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1977–79 Pontiac Bonneville and Catalina: Twilight of the Big Ponchos
The cars built on General Motors’ famous 1977 B-body platform are undoubtedly some of its greatest successes. Slimmer, lighter, better to drive, and cleaner-looking than their elephantine 1971–76 predecessors, they were huge sellers, unquestionably vindicating the General’s risky downsizing decision. The platform was good enough to stay in production until it was prematurely retired to make room for SUV production in 1996. But among the Caprice Classics, Impalas, turbocharged LeSabre Sport Coupes, Custom Cruisers, and diesel Deltas, the Pontiac Bonneville and Catalina hardly ever get mentioned.
In part, this is because they were the shortest-lived of these B-cars, offered only from 1977 until the summer of 1981. When sales tanked thanks to the OPEC oil crisis in 1979 and a recession a year earlier, Pontiac’s then-general manager, Robert Stempel, axed both the Bonneville and Catalina. Stempel’s replacement, Bill Hoglund, eventually brought the big cars back, but his future vision for Pontiac lay with cars like the Fiero, the 1982 Firebird, and the front-drive 6000.
Even fans of 1970s Pontiacs would usually rather discuss the Firebird, Trans Ams, and Grand Prix, the excitement brand’s biggest winners (and legends) of that decade. That buzz, and the relative scarcity of the Bonneville and Catalina, has led to the perception that these Pontiacs weren’t all that successful, but that’s not really true. Full-size Pontiac sales rose in 1977 and actually went up again in 1979. Buyers liked them. They weren’t, however, anything like the much-venerated late-1960s Pontiacs, which might be why collectors don’t talk much about them today.
Growing up where everybody drove big Detroit iron when these cars were fairly new—Chicago and then the Bronx—I’ve always been fascinated by the Bonneville’s clean lines, bold colors, and fender skirts. It seemed the most distinctive “Project 77” car to me, and like the Buick LeSabre coupe, oddly similar to Paulo Martin’s Fiat 130 Coupe. But no marque history or fan forum has ever really delved into how they were created or whatever happened to them—until now. After some months of searching, lead designer Terry Henline told me all about it.
“It’s funny, this is the story of the Bonneville and the Catalina,” Henline started, “but it’s really the story of how a Chevrolet became a Pontiac.”
The Designer and the Chevrolet
If you recognize Henline’s name, it’s probably because he played a key role in dozens of famous GM designs, even if he isn’t much interested in the limelight. He came up through the Fisher Body Craftsman’s guild, and his list of hits stretches from the original 1970 Chevrolet Monte Carlo to the 1988 Pontiac Grand Prix, as well as the Chevy Avalanche and Hummer H2. Shortly after the Monte Carlo went into production, Henline was transferred to the Chevrolet Advanced Studio, which was more about ideas than production cars.
“We never knew why we were moved around; that was something only VPs understood,” Henline told me. “But we did get some of the power dynamic. [Design boss] Bill Mitchell hated facing [Chevrolet head] John DeLorean, so he’d only come around when DeLorean wasn’t around. One day, Mitchell walked into the studio, having just returned from the Turin show, and said ‘Kid’—he always called me kid—‘Over in Italy they’re doing this real sheer, clean look. Put something like this together and show me what you can do.’”
“Like the Fiat 130 Coupe?” I asked Henline.
“No,” he said. “This may sound shocking but I can’t say I was truly paying attention to Italian cars then. I just interpreted my boss’ directive, and I knew how to put a car together, though the renderings I did were influenced by the roof of the Fiat 124 Coupe.”
Henline soon produced two large airbrushed renderings of a spare, muscular coupe with sheer sides and an airy greenhouse. “Nobody at the design center had been doing anything like that. He’d challenged us to figure out how to build a Chevy that captured that sheer, planar look.” With fellow advanced designers Jerry Brochstein and Hank Cramer, Henline then created a full-size clay model of the shape, which wowed Mitchell and the other design leaders, including Chuck Jordan and Jack Humbert.
“They said, ‘Well, I think that’s it,’” and that look from Henline’s team set the direction for the 1977 Caprice and Impala. “That’s how we got the sheer look. I’m as proud of that illustration as anything I’ve ever done.” Chevy’s production studio designers then took the clay and concepts to flesh out the production cars.
