If you look back at some of my musings of Pontiac in the late 1970s, you will often see me refer to a civil war kind of mentality within the GM division. On one hand you had those who were all about personal luxury, fluff and filler, smooth rides and upmarket sales. And on the other you had the fire-breathing horsepower faithful who kept cars like the Trans Am going regardless of corporate decisions. These same gearheads had slipped the 455 Super Duty past the guards for the 1973-74 model years, well after the party was over in Detroit. They had turned the Colonnade-body Grand Am into the Can Am, with strong echoes of the GTO beforehand. They had even tried to light a fire with the new-for-1978 Grand Am CA concept cars, but other than a few magazine tests that sang the praises like a church choir. Pontiac’s mid-size attempt at a hot two-door with an actual trunk was a solid effort for the times: the 301 V8 punched up to 190 horsepower, a four-speed, four-wheel disc brakes, 15×8 snowflake wheels, the Trans Am’s steering box, plenty of suspension goodies, and a look that echoed the Trans Am in all of the right ways. It was a great plan…then GM being GM, they didn’t do squat with the idea and let the Grand Am die off. Even during the mid-1980s G-body performance boom, Pontiac got the short end of the stick and the 2+2 was saddled with an embarrassing 150 horse 305.

I dig the Grand Am. Yeah, it’s a Malibu with the usual GM division changes, but that’s not a bad thing. This one, however, is better than that. a 1974 YY-code 455 sits in the engine bay, Wilwood brakes are at all four corners, and a mixture of Eibach, Bilstein, UMI and Spohn components compose the suspension gear, and you can see for yourself how clean the car actually is. While we’d obviously prefer the manual trans, the automatic isn’t the worst thing in the world here. Pontiac could’ve kicked off the 1980s with a bang and instead went for fluff and filler. This Grand Am will show you the error of that decision.

eBay Link: 1979 Pontiac Grand Am