Though not unexpected, General Motors' announcement today that it will eliminate the Pontiac in 2010 filled me with nostalgia for my first car -- a cream-colored 1953 Pontiac Chieftain convertible.
Of course, some author once said, "Nostalgia has nothing to do with memory."
Actual memories of the car mix pleasure and embarrassment. My mother, a hard-working secretary in the textile trade, bought the car in 1956 for her twin 16-year-old sons from her boss' wife. Three years old, the car -- California license plate JNZ 032 -- had 22,000 miles on it.
My brother Larry and I repaid our mother the $1,100 she had shelled out for the car within a few months from our earnings as Hollywood movie extras and as street-corner salesmen of summer produce, Easter lilies and Christmas trees for our uncle.
In the Pontiac's favor, it was shiny and well-kept, with green leather seats, the suggestion of tailfins and an endless hood swathed in chrome stripes that ended with an orange plastic Indian head that lit up when the headlights went on. Chrome was slathered on everywhere. And it was a convertible.
On the other hand, a 1953 Pontiac was an awfully unhip car for kids at Los Angeles' Hamilton High School. The car had an enormous cast-iron engine that one auto writer described as "the Abraham Lincoln Straight 8." It was a low-compression, flathead engine that put out only 122 horsepower despite its size and weight. The Hydra-Matic transmission took forever to run through all four gears from a traffic light until it shifted into fourth at 22 mph.
For Southern California teenagers in 1956, a slow straight-8 didn't cut it. Nor did any 6-cylinder car. Only a Ford V-8 or maybe a Chevy V-8 (Chevy introduced its V-8 in 1955) was acceptable.
The Pontiac, in short, looked like a mom's car. But we were glad to have it, washed and polished it on Saturday mornings (supervised by our neighbor's cat, Diane) and kept it until it fell apart six years later with only 62,000 miles on it; GM cars were made to look good when new but not to last very long. Chrome was of low quality, largely replaced with nickel, because of shortages during the Korean War. So the chrome didn't survive very well, especially with all the little dents and dings we put on it.
As a soldier stationed at Fort Ord, Calif., I once got the Pontiac up to an indicated 105 mph. That was terrifying. The car was not made to go 105 mph. It was made for desperate housewives who were too depressed to do over 70.
When the leather seats ripped, we covered them with green vinyl seat covers from Sears (or was it Pep Boys?). If I had the car again today, I'd restore the original seats, re-chrome the thing and enter it in old-car shows.
I wish I could have that car back, with all its faults. Driving it through L.A. streets would proudly carry on the name and presence of the doomed Pontiac. And it would be an in-your-face to General Motors, a reproach for scrapping a marque that could bring such memories of its inglorious glory days of the Fifties.
Here's a picture of our mom with the car in 1956: