Ad of the week: Pontiac Tempest

This weeks ad features the Pontiac Tempest.  I notice it is wearing the Winter Water Wonderland plate from Michigan – the same as I had on my Jag when I was living in Michigan.

GM closed down the Pontiac brand during the global financial crisis but by that point its best was well behind it.  During the 2000’s it was offering insipid models with too much side cladding – A far cry from when it was GM’s performance division led by John DeLorean and setting the tone for the muscle car era.      This ad is a good representation of the image the brand was able to cultivate at the time.

Can you tell which Tempest is the tiger?

Easy.  The Le Mans on the right gets its power from our 4 – that’s the big 4 that stalks around acting like a V-8.   So you have to call it a tiger.

The other Le Mans Sports Coupe has our new 326 cu. in. V-8 ticked away under the hood – all 260 bhp of it.   That’s good for two tigers.   At least.  We called it the V-326.   It’s for people who are willing to admit that our 4 does go around acting like twice life size but still hanker for an heroic V-8.   So what’s actually with this Two Tiger V-8 that rates it more than a passing blurb? A weight-to-power ration of under 12 to 1 that bows only to machines so muscle-bound they can’t be driven happily on the street.   A whole bunch of no-nonsense torque -352 lb/ft of it.   And the only thing smoother drinks kerosene and carries stewardesses.

Suggestion:  Take a Le Mans with a Two-Tiger (we’ve got to stop calling it that or nobody’ll remember its real name), order it with $6.24 worth of heavy-duty suspension and one of our no-extra-cost performance axle ratios.   Then sit back in that left-hand bucket seat, depress the loud pedal, and blissfully contemplate The Good Life.

Wide-Track Pontiac Tempest.