Pontiac fanatic’s 90-car treasure trove set for auction in July

Allen “Al” Blatter was an avid Pontiac collector and restorer for most of his life, starting when he was just 14 years old. When he passed away in 2021, he was in the process of restoring several and left quite a collection behind. We spoke with Yvette VanDerBrink of VanDerBrink Auctions who told us she’s still cataloging the vast assortment the cars and parts from Blatter’s collection that will be part of a sale on July 23 in Wilton, North Dakota.

More details will be coming to the VanDerBrink site later this week, but Yvette told us there are dozens and dozens of complete, restorable project cars—along with a couple of body shells hardly seem worth keeping. Al wouldn’t let anything go to the crusher if it could still lend a part or panel to help restore another car and get it on the road. He kept a notebook of all of his friends’ cars and the parts they needed and, as he hunted for parts at shows across the country, kept the list with him. Often he’d return home with a cargo load of hard-to-find items for his fellow Pontiac enthusiasts.

“I didn’t run into anyone that didn’t think he was pretty cool,” Yvette says.

Among the collection of nearly 90 Pontiacs are plenty of LeMans, Tempest and GTO projects, as Blatter was a big fan of ’64 through ’72 Pontiac A-bodies in particular. There’s also a huge trailer filled with body panels as well as stockpiles of engines, rear axles, and Pontiac’s signature Tri-Power intakes.

Sandy, Al’s wife of 39 years, plans to keep at least a couple of the cars, including a ’67 GTO convertible of Al’s and a ’70 he was restoring for her. After this sale of projects and parts, we’d wager that quite a lot of Pontiacs will get back on the road for the first time in a long time, just as Blatter had intended.