As the sixties were beginning to draw to a close, Pontiac’s General Manager John DeLorean was at the top of his game, and it was he who stepped in and decided the Grand Prix needed a redesign for its third generation.  So for 1969, the car switched from its former B-Body chassis to the new G platform and wore a restyled body, a design that carried the car through the end of the 1972 model year.  I’ve always liked the Grand Prix, but if I had to pick a favorite overall body style the 1969-1972 cars seem hard to beat in my humble opinion.  This 1971 example here on eBay is a base Model J and it’s nicely preserved, with bidding already up to $10,200 but still shy of the reserve.  The car is located in Alabama, down in Birmingham.

The car’s southern roots have been kind to the body, and the Pontiac has only had three different owners the entire time and obviously, they all took good care of it.  The original buyer kept the car for the first 35 years, then she sold it to somebody in Texas who was a caretaker until 2014, followed by the seller.  The Grand Prix is stated to have always been kept in a garage and still wears the original green color, but the seller doesn’t go so far as to say that the paint is the factory-applied finish.  Even if there has been a respray, it looks to be of high quality, and although the seller has provided some unusual photo angles the body appears to be well-preserved from what I can tell.

If that’s the original interior, it’s really another testament to the kind of car this car has been given, especially if those seats have been sat in for 107k miles.  Just about everything we can view in there looks way less than 50+ years old, plus we also get a couple of photos of the door jambs and around the trunk opening, which all seem solid with no signs of rust.  We don’t get to see the undercarriage, but if it looks anything like the rest of the car there’s probably nothing to worry about down below.

Under the hood is Pontiac’s standard 400 cubic inch V8, a 4-Barrel that’s stated to be the original component.  It made a respectable 300 horsepower from the factory, but also available as an option was the 455, both of which lost some compression for ’71 due to GMs requirement that all of its engines be able to run on lower-octane fuel beginning that year.  But the seller says the 400 runs smoothly and performs well, with some more good news being the A/C has been converted to a modern 134a system.  I’m not finding much to fault with on this 1971 Grand Prix, but am curious just how much farther north the price will have to go before the reserve is met.  What are your thoughts on this one?