Chevrolet to Pontiac
“When people did well at GM, unless they had some personality problem, they tended to get promoted.” Right after the success of the blue rendering and the clay, Henline said, “Somebody decided to promote me to lead Pontiac Studio One and re-interpret the car I’d just done for Chevrolet as a Pontiac.” For what it’s worth, Henline was not a person who actually drove traditional big GM cars. Around the time he started working on the Bonneville and Catalina, he and his wife both drove Austin-Healey 3000s, even in Michigan winters.
The promotion made one half of the team that would shape the two decades of Pontiacs, the other being John Schinella, who ran Pontiac Studio Two. While Schinella’s group handled specialty machines like Firebirds and Fieros, Henline’s team worked on bread-and-butter models like the Bonneville, Catalina, and LeMans.
“We were competitive comrades, and not just within Pontiac. The studios were separate, so what was going on in Pontiac One was a secret to the rest of the building. We wanted to one-up the other studios, and it helped to set high standards and differentiate the cars. Later on, GM de-emphasized this way of working, which I didn’t think was so great.”
In the mid-1970s, Pontiac struggled mightily to reconcile its 1960s performance image with falling power outputs, safety regs, and the increasing customer focus on luxury or the appearance thereof. The decade also coincided with constantly shifting leadership at the division, with four general managers in less than 10 years, each of whom had little history with Pontiac and struggled with the fast-evolving market challenges of the time.
They and Pontiac dealers wanted to sell cars that were in tune with the times, so the shape that Henline’s team crafted wasn’t meant to be overtly muscular. “We wanted to create a glamorous full-size sedan that had distinct Pontiac overtones. I look back on it and I’m not 100% sure we were successful there, but we did our best and we liked the car.” Many of its traits, including the skirts, were also longtime Pontiac tropes from older Bonnevilles, Star Chiefs, and Catalinas.
Henline, for his part, wasn’t necessarily a big fan of fender skirts. “If they work, they work,” he said, “but what I was really doing was just trying to give the Pontiacs a more unique flair. You’ll remember it had to share some panels with other cars, including Chevrolets and Buicks. We were also asked by marketing to do some things, like the multiple vinyl top arrangements, that we might otherwise not have done.” The Catalina, meanwhile, got open rear wheels, which were more similar to Henline’s original concept.
Good Times, Bad Times
Although Henline didn’t consider them perfect, the designs were finished in a compressed time frame and they came out well. GM dealers and executives fretted over the downsizing decision, but they needn’t have worried. Even at Pontiac, where big cars had been struggling as Oldsmobile swiped sales in the era of the Brougham, sales rose from 137,216 big Ponchos in 1976 to 207,920 in ’77, peaking at 226,300 in 1979. Buyers liked the fancier versions, too, with Catalina sales declining while Bonneville and flashier Bonneville Broughams boomed.
They were not performance machines, it’s true. Most used Pontiac’s 301 V-8, though, at opposite ends of the sales bell curve, a few Catalinas used Buick’s 3.8-liter V-6, and a few (now highly prized) models got Pontiac 350 or 400 V-8s. Oldsmobile’s burly 403 sometimes subbed in, too, in high-altitude–market Bonnevilles. None had more than 180 horsepower, but they were reliable, comfy, torque-surfing cruisers in an era of iffy quality, and they looked glamorous. They sold about as well as the Buick LeSabre, but then came 1980.
That year, GM updated the big cars again with formal-looking but more aerodynamic shapes while also shuffling around the engines. The update had been planned from the start and work on the 1980 models had begun right around the time the ’77s had gone on sale. They launched right into the teeth of the 1979 OPEC oil crisis and then a double-dip recession that did not abate until 1982. Sales of all traditional full-size cars cratered, and the big Pontiacs had their worst year since 1942, falling by 56%, though the drop was most pronounced on the Catalina.
