.
I watch old episodes of The Price Is Right with my daughter – from the 70s and 80’s – and can price things better from back then than I can now. We get a kick out of that.
I just watched that episode. I had never heard of this show before. I must be getting old, as the whole thing was just too frantic for me to enjoy. Growing up in the farm country in Illinois, I never was home from school sick. And I’m going to assume that this show wasn’t shown on any of our 3 stations.
You are right. You still couldn’t watch a drive in movie from there.
One of these skyrocketed on BaT to almost $40k, so now everyone thinks their early 70s Safari wagon are worth that much. Hey, someone might pay it at this point, but comps are around $20k give or take.
My father-in-law had one of these. Nice luxury driver. Didn’t perform like like you would expect a 455 to perform, but it had the 455 poor gas mileage. I repaired a leaking fuel tank for him. It’s located on the right side, between the taillight and right rear wheel well. Drops straight down. I liked how loaded with options it was, including power adjustable pedal position.