The first new car I was old enough to actually remember my father buying was a 1970 Pontiac Catalina. I also remember stopping by his favorite service station on our way home and the owner commenting that it was the first car he had ever pumped $10 worth of gas into! It’s hard to believe in those good old days when few buyers even thought about fuel economy just how close we were to the compact car stealing the limelight, at least for a while. If you miss those times of large coupes and cheap gas, this 1967 Pontiac Catalina should be capable of ably fulfilling half of your fantasies. It is located in Addison, Illinois, and can be found here on eBay with a buy-it-now price of $17,900.
This 1967 Pontiac Catalina is finished in blue, which the seller says is an older paint job but of very nice quality. The body is said to be straight and all of the panels are claimed to be original, with a nice fit and finish. It’s also got wheel skirts on the rear quarters, which sort of gives the car a cool low-rider effect, at least in that area. The chrome is all original and in good condition, with the trim and glass said to be in excellent shape. New Firestone Firehawk white letter tires can be found all the way around, with Pontiac Motor Division spinner hubcaps.
Under the hood resides a 400 cubic inch V8 engine with a Turbo-Hydramatic 400 transmission, both of which are said to be original to this Catalina. There’s no word on whether or not either has ever had a rebuild or any recent maintenance, but the seller does say that the car runs and drives very nicely, and there is an eleven-minute video included of a walkaround and the car being driven. The vehicle is also equipped with power steering and power brakes.
The Catalina has a matching blue interior which the seller thinks is mostly factory original, although the seats have been redone and some aftermarket Stereo equipment has been added, which is not functioning at this time. All of the gauges and lights work, as do the horn and windshield wipers. This Catalina is a factory A/C car, with the air conditioning and blower motor both working.
A shot of the underside scores some big points, as things are said to be rock solid down below with no patches and no obvious fluid leaks. The seller says upfront that he is nice to deal with and negotiate with, and since there’s also an option to submit an offer it seems like a good bet that this car could be had for less than its asking price. What are your thoughts on this 1967 Pontiac Catalina?
The famous artist Ed Ruscha liked them.
https://edruscha.com/works/pontiac-catalinas-2/
From back when you could tell what make/model a car was.
I’ve always liked these.
A little boy says to his father “Daddy, what is a Pontiac?”
The father points to this car.
This big beast is a lot to love. Great color! Had a neighbor as a kid who had a 67-68 in metallic brown with white interior and white top. Also a beauty.
All this baby needs is a set of narrow stripe white wall tires, mounted on Rally II wheels!! (I prefer OEM wheels to wheel covers!) Did I mention that it also is my favorite color? GLWTA!! :-)
Narrow red walls would be even better.
The old Uniroyal dual white stripe fiberglass 2+2 ‘s!
It’s a beauty for sure. It does need ralleys installed instead of the wheel covers.
Bought a white one just like it about 1972 for $75.00. The complaint was it would stall at highway speed and finally wouldn’t start at all. Changed the ceramic fuel filter in the carb and drove it for 3 years.
When I was in mortuary school a classmate from Arkansas, Ron, told the story that the owner of the funeral home where he worked had a Pontiac hearse. One day when someone kidded him about the low budget hearse he pointed at the lettering and said, “Poor old Neal thinks it’s a Cadillac.”
We see what you did there. Nice save.
mmmm..Catalina..also a great salad 🥗 dressing
The tired old story of how cheap gas was in the good old days. Consider this … highway MPG for this Catalina might have touched 15, whereas any typical SUV today is good for 30+. You only use half the fuel today. Next, gas was about $0.32 then versus $3.00 now. Let’s call that 10x the price. That means wrought need to spend 5x as much for gas today, relative to 1967. Now factor in income, which on average in 1967 was $7,200 per year versus $53,490 in 2022, or 7.5x what it was in the good old days.
You’re making 7.5x the money but only spending 5x the amount on gas.
THESE are the good old days.
NO. THEY. ARE. NOT. Math Nerds SMH. Driving a four wheeled potato? YECH
You both have valid points, if the numbers are correct.
The average guy can’t fix a modern vehicle himself anymore, never mind the outrageous prices on them these days……no thanks!!
Except for the fact that your SUV is not an SUV, it is merely a UV. there is no “S”, i.e. nothing whatsoever “Sporty” about it. It is a generic people mover lacking any hint style.
