1970 Pontiac Catalina: Red Rover, please come over
I miss Pontiac. Like my other much-loved departed GM make, Oldsmobile, Pontiac had a long line of impressive cars, especially during the salad days from the 1950s to the ’70s. Bonneville. GTO. Grand Ville. Ventura. Star Chief. So much gorgeous rolling stock. But I’d better get on with the program before I digress too much. Today’s topic: the 1970 full-size Pontiacs.
I love ’em. Most folks don’t seem to get too excited with the 1970 neoclassical facelift—right down to faux horn grilles like your great grandfather’s Hupmobile. References to “1970 Edsel” have been known to be uttered. But I love them. Back in the late ’90s, I got hooked on collecting vintage brochures. Ebay was in its prime then, and probably 80 percent of my collection came from there. One of my earliest acquisitons was the deluxe, 52-page 1970 Pontiac full-line brochure.
As the 1970 Pontiac brochure extolled, “Face it folks. The 1970 Catalina is all wrong. For the money, you should get a car of so-so size with hee-haw styling. But no. Catalina is big. Lots of room for heads and legs. And lots of engine. 350 cubic inches and 255 horses. Order a convertible or wagon, and the numbers get bigger: 400 cubes, 290 hp.”
This was during the final years of the terrific Van and Fitz Pontiac artwork, and the ’70 Pontiacs were in fine form in dealer literature. The Catalina, of course, was Pontiac’s lowest-priced full-size car—and very popular. A total of 193,986 Catalinas were built for the model year. By this time, pretty much all Catalinas had automatic transmission, despite it still being an option. Only 579 had the manual transmission!
If you really want to seek out something rare, try finding a ’70 Catalina station wagon with the manual transmission: only 113 were built. The Catalina Convertible was priced at $3604 ($27,681 today), weighed 4027 pounds, and 3686 were built. Convertible sales had been on the downswing for several years, thanks to hardtops, air conditioning, and simple changes in consumer tastes, and 1972 would be the last time you could get a brand new Catalina ragtop.
As previously mentioned, standard engine in Catalina coupes and sedans was the 350 V-8 with 255 horsepower and 355 lb-ft of torque, breathing through a two-barrel carb; Catalina convertibles and wagons came with the 290-hp, 428-lb-ft 400.
That was one of the things you got when buying a full-sized Pontiac over an equivalent ’70 full-size Chevrolet. While certain Chevy models made do with a standard six-cylinder engine, every big Pontiac had a V-8.
Of course, if you still wanted even more power, you could get ever increasingly powerful engines, all the way up to the vaunted Pontiac 455-cubic-inch H.O. engine with a four-barrel carb, 370 horsepower, and an impressive 500 lb-ft of torque. As long as you didn’t mind Chris-Craft style fuel consumption.
As much as I love this Catalina convertible, it would have been even better if it was a Bonneville. Bonnevilles are my favorite Pontiac, with the possible exception of the 1971–75 Grand Villes. The 1970 Bonnies would have had the Broughamier grill, fender skirts, fancier seats and door panels, and maybe even an AM/FM stereo with an 8-track player. And all the extra chrome gingerbread that I love.
This car was spotted at the Oneida, Illinois, car show in July 2022. I’d never been to it before, but I had been at a show the previous weekend in Bishop Hill, Illinois, and a guy I spoke to mentioned that the Oneida show was pretty good and encouraged me to attend the following weekend.
The morning of the show, I checked a couple websites that list local car shows, and there it was again: Oneida … 45 miles away … Hmm …
My car was already coated with bugs from driving to Iowa City and back on Interstate 80 the previous Friday, and the weather was great—low 80s and low humidity. So I went. Why not?
All in all it was a great show, and I’ll probably be back next year. There were some really great cars there, including a 1976 Continental Mark IV, 1956 Imperial, and a copper-colored 1986 GMC Caballero, the seldom-seen GMC equivalent to the El Camino. It was really hard to pick a favorite, but as you may have surmised, this car was my choice. A perfect summer cruiser!
The 70’s Pontiacs outside of the Trans Am / Firebird are not my favorites. My dad had a Grand Prix which I think had a better front end that this car.
My buddy’s Mom had a early 70’s Bonneville convertible that she’d take all us kids to the pool in.
Dark green with black interior. It was great cruising with the top down, the car seemed to float…
That was 50 years ago, give or take, and I can still feel the wind in my face.
Love Pontiacs. My parents had a ‘62 and ‘72 hardtop and a ‘75 with the partial vinyl top. My favorite was their ‘77 Grand Prix which was only surpassed by the brand new ‘81 Firebird Espirit they bought me in college. Really wish I still had these latter two. Love the convertible ‘70!
In 1973, my dad bought a used 1970 Bonneville hardtop coupe with the black pebble vinyl top. It was in excellent condition. It was a beautiful dark green metallic with those wonderful fender skirts and had the 455 which would easily spin the rear wheels by just tapping the accelerator when driving on wet pavement. As a relatively new driver, I loved driving that car. It was the first car that our family owned that had air conditioning (what a pleasure that was). I learned auto detailing on that car. I, too, loved the grill (that made the Pontiac instantly recognizable) and all the “extra chrome gingerbread.” I remember that cleaning the chrome on that car was a multiple-hour job. After more than a decade of ownership in Pennsylvania winters, the road salt finally caused the rusty demise of this land cruiser. When my dad put it up for sale, the first buyer bought it sight unseen. Dad told him about the myriad rust issues underneath, and he replied he was not concerned about the body, he just wanted that 455 H.O, – he was a local dirt track racer. Thank you Mr. Klockau and Dee Jay for bringing back great memories!
In 1973 my wife-to-be and I decided to purchase a new used car to drive on our Honeymoon. We found 2 cars that we were interested in buying at a local Dealership. One was a Gold 1970 Catalina Convertible with a 400, which was what we ended up buying and driving for several years. We liked the car. Big car ride and good looks. What was the other other car we didn’t buy? A 1971 Charger Super Bee, 383, 4-speed, with Fresh Air Hood but it didn’t have A/C.