Land Bound: 1971 Pontiac Boat-Car

In the category “things that make you go hmmm”, we have a 1971 Pontiac boat-car. This masterpiece of creativity is located in Hooven, Ohio (what’s in the water over there!), and the listing can be found on Facebook Marketplace. The price is $6000, and if you’re inclined to ask the seller any questions without showing up in his yard first, you can forget it. This guy must be a disciple of Thomas Fuller (1608-1661), a minister who coined the phrase “seeing is believing”. Given that the boat-car sports a 455 cu. in. big block, I kinda want to show up. Our tip came from JDC – I promised you this article! You obviously took me at my word a few articles ago… “the weirder, the better”.

Here’s that engine, paired to an automatic gearbox. The car is apparently titled as a ’71 Pontiac, so it’s not a Super Duty. Still, a ’71 455 V8 would likely ring in at 335 gross hp (one year later, measurements were net, but this big block still rated 300 hp), with torque coming in at a stump-pulling 480 lb-ft. The boat-car rides on new tires and “runs and drives good around town”. I’m not sure if that’s a reference to a requirement to take it easy on slow roads, or to the primal fear induced at highway speeds. Stacks and pipes decorate the car’s topsides and flanks – for some reason, the vibe feels very Addams Family.

This interior looks like a Pontiac Grand Ville to me, with the vent alongside the glovebox and the faux wood trim. Anyone else have an opinon? Not sure what car donated the windshield, but what I really want to know is: do the screwdriver and broomstick come with the deal? Personally, I’d clean out the Busch cans, but that’s just me. Other equipment includes power steering and power brakes.

Plenty of lights up front, arrayed around that serious schnoz. But illumination aside, the driver’s line of sight to the right across that ridgeline must be challenging to say the least. The body is said to be a fiberglass tri-hull boat.

If you squint, you can see Exner’s influence in the tail…. joking! You can’t. The roll bar is probably a very good idea. Meanwhile, the existence of this boat-car made me go look at others of its ilk, and there are plenty! This example is kind of elegant, or there’s this road-going Chris-Craft. What do you think of this tri-hulled, big block Pontiac?