I never tried to represent current SUVs (take the name up with the manufacturers) as anything other than the most typical form of transportation these days. That said, I’d rather drive a new Porsche Macan S than any family car from the 60’s if sporting intentions were critical. My point remains … gasoline is relatively cheap. Here in Winnipeg I’m paying $1.50CDN per litre, which is about $6.80 per Imperial gallon. That is the equivalent of roughly $6.40US per U.S. gallon. (I will spare everyone the math, less I be labeled a nerd again). People get excited about the price of gas and vent by Tweeting the world on their $1,000US iPhones.
1. only ethanol gas is what’s avail in many areas today. & if pure gas is avail, it it is a lot more money per gallon. Ethanol gas is the worse thing for old cars with carburetors & steel gas tanks that are not used much. Back in the day, gas was not only pure gas, but made with a lot less junk ingredients than today’s gas. & a lot higher octane was available to run very high compression motors back then – good luck runing them on todays expensiv crap 91 octane – the highest in many areas. Even 93 octane in other areas may not be good enough.
2. gas was dirt cheap at the start of the pandemic. But not now, Hope u don;t live here! –>
http://www.losangelesgasprices.com/Chevron_Gas_Stations/San_Marino/1090/index.aspx
& even worse it may go up a lot more – EVERYWHERE
https://nypost.com/2022/02/17/gas-prices-could-reach-7-a-gallon-as-russia-ukraine-tensions-escalate/
3. back in the day, full serve stations were avail in most if not all states & very powerful free tire air pumps were avail at most stations.
Now they cost money & take a long time to inflate tires – mickey mouse pumps.
& they are broken many times too.
Grumpy old man …
When was the last time you heard of a vehicle breaking down because in inferior fuel? Today’s engines are designed to run on today’s available fuel. Furthermore, I don’t know of anyone either than you that laments the good old days when you could pump all four of your tires up in less than a minute.
Larry, after several months, i’m still waiting for them to fix the broken mickey mouse tire air pump at my local station. & i’ve seen lines waiting for air at other stations. I live in a very congested area. Make sure you have enough coins for air – & change is now very hard to come by. Hess was the last, i believe, to have the powerful air pumps for free – maybe 15 yrs ago. You must be very young & were not driving then. Or there were no Hess stations by you, let alone full serve ones.
& i’m wondering what happened to the 12! gas stations that were(in the 1970s) in a 2 mile radius from my house(& the Ford, Chevy, Chrysler, Dodge & Toyota dealers that were 1 mile from my house!! – none on highways) – all gone! – the gas pumps were removed &/or the stations were knocked down completely – all this now for 5 times the number of cars on the road?!
I complain because i pumped gas at age 16-21 at many stations & remember everything back then. & i miss the long hoses that allowed a reach to either side of the car, the spinning station signs that told me the station was open, the much faster fuel pumps, & the fast filling spillproof nozzles. Later, the disasterous long rubber bellows on nozzles of the ’80s
made filling cars with VERTICAL gas tank openings, such as ’67 camaros a very slow annoying experience – you had to press & hold the nozzle continously against the car & pump very slowly, else gas would go all over the ground! & many times it STILL would, depending on the station & even the pump used! Now most of those are gone, but so are the springs on the much shorter nozzles at many stations here – so you still have to hold the nozzle all the time on that ’67!
Getting gas in ’67 for the camaro at a full serve station was like a pitstop – & today it’s just the pits! lol
I also wonder what happened to the VARIETY of stations here – Chevron, Texaco, Citgo, Getty, Amoco, Flying A, Sinclair – all gone!
Maybe you should watch the 1985 movie Back to the Future & see what happens when a car pulls into a gas station in 1955. lol I can’t believe in the ’50s they had powerful airpumps AT THE PUMP ISLANDS! & ck’d/inflated your tires FOR you while you sat in the car!
I still have my ’74 firebird & i remember back in the ’70s, the gas attendant
very willing/asked to wash my windshield – even when when the car was spotless! & ck the oil.
Lastly, are you aware of the havoc that 10% ethanol gas causes on snowblowers, etc.?
& now they want to go to 15%? The owner’s manual for my ’91 car with dohc v6 & sophisticated port fuel injection & no distributor says not to use >10% ethanol. That may be true of cars a lot newer as well.
