Tag Archives: Pontiac

Elks Lodge 2016 Car Show General Gallery

Gallery June 3, 2016 Albert S. Davis Leave a comment

Last year, I brought a Miata to this show, and I somehow managed to win 3rd place in the Import class (well, there were 3 of us). This year, the Lincoln may not have won anything, but my favorite car at the show won Best in Show, and the rest of the field wasn’t half-bad either. I spent the entire afternoon taking photos, talking to participants, and generally having a ball at the fact that the show was just steps away from my residence. This is the third year the show’s been running and the Elks Lodge in Piscataway does a beautiful job of getting the word out and getting some beautiful classic cars to turn up and show off their best. Enjoy the photos.

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Car Shows

Friendly’s Old Bridge Meet, March 5 2016

March 8, 2016 Albert S. Davis Leave a comment

I don’t go to nighttime car meets that often, only because I’m not a big part of the scene in my local area. Luckily, it seems that the scene is more noticable south of my area than it is near where I live, and the Old Bridge car guys organized a great meet right by a good friend’s house. This meet had a little bit of everything, from a restored 1966 Chrysler Newport to a Buick Grand National, to a Hellcat, to a pair of very loud (and rather fun) old ex-police Crown Vics. Much fun was had, even though I couldn’t get dinner at Friendly’s due to the line and the fact that the Old Bridge PD shut it down after about 3 hours. I’ll definitely show up to the next event, and hopefully the Miata’s top will be replaced after the rear window exploded. Enjoy the short selection of photos from the event.

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Car Shows

Muscle Cars at the Original Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank, CA

December 8, 2015 Albert S. Davis 1 Comment

So, as all of you readers know, I was in Los Angeles during Thanksgiving week visiting my brother Matthew and his fiancee, Rachel. After a delicious meal of sushi that evening in Burbank, we started to notice a whole bunch of American hot rods (old and new) passing us by on the streets outside. It didn’t take long for my interest to become piqued by the sounds of pushrod V8s and high-lift cams, so my brother said, “Let’s go check it out after dinner.” Thankfully, my flight wasn’t slated to leave until midnight, so we went out to the scene over at the original Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank, where the meet was going down.

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Car Shows, SHOWCASE

Royal Oak Shell Cruise-In, July 25, 2015.

August 17, 2015 Albert S. Davis 1 Comment

Until last month, I’d never been to Detroit. Nick kept telling me as we got closer and closer to the Motor City that the cruise-in scene on weekend nights was absolutely my sort of thing, and I was stoked. Of course, Mother Nature had other ideas. After Nick, Shane, and I got drenched in a freak thunderstorm that gave us the best rainbow I’d seen in a decade, I looked around at the cars that did manage to show up–and I wasn’t disappointed. Continue reading Royal Oak Shell Cruise-In, July 25, 2015. →

Car Shows, Obscure Autos, SHOWCASE

1985 Pontiac Trans Am Kammback at the 2015 Concours of America

July 31, 2015 Albert S. Davis 1 Comment

When I say Kammback, the Pontiac Firebird is not a car anyone thinks of. People will think of it if I say phrases like “Screaming Chicken”, “Mullet”, “Eighties”, and my personal favorite, “Drunk Teenager Crashed It Into a Telephone Pole”. Well, this one lacks the drunken teenager and the Screaming Chicken, but it makes up for it with much added Kammback style. Nick and Shane took one look at this thing and said “Albert, this one’s all yours.” I gladly obliged. Continue reading 1985 Pontiac Trans Am Kammback at the 2015 Concours of America →

Car Shows, SHOWCASE

2015 Elks Lodge Car Show (Lodge 2414) General Gallery

Gallery May 19, 2015 Albert S. Davis 1 Comment

This past Saturday, I was in a conundrum. I knew that the local Elks Lodge up the street was putting on a car show, but I wasn’t sure if they’d let me put my Miata in the show. I decided to just drive it over and see what would happen. I was the first guy to show up in an imported car (there was already a Toyota Truck in the show) but they let me in for a few bucks and I gladly obliged, hiding the Miata, in all its scratched-up, four-cylinder glory, in between a few Corvettes. For my efforts, I was rewarded third in class for import cars–which came with a nice $25 gift certificate to the local Italian establishment, Mama Rosina’s.

In all, this was a very well-done show. While the variety of cars was a bit limited, the people made this a very friendly, neighborhood-type show, with people from all over the local area coming out to show off their best cars. We had everything from a 1956 Bel Air (that was all original and awaiting restoration) to a late-model Maserati GranTurismo, C7 Stingray, and a 2014 Super Snake that shook the ground on startup. Enjoy the photos from Riverside Park in Piscataway, New Jersey. Continue reading 2015 Elks Lodge Car Show (Lodge 2414) General Gallery →

Car Games

For $6,800, Would You Buy An Elio or Something Else?

April 10, 2015 ndubs77 9 Comments

Our article on Elio Motors has been getting some decent buzz, and it’s inspired me to do a special, Elio Motors edition price game.

This is just for fun, but it’s also meant to illustrate the reality of the Elio’s $6,800 price. There are no other brand new cars even close to that range, and there sure as hell isn’t anything that will touch 80 MPG.

