Orson E. Coe Pontiac Story
BVZ, I thought I would fill in a little more information about OE Coe Pontiac from your post on the BaT RAIV GTO.
Orson E. Coe Pontiac was down 28th St. from Berger Chevrolet by 1000’ to the east and on the same side of the road. We grew up just a few miles from the dealerships, so we would ride our bicycles there to check out the new muscle cars. I can recall a dozen or so ’69 SS Chevelles all parked in a row in front of the showroom…what great memories! OE Coe Pontiac-GMC wasn’t necessarily known for exotic Pontiac stock other than standard equipped GTO’s, Firebird 400’s, and Trans Ams, but not very many at that. When Dan & I were of working (and driving) age in 1971, we both got jobs at the McDonald’s across the street from OE Coe.
One Saturday afternoon in late summer 1972, an older gentleman came in to order lunch and came to my register (‘window’ in McD’s speak at the time). He was very polite and friendly and introduced himself as Orson E. Coe, the owner of the Pontiac dealership across the street. He told me about that the new Trans Ams in new colors were really exciting and creating a lot of showroom traffic. He didn’t mention anything about the SD-455 engine, but said they had all 3 color TA’s in the showroom.
Another story about ’70 RAIV GTO’s from OE Coe, there were at least 2 Pepper Green on green interior M21 RAIV GTO’s in the area. Dan almost bought one in 1973 with around 12,000 miles and very clean. He passed and bought a ’71 Laurentian Green base GTO (3-speed/400/3.55 open) at Berger’s used car lot instead, since he wasn’t impressed with the RAIV’s performance! Little did we know then…! This RAIV was equipped with Rally II’s, AM/FM, PS, PDB, etc. unlike the BaT RAIV GTO. We may have seen the BAT car, but it was ordered to have mag wheels and gauges added, pretty common for the day.
One of the green GTO’s got rear-ended pretty hard a year later (1974) as we saw it on a lift at the Firestone Tire garage (probably the car's owner worked there). Looked like the right rear quarter, bumper and deck lid were damaged. We saw it at night after they were closed when we were cruising around in our mom’s ’71 red on red Gremlin X.
Dennis
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