GM’s archival photos show that a slightly more dramatic look was considered for the 1980 Pontiacs, but they were essentially just evolutions of the ’77. Henline didn’t think it had anything to do with the styling, and even if it had, there would have been no way of predicting that. “One of the problems you have as a designer is that you finish your work, and the car doesn’t come out for three years. By then, you’re working on something else. For me, I just didn’t look back very much. Most designers are not marketers; they focus on the next big idea.”
Henline’s later Pontiac works would spin lots of money and positive press for Pontiac. Around the time the Bonneville and Catalina were dropped, his team was beginning work on what became the formal-roofed 1985 Grand Am. Demand for it immediately outstripped supply, and it soon became Pontiac’s biggest seller.
After that came the 1988 Grand Prix and the 1990 Trans Sport minivan, the former of which Henline is particularly proud of, because it combined the artistic act of taking the Grand Prix in an entirely new direction, with hundreds of hours of wind-tunnel testing to make it functional. It then won loads of accolades and looked great on both the road and the track.
“I have an autographed poster from Rusty Wallace from when he was driving that Grand Prix, and back then, I think everyone at GM Design Center was jealous of Schinella and me because of the work we were doing and all the racing events we got to go to.” Henline continued designing until 2001 and still drives GM cars today, but he hasn’t changed much. “We have two Buicks, but I also have a 2013 Mini Cooper S that I love. When the boost kicks in, it really does feel like a go-kart.”
Bill Hoglund and the Parisienne Epilogue
In November 1980, Pontiac finally got the leader it needed. Bill Hoglund replaced Stempel, who spent only 18 months on the job before heading to Opel. Pontiac’s popular Firebird and Grand Prix had not overcome the lack of direction from all those managers, and Stempel had aimed to reconstitute Pontiac as the “small car” division.
According to most histories, Stempel axed the Pontiac B-bodies, even though more than 80,000 Bonnevilles were sold in 1980. The only product Pontiac had for this market in 1982 was the “Bonneville G,” a renamed, lightly restyled version of the former LeMans sedan and wagon, with the once-popular LeMans name and coupe axed.
In 1992, product planner John Middlebrook explained to author Thomas Bonsall that the 1970s had been full of reactive decisions for previous managers. “Why is Olds selling all those Cutlass Supremes? Let’s get a car like that. Why is Buick doing better up here? Let’s put some velour trim in. Truthfully, I saw those years as trying to be all things to all people.”
Hoglund, whom Henline describes as a dedicated manager, had a long history with Pontiac dating back to 1964 and understood the brand. In January 1981, he organized the “Pontiac Image Conference,” in which execs from all over the division, including Henline and Schinella, brainstormed how to get the division back on track. The result was the slate of clean, Euro-look models of the 1980s that began with the Firebird and 6000 and a new advertising slogan: “We Build Excitement.”
Hoglund did not entirely forget about traditional customers, however. In 1981, Pontiac’s large Canadian dealer body refused to let go of the B-body and continued building their version of the car in Oshawa, Ontario, under the long-running Parisienne name. Midwestern Pontiac dealers liked Hoglund’s new direction but also pleaded for B-body models to sell as memories of the fuel crisis faded, so in 1983, the Parisienne came down from Canada. It was popular enough to justify having the 1980 Bonneville’s rear styling grafted back on for 1985–86.
It was then replaced by the futuristic-looking, front-drive 1987 H-body Bonneville, designed by Schinella’s group. That car distilled the new direction of the division into a totally fresh large car. For the next two years, the Pontiac Safari wagon, still sporting almost the same styling it had in 1977, carried on as the last vestige of the rear-drive big Pontiac, until it, too, faded away in 1989 when the Trans Sport arrived.
Steve’s Bonneville
The burgundy ’78 Bonneville you see here is owned by Washingtonian Steve Marchese. Meeting him at a local cars and coffee is what reignited my curiosity about these Bonnevilles, which are rare now, especially in the frowsy, truck-loving Pacific Northwest. Though he did not know it, Marchese is a big fan of Henline’s designs, having bought the Bonneville because he missed his old 1977 Chevy Impala, which he’d owned in Minnesota, where big Broughams are a bit more common.
