1969 Pontiac Grand Prix SJ: The Longest Hood in Detroit Saves a Nameplate

The 1969 Grand Prix began as a memo written while the old one was dying. Ate Up With Motor records that on April 17, 1967, Benjamin Harrison proposed a special long-wheelbase coupe built from Pontiac's intermediate A-body parts, with a long hood and a short deck. By then, the same history says, the division had discussed dropping the Grand Prix altogether. Its sales had fallen to around 40,000 a year in 1966 and 1967, and Bill Collins, then an assistant chief engineer, called the car a disaster. General manager John DeLorean concluded that the Grand Prix's bulk was at the heart of the problem and decided to restyle and resize it completely.¹

The numbers behind that judgment got worse before the new car arrived. The compiled Pontiac production table records 31,711 Grand Prix hardtops for 1968 at a factory price of $3,697, the last year of the big Catalina-based car. Pontiac's styling studio, under chief stylist Jack Humbert, turned the memo into a shape. Designer Wayne Vieira developed the look, and the stated aim, in Ate Up With Motor's account, was to evoke the great multicylinder touring cars of the 1930s. Mac's Motor City Garage places the work under the eye of GM styling chief Bill Mitchell. What emerged was a hood that seemed to go on forever.^2,1,3

Getting it built required corporate politics as well as design. Production engineering for a B-body 1969 Grand Prix had already begun, so the switch cost money. The new car used what Ate Up With Motor calls an A-Special chassis, a stretched version of the A-body frame two inches longer than the sedan frame, on a 118-inch wheelbase. DeLorean won the support of Pete Estes, and Chevrolet agreed to share the tooling cost of the new roof for its own future personal coupe, the car that became the Monte Carlo. The Engineering Policy Committee approved the program for 1969, and DeLorean and chief engineer Steve Malone had to scramble to launch it on time.^1,4

Pontiac rolled the car out on September 26, 1968. It was about 400 pounds lighter than the 1968 Grand Prix, though heavier than a GTO, and it measured 210.2 inches long on its 118-inch wheelbase. The cabin was built around the driver: Mac's Motor City Garage describes a wraparound instrument panel, sculpted bucket seats, a shift lever in a full-length padded console and a mini-console for the controls on the driver's door. Over-Drive's fact sheet adds a V-shaped grille, a radio antenna embedded in the windshield and flush door handles. Strato bucket seats were standard, in Morrokide vinyl or cloth, with leather trim a $199 option.^3,1,4

The engine list rose in three steps, all gross ratings. The standard Grand Prix, the Model J, carried a 400 four-barrel rated at 350 horsepower, with a 265-horsepower two-barrel 400 for regular fuel available at no cost. The SJ package, $315.96 in Ate Up With Motor's figures, brought a 428 four-barrel rated at 370 horsepower at 4,800 rpm and 472 lb-ft, along with automatic-leveling suspension and SJ badging. A 428 HO at 390 horsepower and 5,200 rpm was optional on both. A three-speed manual was standard, with the four-speed and the Turbo Hydra-Matic each about $226, and the history notes that the vast majority of buyers took the automatic.^1,4

How many took the stick is reported by one source. Mac's Motor City Garage says only 676 Grand Prix were equipped with the optional Muncie four-speed, a figure it does not source. No published count of SJs is documented: Over-Drive offers only an estimate, and dealer and auction claims of particular SJ four-speed and 428 HO four-speed counts come with no stated basis. The SJ share is therefore unknown, not small and not zero. What is certain is the price structure. The base car listed at $3,866, $169 more than the 1968 car and $710 more than a 1969 GTO, and a loaded Grand Prix ran to about $5,500.^3,4,1,5

The option sheet tells the same story of a personal car sold on comfort as well as speed. Ate Up With Motor lists the automatic at $227.04, power steering at $115.85, an AM/FM stereo at $248.56, front disc brakes at $71.62, a padded vinyl top at $142.18 and air conditioning at $421.28. Air conditioning alone cost more than the SJ package. Pontiac, that history argues, did not try to sell the car on its smaller size; it sold it as an extravagantly styled personal car and a flagship for the division's rakish image. The Grand Prix of 1969 was a performance car that expected to be ordered with every convenience.¹

Motor Trend's October 1968 test shows what that meant on the road. Its SJ had the 370-horsepower 428, Turbo Hydra-Matic, a 3.23 axle and G78-14 tires, and the magazine timed it with and without the air conditioning running: 8.5 seconds to 60 mph with the compressor off and 9.5 seconds with it on. The quarter-mile figures in the same data panel run the other way, 16.5 seconds at 86 mph with air conditioning and 17.0 seconds at 83 mph without, an inconsistency in the magazine's own panel. Ate Up With Motor's general claim, that even base automatic cars could reach 60 in 8 seconds or less, is not tied to a named test.^6,1

Buyers answered emphatically. The compiled table counts 112,486 Grand Prix for 1969, three and a half times the 1968 figure, and Ate Up With Motor says the car outsold the Ford Thunderbird by more than two to one. It was the same price-and-proportion argument that the Riviera had made in 1963, delivered in a Pontiac that wore its performance openly. The nameplate that had been a candidate for cancellation in early 1967 had, two years later, more than tripled its sales.^5,2,1,7

The success carried the seed of its own second-year slump. Chevrolet, which had helped pay for the roof, launched the Monte Carlo for 1970 on the same long-hood idea at a lower price, and ChevelleStuff's tables count 145,976 Monte Carlos built that year. The Pontiac table counts 65,750 Grand Prix for 1970, a fall of about 42 percent. Ate Up With Motor attributes the drop partly to the inevitable second-year decline of a fashion-driven model and partly to new competition from the Monte Carlo and Oldsmobile's Cutlass Supreme. The 1969 car had shown General Motors how to sell a personal coupe, and a sister division had already paid for a share of the formula.^1,8,9