But with all that said, pretend you have $6,800 ready to spend. Do you buy yourself an Elio? Or do you scour the used car classifieds and find something a little faster or more practical?

See our picks below, and share yours in the comments…

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Car Shows, SHOWCASE

Class: Of Course! Custom 1985 Pontiac Parisienne at the 2014 River Edge Car Show

July 22, 2014 Albert S. Davis Leave a comment

Michael Levy is the sort of guy who thinks differently from the rest of us car guys. When we zig, he zags. When we tell him that a mid-Eighties Pontiac isn’t a car we want in a collection, he begs to differ, then goes the extra mile. This is a 1985 Pontiac Parisienne Brougham, a car from the mid-Eighties automotive toss-up that was General Motors’ full-size cars. 1985 was the final year for Pontiac to sell a big sedan on this platform (from here on out, it was just wagons, and only through 1990). The Parisienne was pretty much identical in almost every way to the Chevy Caprice of the era, except that it was a Pontiac product. Michael, however, has other ideas. He took this Parisienne and made it his own, by making a number of changes. The badges have been Frenched in (made flush to the bodywork), and the paint, despite being the right colors of the car from the factory, were redone in a matte finish, not metallic like the original. The interior is still pretty much stock, but the Grey Poupon in the center console indicates that we’re not talking about a normal set of tastes. Under the skin, he’s added sequential turn signals (a la the current Mustangs), a train horn, and even a shovel and tarp in the trunk–for those of you who owe him money. It’s currently running a 305, but he did mention plans to put a 350 in it soon. He’s painted the wire wheel covers to hide the center of the spokes, making a “floating” effect appear between the trim rings and the center caps. However, the best modification to this Parisienne has to be the suicide doors–this was the one modification that was making everyone do a double-take, including me. It’s done so well, it looks like the factory should have done it in the first place. This is no Rolls-Royce, and it’s not a pimpmobile. It’s a “class-mobile”, and I absolutely love the uniqueness of this car. I enjoyed seeing this car in River Edge last week, and I’m sure you will all enjoy it as well. Enjoy the photos. Great car, Michael!

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Car Shows, SHOWCASE

Highlights from the 2014 River Edge Car Show

July 15, 2014 Albert S. Davis 2 Comments

On Sunday, I attended the River Edge Classic Car Show in River Edge, NJ thanks to a tip from my aunt, who happens to live there. I was expecting this show to be another small neighborhood car show in a small town in Bergen County. To say the very least, I was completely and utterly wrong. Despite the rain all over New Jersey and the threatening, humid air hovering over the city park, the show went on and was a runaway success. Admission was free, food was reasonably priced, and the atmosphere was friendly and full of good vibes. All sorts of cars were welcome, from a gorgeous early 1930s Chevrolet sedan all the way up to a restored 1970 Plymouth AAR Cuda, among many other fantastic cars. There were muscle cars, hot rods, offbeat classics, Mustangs, and even a Lotus Esprit V8. I was incredibly impressed at the variety and the caliber of cars on display out on the street on Sunday afternoon. The weather held up, everyone had a great time, and I even saw a 1969 Mustang Mach 1 that I’d judged in 2007 (more on that car in a future post). A great day was had. Enjoy the photos, everyone!

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Cars We've Driven, Used Car Gems

Test Driven: 2004 Pontiac GTO

May 18, 2012 Albert S. Davis Leave a comment

The three letters “G-T-O” are legendary in automotive culture. They stand for “Gran Turismo Omologato”, an Italian phrase which means “Grand Touring Homologation”. Ferrari is the most famous manufacturer to use this phrase, as the famous 250GTO entered history as one of the most famous and sought-after Ferraris ever built. The other manufacturer to use this acronym heavily was General Motors during the same time period. From 1964 to 1974, Pontiac built its GTO, at first just an option package on the midsize Tempest, then later on a fully-fledged model. The GTO kicked off the muscle-car era, an era that went down as one of the most famous in American automotive history, but died in 1974 as a flabby memory of its former self, downgraded to an option on the Ventura (Pontiac’s Chevy Nova clone). But, in 2004, GM decided to bring back the name, 30 years later. They took the Holden Monaro, slapped a new front and rear end on it, moved the steering wheel, and gave it a few Pontiac badges. I took this used 2004 model to the streets to see if it was any good.

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Cars We've Driven, Used Car Gems

Test Driven: 2009 Pontiac G8 GT

March 7, 2012 Albert S. Davis 1 Comment

Pontiac’s long history came to an end in 2009 amidst GM’s bankruptcy and Pontiac’s lack of distinction within the General Motors family. But, the announcement came at at time when Pontiac began to distance themselves from the GM marching order, and a few years before had started producing some models with some real “driving excitement”. The GTO, which was a bit of a market fluke, may not have looked the part of a muscle car, but certainly went like one. The Solstice, the General’s answer to the Miata, hit the streets in 2006, after a very positive reception on the auto show circuit. On the heels of the Dodge Charger (and the renaissance of the big RWD-V8 American sedan), Pontiac launched the G8 in 2008, right when I turned 18–and I kept going back to the local Pontiac dealership waiting for one to arrive.