[formul8]

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted but this thread got me to remember a story that too good to keep. And it involves a Pontiac.

The family of a college buddy had a farm in the UP of Michigan which they were going to sell. They still had several farm cars that the father told my buddy to take away and don’t bring back. So my buddy brought back to campus a 1978 Pontiac Parisienne with 250k miles on the clock cross-bred with a Buick 231 v6 from another expired farm car to replace the dead 301 V8. It ran good enough to take to the Keeweenaw logging trails in the UP.

One rainy October Friday night, the four of us set out to see just how well the old GM full sized body on frame rear drive car could handle off road activities. We took this car 20 miles out of town to a swampy logging trail and proceeded to beat on the car. Rocks and logging trail debris were hitting the under body hard enough to lift the legs of me and my buddy in the rear seat. The driver saw a particularly inviting muddy pool to slide the car sideways through but was carrying too much speed so we slipped off into the ditch, hitting a branch the diameter of your forearm and stalled the 231. When we got the 231 fired up again, we pushed the car out and continued on.

This boony ride kept up for a long time with the Parisienne and 231 taking its diet of mud and water and asking for more. However, the battery had had enough of the repeated start and restarts. Once the first dead “click” of the starter solenoid signaled the death of the Eveready, we realized that we were miles outside of town… deep inside the woods on a logging trail… late on a rainy Friday night … and none of us were smart enough to have brought a chase vehicle!!! We were now walking.

We split up 2x2, half of us walked up the logging trail and the other half walked back. Me and the driver walked up the trail and found nothing so we walked back to meet up with the other two who had found a logger finishing up loading his rig for the week. He said that he didn’t live far and was willing to give us a jump once he could get his Jeep. So the driver of the Parisienne jumped into the cab with the trucker and the rest of us walked back to the car.

When we got back to the car and open the driver’s door, the dome light shined brightly so we tried starting the car. It fired right up so we got in and CAREFULLY drove the car back meeting the trucker and car owner about halfway back. We thanked the trucker and headed back to town thinking how stupid we were to not bring a chase vehicle and how lucky we were that the Parisienne was still able to carry us home.

Or so we thought.

The off road activities stripped the left rear brake line off of the drum and progressively the brakes got softer and softer on our return trip. The driver had to down-shift the trans to slow the vehicle down in the turns and going down hills. One particularly long down hill run carrying too much speed proved to be too much for the 231. It blew the driver side head gasket with an impressive “POP” damaged the driver side exhaust manifold and letting go an enormous amount of steam under hood before grinding itself to death. Who needs sodium silicate to kill an engine?

Since the Pontiac was still plated, when we got home we picked up a Chevy truck and immediately towed the Pontiac to the junkyard outside of town. The next morning, I drove the owner of the car to the junkyard as they opened up so that he could give the junk man the title of the car and remove his plates. The junk man was struggling hard to contain his laughter as the owner signed off on the title.

One final look at the ’78 Parisienne explained why.

The car was covered top to bottom with mud and water splash marks. Hand prints were all over the hood, truck, driver’s side A pillar and on all four door handles. The rear wheel wells were caked in mud at least two inches thick. The branch we hit was sticking parallel to the ground out of the driver’s side high beam headlight and half of the grill was hanging diagonally, trapped between the radiator and bumper. But… the suspension still held the car on an even keel and it still rolled.

That was one tough car.