At $6,995, Would You Fly To Buy This Incredibly Low-Mileage 1976 Pontiac Sunbird?

Today's Nice Price or No Dice Pontiac Sunbird masks its Chevy Vega origins well. With a V6 engine and manual gearbox, it was also probably unexpectedly fun to drive when new. That makes it odd that it's done so little driving. Let's decide what all that pent-up potential might actually be worth.

We've had quite the run of small cars here this week, what with the Mini we saw on Monday, the Scion iQ on Tuesday, and the capper, a single-cylinder-powered 1967 King Midget just yesterday. To be fair, we did have a romper-stomper V8-powered Chevy SS in the middle there as sort of a gas-sucking palate cleanser. 

Maybe it's the crazy-high gas prices, or perhaps it's a malaise over decadent excesses, but those small cars won our collective hearts. Unfortunately for its seller, the smallest of the lot—the King Midget—didn't win when it came to its value proposition. It proved too crude, quirky, and compromised to command the $7,000 asked for its sale. As a result, when we tallied the vote, the King was dethroned in an 85% 'No Dice' loss.

Chevy's Vega, for all its flaws and failures, certainly sired a surprising plethora of spin-off models across the second half of the 1970s. And that wasn't just at Chevrolet, either. Vega variants found their way into every General Motors division in the U.S. save for Cadillac and GMC trucks. The most blatant Vega clone was offered by the Pontiac division, which slapped a split grille on the car, badged it the Astre, and called it a day.

Perhaps feeling the relationship to the poorly conceived and received Vega too damning, GM re-cloaked the models in new duds and switched out the nameplates, creating the Monza at Chevrolet and the Sunbird at Pontiac. There were also Oldsmobile and Buick editions, making for GM's own version of The Clone Wars.

The Sunbird joined the Astre in the Pontiac lineup as a single model based on the Chevy Monza Towne Coupe, debuting in 1976. A hatchback model was introduced the next year, and a year after that, the Astre wagon was renamed Sunbird but kept its not-so-vaguely Vega nose and body lines.

This 1976 Pontiac Sunbird is the original Coupe bodystyle. This was GM's attempt to compete with Ford's success with the Mustang II coupe, although neither the Chevy nor its near-clone, the Pontiac, was quite as stylish as the Ford. Also, no one would call this Pontiac a "pony car." 

Based on the Vega's H-platform, which was designed to be an economy car, the Sunbird could be optioned with not just four-cylinders but six- and eight-cylinder engines as well. The only compromise was that to change the plugs on the V8 cars, the access was not under the hood but through the wheel wells.

This one has the Buick-sourced 231 CID V6 under its hood, an engine good for 110 horsepower and 190 pound-feet of torque. Happily, that limited output is routed through a Borg-Warner five-speed manual gearbox to the live rear axle. These cars are not overly heavy, so that combo should be able to keep up with modern traffic. The best part? This car has only done a mere 8,585 miles over the course of its life. That's just a tad over 170 miles a year.

That shockingly low mileage is reflected throughout the car's presentation. Wearing a coat of tomato soup red paint with a white vinyl Landau top and closed-in quarter windows, this Sunbird is as tidy as it is stylish. There are no obvious issues with either the paint or that Applebee's patron-pleasing roof. The underside, shown in pictures of the car on a lift, appears just as clean, with only minor surface rust and no major leaks. One thing to note is those wheels. They look like fancy alloys off of some Italian exotic, but are, in fact, plastic wheel covers. Those are the same covers Chevy used on the Monza, and when 'Road & Track' tested the Chevy, back in the day, the covers melted during the braking tests. That's some hysterical stuff right there.

Olson Autos

While the exterior and underside look good, it's the Sunbird's interior where the '70s vibe hits hardest. Just look at that white upholstery. It's so glorious that it makes you feel like you could only drive the car between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Come to think of it, maybe that explains the crazy-low mileage. Regardless, it all looks as-new, or straight out of a museum in the cabin. There's no A/C on the car, so while it might not be the most comfortable ride over the summer months, at least there's no fiddly old A/C system to deal with.

A clean title closes the deal on this Pontiac, but that doesn't end the questions about its past. How did it end up being a 50-year-old car that looks brand new? Where did it spend all those years hoarding miles for a later life? Most importantly, what's to be done with it now?

Before we delve into any of that, we need to consider the car's $6,995 asking price to determine if there's any point in such an effort at all. What do you think about this Sunbird? Is that a fair price for an extraordinary survivor? Or does that dealer price tag have you willing to let the sun set on this bird?

You decide!

A dealer site out of Stoughton, Wisconsin, or go here if the ad disappears.

Hat tip to mnmrosen for the hookup!

Help me out with Nice Price or No Dice. Hit me up at robemslie@gmail.com and send a fixed-price tip. Remember to include your commenter handle.