I was making a stop at local big blue box store recently when I spotted this even bigger blue machine parked at the far end of the lot. I’ve never seen one of these before, so I hopped out and grabbed some pictures for all y’all. Check it out.
It turns out I haven’t seen an Executive before, because they really didn’t make many of them. They lasted only a few years before Pontiac brought out the Bonneville. One thing I have always loved about GM is the miniature window cranks on the vent windows. They got a lot of mileage out of those chrome handles, didn’t they?
One of the other cool things Pontiac did was use the Pontiac arrowhead on the rear fenders for the federally mandated side markers.
There are bigger cars on the road, but I can’t remember the last time I saw one. I had to take several steps back just to get all this steel in the shot. From a 3/4 view, it looks even bigger, and the way the belt line and wheel arches separate, the back end looks huge. I think my favorite part of the Executive is the back end. It’s pretty simple, but it has those cool drooping taillights that fall into the bumper.
[Photos Copyright 2015 Hooniverse/Marcal Eilenstein]
Roadside Attractions: 1968 Pontiac Executive
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13 responses to “Roadside Attractions: 1968 Pontiac Executive”
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So, it’s a pretty nice looking, low-line Bonneville. Sweet era for them. 35k/yr isn’t such a small run, except against the many hundreds of thousands of other Impala variants that were rolling out the doors.
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The Bonneville name was introduced for 1957 and ran continuously til 2005.
The Executive ran concurrently with the Bonneville from 1966 (introduced as the Star Chief Executive) to 1970. From 1967, Executive completely replaced the old Star Chief name. Executive and Bonneville coupes and sedans were longer than the Catalina (and the Ventura, Grand Prix, and 2+2 variants). Compared to Bonneville, Executive had plainer, Catalina-type interior and exterior trim, and less standard equipment.
For 1971, Pontiac named its top model the Grand Ville and renamed the lesser LWB trim to Bonneville. All of the shorter cars were called Catalina.-
Thank you, hubba. You made every point I was going to make. My first car was a 1967 Pontiac Ventura 2 door hardtop. No. it was not a Nova…
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Also, best high beam indicator ever. http://smg.photobucket.com/user/howdydoody/media/63dash1.jpg.html
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What’s with Reverse at the end of the gear selector? Did GM do this on all their cars back then? How could I never have seen this before?
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That would be on an early ’60s Pontiac with the Dual-Range Hydra-Matic. My ’64 Grand Prix had a console with the Roto Hydra-Matic (the infamous “Slim Jim”) transmission, with a P N D S L R quadrant. The Feds forced the automakers to standardize on P R N D …
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That That picture is of a’64 , which still used a Hydamatic transmission. Pontiac switched to tThe Turbohydramatic from ’65 up.
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My Bonneville also had a lighted ignition switch, and two lights in the ashtray, provided by fiber optic cables (GM was in love with them then) that ran from the bulb behind the ignition switch.
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Would people be surprised to see this painted on both the hood and the trunk?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Helicopter_landing_pod_sign_2.svg-
I think you could fit a smart car in that trunk
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Executive? more like the travelling Sales Manager with that huge trunk for samples!
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I had a ’68 Bonneville 4-door sedan, a mid-year introduction with only 3,499 built. The Bonneville and the Executive share the same 124″ wheelbase (the wheelbase on the Catalina and Ventura is 121″). The easy way to tell the difference from a distance is the wider dogleg on the Bonneville and Executive.
And yeah, the trunk is huge, like 39 cubic feet huge. -
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