Acute Pontiac aficionados will notice something interesting about this particular Lot Shots feature.
That’s because on the outside it’s a Catalina—but on the inside, it’s wearing the interior of the more upscale Bonneville. The car’s dual identity is a result of its former career as a stripped down drag racer and its resurrection as a full size street rod.
We’ll explain more about that nuance in a moment…first though, some history.
Both the Catalina and Bonneville first appeared as trim levels on the Pontiac Chieftain and Star Chief models earlier in the 1950s—but in 1958, the Bonneville broke away into its own model and, in 1959, the Catalina did too as GM updated its full size lineup.
And it was during that 1959 B-body shuffle that Pontiac revived the iconic split grille styling that would soon become a common sight at dragstrips throughout the country. (The split grille itself actually has its origins in pre-war Pontiacs.)
The 1959 Bonneville and Catalina also helped introduce the “Wide-Track” wheelbase that moved the wheels slightly outboard—an engineering tweak that delivered a noticeable improvement in handling and played a big part in establishing Pontiac’s performance image during the 1960s.
Suffice it to say, when this tough-looking 1960 Poncho roared into the Summit Racing Retail Store parking lot near Akron, Ohio a while back, we wanted to hear a lot more about it.
Full disclosure though:
This car looked very, very familiar to us. That’s because it’s owned by retired Summit Racing employee and friend of OnAllCylinders Terry Ballenger. So over the years, we’ve spotted this particular Pontiac at plenty of car shows and events across northeast Ohio. We typically shy away from using Summit Racing employee cars for Lot Shots features but, again, he’s retired and his car is awesome…so we didn’t do much hand-wringing here.
Terry’s owned the car since the early 1990s and says the Catalina was converted into a drag racer at one point. Thankfully, the car wasn’t completely hacked to bits in the process. That said, there was a ton of work done to bring it back to life as a boulevard cruiser—and it starts with that meticulously-fitted upscale Bonneville interior.
Glance inside and you’ll discover a remarkably stock-looking cabin, with much of the OE Pontiac dash, upholstery, and trim in place. (Terry did add an aftermarket tachometer and some Stewart-Warner gauges to keep a more accurate eye on the engine.)
Look even closer and you’ll see the dash-mounted clock, which Terry explains was a super, super rare option from the factory.
Under the Poncho’s hood is an upgraded 455 bored 0.030 over to make it 462 cubic inches. It’s got Tri-Power and a solid roller cam, backed by the original factory four-speed manual shifter.
In fact, Terry tells us that four-speed makes his Catalina pretty dang rare, with just a shade over 700 produced with the manual transmission in 1960.
The Catalina also wears the coveted eight-lug factory wheels that integrate a larger brake drum with the rim to improve braking power—another contribution to Pontiac’s growing performance aura.
As alluded to earlier, we’ve seen this car all over the place, and Terry’s not shy about racking up the miles in his vintage Pontiac B-body, so we didn’t want to take up any more time chewing his ear off in the parking lot. We said goodbye and he rumbled down the road.
As for the Bonneville and Catalina, they remained on the full-size GM B-body architecture through several generations. But in 1982, Pontiac discontinued its full size line, and only the Bonneville name survived by moving onto the midsize G-body platform.
By the late 1980s, the Bonneville migrated to a new front-wheel drive chassis where it endured until the nameplate was retired in 2005. Soon after that, the entire Pontiac marque was shuttered in 2010.
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