As we cruised up the Kitsap Peninsula en route to our photo spot, it was easy to appreciate the car’s merits. It’s a 301, but there’s a nice V-8 burble, a smooth ride, and as much room as any modern car. It’s impossible not to like it, even if it isn’t fast. Marchese bought the car from its second owner, who’d had it for 42 years, and among the few things he did to it afterward was fitting the “turbine” original hubcaps.
Like me, Marchese’s fascination started early in NYC. “I’m from Queens and I was a kid when these were new, and you’d see all the neighborhood guys in Regals and Cutlasses and Coupe DeVilles. To me, this is sort of peak GM, but downsized.”
“GM still knew how to make a big V-8 rear-drive car then, one that was spacious and wouldn’t bankrupt you, either at the gas pump or the mechanic’s shop. I think they got a lot of things right with these cars at a time when many things were going wrong. People often speak dismissively about Malaise Era cars, but you have to remember the challenges they were facing.”
Marchese also likes coupes, and while Pontiac did bring back the B-body Parisienne in 1983, the two-door cars never returned. In fact, 1980 was the beginning of the end for big two-doors, and by 1988, there were none left. “This kind of car that just disappeared. It’s a middle-class luxury coupe. It’s not as luxurious as a Buick Electra or something, but it has lots of nice design details that my Chevy didn’t have. You’d hardly know that the hardware is basically the same as the Impala’s, other than the engine.”
“They also have a distinctiveness. Even from far away, you can tell a Pontiac of this era from an Olds, a Buick, or a Chevy. I always loved these Pontiac coupes for their details,” he adds. Undoubtedly, this was exactly the result Henline’s team hoped for.
Full-Size Pontiac Sales by Year:
- 1976: 137,216
- 1977: 207,920
- 1978: 200,894
- 1979: 226,300
- 1980: 98,533
- 1981: 101,335
This was the car. In 1977 it was now the right size and you could still get a 400 Pontiac V8 not an Olds or Chevy. The coupe in Emerald Green was great.
That blue render looked fantastic.
Agree, just a hint of Jaguar to it in a good way. Build it today.
I also like the model in the black and white photo directly under that in the article.
My family has owned nearly a dozen of the next-gen of these, and being in Canada quite a few of them were Parisiennes. I’ve always preferred the more base trim ones for looks, plus the lower trims on these held the salt badly. Good cards.
That blue rendering would built excitement today if made into a production model without ruining the proportions of it.
Thanks for the article. Nice read. Love the archival photos. Would love to see more historical design photos from 71 to 76 with the sportier b body styles.
Me thinks that whole 70’s generation of evolving designs and these cars were way underestimated, based on the fuel crisis, emissions , and of course the Japanese invasion. I love these US classics for their style and luxury at a price most people could still afford. Or you could cram your family in the Toyota Corolla fo the day? Not!
If you can find a decent shape US beast of the day , buy one you won’t regret it . Great car to being back memories with you better half on Sunday ice cream runs.
Remember when cars had style? Compare these Ponchos with the (at best) bland or (at worst) downright ugly vehicles on the road today. And even adjusted for inflation, the price of these cars would have been very affordable today. The glory days of the automobile are sadly over – guess I’m stating the obvious!
Nostalgia is one heck of a drug… I’d argue that cars today look the best they have in decades. As enthusiasts, I think we get stuck in “the good old days” mentality and forget to look at things objectively.
Pontiac has always had an image crisis, as in, they were either gorgeous or had the same style as a dog’s backside. Personally I think these cars look good, in a box on wheels kind of way, or the same way that the 90s-00s jelly bean era looks decent at the right angle.
These were great cars, great when new and great today. Now, we all drive jellybeans. I guess growing up in the 1970s was better than I realized at the time.
I recall that the dealer newspaper ads of the time (I was a commuter-college student then) advertised that the Bonneville was the only GM sedan available with full rear fender skirts(!) I liked the clean styling of the Impalas, still do, and didn’t care for padded vinyl roofs and extra chrome.
Pontiac wanted to sell sporty performance while the dealers (and customers) wanted Brougham-style pseudo-luxury. It was the dsco era, after all.
These cars used to make good winter beaters but now they’re too old to be reliable enough for that.
Too Old to be Reliable?! Not if you know how to work on a car. They came with 350 transmissions, Put a 200r4 (no electronics needed other than a clutch converter lock up) in it, Add fuel injection and you have a reliable efficient cruiser. These cars are basically bullet proof and you can do brake upgrades and suspension if you want to for a lot less than the down payment on a new 30,000 new car.
“The story of how a Chevrolet became a Pontiac”. Wow, that speaks volumes. Much of the reason why we no longer have Pontiac, Buick (don’t even mention those ridiculous SUVs with Buick badges), and Olds.
I grew up with these cars, at least the Chevy version: my Dad drove a Caprice wagon for years. These B and C bodies were absolutely bulletproof and soundly engineered cars. I only remember that the paint jobs were crap. I still own a derivative (1994 Fleetwood) which I will never part with.
Too bad that the B bodies from this era got caught up in the badge-engineering sickness that others did, notably the Volare/Aspen, Crown Vic/Merc Marquis, etc. Although the B body Pontiac was a nice looking car and you could get a Pontiac engine (in the early versions, anyway), they were difficult to distinguish from their B Body cousins in 1977 and beyond. Certainly not the case in prior years.
Dad and his neighbor each bought new ’77 Catalina 4-doors. Dad’s came with a 301 cid Pontiac engine, and Mike’s came with a 305 cid Chevy engine.
Didn’t some of the Bonnies have an optional 455 V-8, which had the disastrous Aluminum timing gear like GM’s V-6?
Sadly, I doubt it. All of the BOP 455’s were gone after 1976. The best that you could have had after 1976 was a 403 Olds.
re timing gear, I believe most of the gm’s had them. I know chevy did as well as pontiac. I had one go out on my ’69 GTO at around 40,000 miles. It was a non interference motor so all that happend was it didn’t run. No problem for a gear head to fix and back then parts were cheap, less then 50 bucks to fix and back on the road in less than a day.
We bought a one year old 1978 Bonneville as our first 4 door car so we could get our daughter in and out of her car seat. It was our first car with power windows and air conditioning (we did not have ac in our house!) and we drove it for over 100,000 miles. It was a great car, the only problem we had was that living in upstate NY, the aluminum support frame for the rear bumper corroded away but since that was part of the 5mph bumper system it was replaced under a recall. By the time we needed to buy another car, the “full size” sedans were even smaller so we had to reluctantly switch to a minivan to hold our family of five.
I bought a 1973 Pontiac Grandville Convertible a year ago and I love the car, it’s red with with white interior and a white top, all original, needs minimal work, thinking of bringing it to some car shows soon 👍☺️
You don’t happen to live in Tustin do you? Someone on my walking route has one fitting that description that appeared about a year ago and I’d love to get a closer look. Either way, congrats!
Amazing, and authors digging deep brings an ear to ear grin…
Speaking of engines, how could one forget about the Olds 350 diesel???
Two years ago I lucked(?) onto a 5.7 Olds powered version. I had sold for GM new as an (almost) 21 year old. I drove my bosses 5.7 Cutlass Supreme Brougham, and even though my daily driver was a $250 ’70 GTO 400 350 3 speed, I really enjoyed my short drives in his overstuffed BruHam. Fast forward 40+ years, and I joined the 5.7 Malaise group, and an interesting Bonneville popped up in San Francisco. Seller and buyer agreed on a price, the lowly sum of $2000, I flew out, changed the oil, installed two new tires and headed east towards Houston, where I spent a week doing repairs at a friend’s shop. I headed east again and as the seller promised, she cruised 80+ mph returning an honest 27mpg. No overdriving or even lockup torque converter. 2.29 gears do wonders! Had I even ever considered a 2 door BonnyVille? No. Can I remember seeing one without a vinyl top? No. Will I ever sell my clattery Malaise 2 door Pontiac! NO!!!
https://photos.app.goo.gl/zfYMceG4hj5DhCrT6
https://photos.app.goo.gl/fYRxkUHxrRLyCrF7A
https://photos.app.goo.gl/7uVAxQfJaBYL96vW7
Enjoyed the article — is a reminder of what was, now looking back, a more positive era of automobiles than I remembered. Makes me want to own one :-))