My 1965 Pontiac Bonneville Sports Coupe

Well... this is Bonny... my 1965 Pontiac Bonneville Sports Coupe. I bought her in the spring of 1998 for the princely sum of $300. She was advertised in the local classifieds for $600... and against my better judgement :-) I went off to look at this 35 year old car... you see I was in a bind... my 1973 Cadillac (don't get me started on Caddy's... poorly designed) had just given up the ghost... after I had paid too much for it... and driven it too little. So I should have been looking for some reliable little Honda or something... but here I was looking at this 35 year old full size car. The car's styling attracted me right away... I've always had a thing for fastback coupes :-). It had the famous 389 for a powerplant... and unfortunately... also a lot of rust :-(. Well... I agreed with the owner... that if I could get the engine to run... right there on the spot... I'd give 300 for the car... well to make a long story short (I think it's too late for that) the engine puttered to life for just a few seconds... which was enough for me... and he took my 300... and I took the car home with me. After installing the fuel pump which came with the car... replacing the master cylinder... and a major tune-up... she runs like new again! The additions I've made so far are dual exhaust with flowmaster mufflers (sounds REALLY good) and an open element breather. Future plans for the car include swapping the bucket seats out of my 1979 Oldsmobile Cutlass (which is getting newer buckets) to replace the broken... worn out... factory bench seat... and a custom fabricated console... which will be designed to resemble the factory consoles... will put guages in it too... don't know if I'm going to go to floor shift or keep the shifter on the collumn yet. When I get a chance I'll try to scan a drawing of what I want this to look like. From that point... I'd like to fix some of the rust... and get the body back to looking good. Finding parts will be the hardest part for me... as this car is REALLY rare... especially in East Tennessee... I've long ago come to the conclusion that I own the ONLY 1965 Bonneville Sports Coupe in this part of the state... seen some convertibles... and a really nice 4 door... and even a Catalina or two... but I think mine is unique. If you know of a parts car that I could use... anywhere withing say 500 miles of the Bristol TN/VA area... please let me know. My email address is: zcwp2@imail.etsu.edu. Well... enough yapping my trap... on to the pictures...

This is the car out in front of my old apartment... as you can see... I could use a new bumper... and she's got a bit of the ole' cancer on the edges. Only through rust is in the trunk... lower 1/4's... and a couple of holes in the floorboard. Oh... that's the ORIGINAL liscence plate on the front too!

Same picture... same place... just parked in the shade and from a different angle.

Another picture taken from the right front of the car.

The rear of the car... what looks like surface rust on this part of the car... is actually really really really oxidized... screwed up... paint.

The heart of the beast... this is the 389 cubic inch... 325 horse... torquemonster pulling the '65 around.

Another engine shot... with the breather removed... showing the old Carter carburretor.

Here's two LARGE pictures of the Bonny's interior with the dash: bonnyintds.jpg and bonnyintds2.jpg.

She came with all four of her original hubcaps... of which this is one.

Now here's where we start getting to the bad stuff... the interior could use a bit of work... to say the least!

Another rear interior shot.

Some through rust holes in the trunk.

The trunk lid mound area also seems to be a bad rust area... right below the rear window.