Cars never break down from gas – even in the past, unless you get a bad tank(dirt, water, etc) – could happen but very rarely anytime today or back then. Old cars with low compression do also run ok on todays “gas”, but old hi comp motors may ping & destroy themselves slowly on today’s crap gas unless you manually retard the timing, which is what’s done electronically with newer cars if the car requires premium & you put in regular.
It’s just all the convenience getting gas in the old days that has disappeared – not to mention the gifts you used to get when you got gas!
Joe, I first drove a car 50 years ago, and legally drove one 45 years ago, so let’s set the “young whippersnapper” thing aside. In the past year I have had two occasions to use air compressors at a filling station, and speed was not an issue either time. The unit takes debit or credit cards (via tap) if you don’t have that elusive Loonie or Twonie in your pocket. I can’t say that I’ve needed air more than once a year for the past twenty years, the last 12 months notwithstanding.
For the record, I saw Back To The Future when it was released in 1985, and I didn’t need to stop for air when I drove to the theatre. I recall everyone laughing pretty hard at the gas station scene from 1955 … it was tremendous comic writing.
If you find you’re regularly in need of compressed air to fill your tires, Chamberlain sells a Garage Power Station for $129. I picked one up for $75 at a Princess Auto clearance a few years ago and it’s a wonderful thing.
I run my snowblower and lawnmower on 91 octane; spark is important in those small, 2-stroke engines. If I was driving a 50-year old, high compression engine I would resort to octane booster. There are over 275 million vehicles registered in the U.S., and a very small fraction of those are 50 years old and in need of high octane fuel. If you were running a fuel company how much would you invest in catering to a tiny fraction of the population? It isn’t good business to do that.
Times change. The world progresses. It’s not always what we remembered, but usually it’s an improvement. Gas is relatively cheap.
Maybe for “white” professionals!
My great uncle bought a 1967 Parisienne, new. Two door hardtop, canary yellow. One of the best looking full size cars ever … and I’m a Ford guy.
Cool car screaming for bucket seats and a floor shifter! Yelling for a factory 4 speed on the floor!!! Imagine cars like this car, Electra’s being equipped with manuals!!!!
I had one very similar to this my senior year of high school. Same bottom color but was white two tone on roof. On the brake pedal it said Wonder Touch. If someone drove it that was not a acclimated to how sensitive the brakes were they put you in the windshield every-time. The car was almost not drivable in icy conditions. I eventually got use to them. I paid $800 for the car with a broken windshield 60k miles and owned by two spinster school teachers that quit driving. Was all original and looked like new. Sold it to a friend and about a year later someone parked on his street started their car one morning and their throttle stuck, they put it in gear and proceeded to peal the sides of about three cars ahead of theirs. My buddy was sick and had to sell the car as-is just so he didn’t have to look at it anymore. Sometimes sh** happens.
My neighbors fiancé had a new, 69 Bonneville w a 428, and every power option available plus factory 8 track, it had 390 hp, and enough torque to tear a building down, I always loved full size Pontiacs
8 lugs , red lines, tri power , 4 speed , please
The 8-lug Pontiac wheel was arguably the most attractive factory wheel ever.
Learned how to drive in my Dad’s just like this one except gold. That sloped back window was so hard to see out of and the trunk so long I backed into a curb on my drivers test but the examiner was nice enough to pretend he didnt feel it!
I had the Bonneville wagon of these. Same engine, new water pump every 40,000 miles, otherwise drive train was bulletproof, frame crossmember that held up rear of transmission snapped due to metal fatigue at 150,000 miles, was not uncommon. 11 mpg around town, 19 on the interstates, FAST off the line, a real sleeper, very little ground clearance, died of rust, buyer put the engine in his Camaro.
Apparently went unsold but, he has MANY other cars:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/valpone/m.html?item=353870630111&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.m3561.l2562
Didn’t watch the video but guessing that since it has dual exhausts, it is a 4-barrel carb. Believe 2v carb cars had single exhaust.
Looks like a nice, honest and unpretentious car. Someone will enjoy it for the price of a used Camry.
We had the same thing as a kid, only it was called an “Executive,” not a Catalina. I think it was a nicer edition. It had the 400 2bbl carb. It ran nice. It was comfortable to ride in. I remember coming and going to football practice in it. I loved that car and no, if you got 10 mpg, you were doing good.