For $20,000, Is This 1969 Pontiac Custom S The One?
Today's
Nice Price or Crack Pipe Pontiac is claimed to be – are you ready for this – a topless 69-er. Okay, now that I have your attention, you'll need to decide if this Custom S is worth going down to the tune of twenty grand.
As I noted yesterday, Americans never really kittened to big fastback cars. That still appears to be the case as Monday's hunched-over 1978 Olds Cutlass dropped in a sizable 62% Crack Pipe loss. I think there were even some non-Americans in there dunning the car for its shape, terrible motor, and, at the time, GM-don't-give-a-damn-ness.
GM's cars from the '70s were mostly uninspiring, but before that... well, not only did the world's biggest automaker build some pretty fine cars, they also built them in an incredible diversity of trim-levels and models.
One GM brand that was doing its best to fill every conceivable crack in the sales dike was Pontiac. Their '60s mid-sized A-body was offered in a panoply of versions; in every shape from mild, to singularly wild. Pontiac's family ride was like the brand's own Sybil, coming in with multiple personalities and different names for each. The base car was the Tempest, but piling onto that you could have the Le Mans, the Sprint, the balls-out GTO, or, for 1969 only, the Custom S.
The Custom who now? Um, yeah, the Custom S was intend to be a mid-tier model in-between the Tempest and the Le Mans. It came with Pontiac's SOHC inline six as standard, with a couple of V8s on the option list, again to ensure that everybody got what they wanted.
This
1969 Custom S rocks a 350 V8, seemingly one of the 330-bhp 4-bbl mills, and is claimed to be one of only 2,300 convertibles built. The ad notes that convertible has a new top, but that it's still in a box. Already on the car are a new rear suspension, gas tank, and carpet, so I guess he hasn't been totally lazy.
Also seemingly new is all the sound equipment that makes the trunk look like Dr. Who's bidet, and probably sonically sterilizes surgical equipment. Maybe the seller would be amenable to ripping all that crap out and lowering the price a bit?
That way you wouldn't have two radios in the dash and could enjoy the otherwise stock interior. Aside from the multiple head units, that looks like a pretty plain jane place to be, what with its split bench, manual-everything, and monotone color scheme. And no, I don't know what's going on with that dash cap.
On the outside, the car looks to be in fine shape, and again with a black on black presentation. Rallye wheels hold the car up, and the enormous bumpers on each end seem to hold their chrome pretty well.
That nose should be noted, as the styling of these cars maintain one massive honker. I would want to ask the seller why the Custom S badge appears in only one of the pictures, however. I'd also want to check out that VIN to ensure that this S is really an S.
If it is, then this rare beast might just be worth some serious buckaroos. '60s American iron, especially drop-tops, do seem to have risen in value over the past decade, after years of languishing unappreciated. The seller is asking $20,000 for this special Pontiac, and you now should put your thinking caps on and determine if that's a deal or not. What do you say, is this special '69 worth twenty large? Or, is that a price that won't make this S car go?
You decide!
Windy City
Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to AMG OMG for the hookup!
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