Chief Pontiac Gets His Stretch Pontiac On

[Bob Boze Bell]

February 1, 2013

Thanks to the astute car guys on this site, I think we have nailed the car in the photo I posted this morning. And speaking of Pontiacs, Dan The Man Harsberger emailed me these puppies:

Love these old drawings of cars, with the stretched and exaggerated lengths, which, of course, led to even more ridiculous stretching in the sixties and was brilliantly parodied by Bruce McCall in National Lampoon when he did a series of satirical car ads for a car he called The Bulgemobile. Too rich.

 

And, although Jack Kerouac sued the producers of the TV show Route 66 (two guys on the road in a cool car having adventures, I mean, come on!) it's interesting to note that for all the roads Jack and Neal travel in their crisscrossing of the U.S. they never really "do" Route 66. Jack rides the bus back east from his 1947 trip to the West Coast, and, although he mentions going through "Salome (where she danced)" and Wickenburg, he cuts to Flagstaff in his narrative, then tacks on "Clifftown" which I assume he poached from a map of Clifton, Arizona which is many miles to the south of Flag. Jack drew a map of his journey (which I found online) and he writes down Prescott as well, which would be an odd route, although not impossible. He could have come across from LA to Blythe, then Salome, Aguila, Wickenburg, then the back way to Prescott thru Yarnell Hill and Peeple's Valley, Kirkland and into Prescott the back way, or more accurately, the old way, since I-17 is a couple decades away. But anyway, for all his travels Jack only mentions Route 66 one time in the entire book and it's in this paragraph about downtown Los Angeles:

 

"Wild negroes with bop caps and goatees came laughing by; then long-haired brokedown hipsters straight off Route 66 from New York. . ."

 

Quite quite prescient (long-haired hipsters in 1947-49!). Hippies anyone?

 

"When I closed my eyes all I could see was the road unwinding into me."

—Jack Kerouac, "On The Road"

[anthony martin]

  Bob,

    At one time I owned a '46 Pontiac sport coupe and liked it a lot.In my senior year of High School I drove a black '47 Caddy with a gray broadcloth interior.My grandfather bought it new and passed it on.That same year my dad gave me a '65 Mustang and was teed off when I wouldn't get rid of the Cadillac.Two cars and two motorcycles(B.S.A AND Triumph)-no wonder my cash flow was so thin!

[Sue Cauhape]

Isn't there a highway that leaves the highway from Flagstaff, goes through Black Oak Canyon to Sedona, then over the Prescott, over the mountain and through Jerome to ???? Wickenburg? Does that match up with Jack's route anywhere?

[Bob Boze Bell]

Anthony, I think we led parallel lives. I had a '67 Mustang, a Triumph and my roommate in college had a 441 Victor, BSA. Funny how much Boomers overlap. We all had the same fantasies I guess. And yes, Sue, the bus route Jack was on in 1947 could have taken him from Prescott over Mingus Mountain to Jerome, then Clarkdale, Cottonwood, Sedona and up Oak Creek Canyon to Flag. I was just on that road last month and it's a beautiful drive.

[Jim Holden]

When I came back from Okinawa in mid-1964 flush with cash, I purchased a brand new Ford Mustang - it must have been the early 1965 models, as it was a Fastback, in "Prairie Gold", with the 289 V8 Package with "4 on the floor" and the inimitable 4-barrel carb.  If you are familiar with the area, I "tested" it shortly after the purchase, early one morning headed up to Thousand Oaks, CA from Los Angeles.  As I turned onto the "Ventura Freeway", there was no traffic and I let it go - maxed out at well over 120Mph and it took the CHP patrol car 20 miles to catch up with me.  Fortunately, I was "in uniform" and being a fellow Marine, he let me go with an 80 in a 65 zone.....ah youth.  That's one of 2 or 3 cars I've owned that I would like back.

[Sue Cauhape]

When I wanted to buy my first car, I thought a Toyota Corolla was nice. It's a girl car. After a test drive with Dad, he said, "Okay, now let's go find a car you don't have to put on like a coat." We found a 1967 Camaro, midnight blue with landau top. They called Camaros "huggers" in those days because the faster you went, the more they would press into, or "hug",  the road. You know, I'm really glad I listened to my Dad. He never steered me wrong. I loved that car and drove it about seven years, including a road trip from SLC through Boise, Portland, down Highway !, the coastal highway, to San Francisco and then across Nevada to home. Finally, I sold it to a very excited young lad to finance a semester on an Israeli kibbutz. A couple of years later, a '67 Camaro whizzed past me on the freeway. I smiled. 'There goes my little Camaro with a very happy driver.'

[Bob Boze Bell]

Oh, we do love our cars, don't we.

[Mundo Osterberg]

My 1956 F-100 with a 351 Windsor and C-4 Transmission, now this is what you need for Route 66 romps!

[Bob Boze Bell]

Man, that is sweet, Mundo. I'd invite you out to my spread but I don't think you'd clear the speed bumps.

[Sue Cauhape]

Oh Mundo, that's a beauty of a truck. I love the round lines of it, and the running board.