Well, I had a blog in mind........

Chief Pontiac. (Google Image.)

....So here goes, despite not having the local-art intended.
“Local-art” is from my newspaper days. “Local-art” is photographs or graphics generated by the newspaper.
The front page of the newspaper sometimes had an Associated-Press photograph or graphic: “art.”
But sometimes a photograph was by our own photographer, locally generated. Or sometimes we ran a locally-generated color graphic, a bar-chart or pie-chart.
The national Flat-head Pontiac club was gonna hold a “reunion” at a motel near Canandaigua.
I figured I’d go, and take along my camera. I’d come away with “art” for this blog.
What a mistake that was!
When I got to the motel, only two old Pontiacs were there, and one was covered.
The other was a dark-green ’54 four-door sedan with a visor; nice, but in need of doll-up.
It looked original.
When I was a child, the family behind us got a new dark-green ’54 Pontiac four-door sedan. This car was identical.
But I left right away. Only one car to photograph wasn’t worth my time.
I was about to give up blogging this event, but the blog was already in my head; so here goes.
I figure I’d load up my blog with Google-Images.
Pontiac was an offshoot of GM’s Oakland division. It was a marketing ploy: lower-priced versions of GM brands. I think Oldsmobile and Buick may have had lower-priced versions, but I forget what they were named.
Cadillac had its LaSalle, which lasted a while, but eventually tanked.
Oakland’s low-priced version was Pontiac, although Pontiac outlasted Oakland.


Mega-chrome. (Google-Image.)


Ditto. (Google-Image.)


Ditto again. (Google-Image.)

Pontiac is no longer made. The brand was dumped with GM’s rationalization after bankruptcy.
Along with Oldsmobile and Saturn.
Oldsmobile had a storied history. It’s founder was Ransom E. Olds.
Saturn was GM’s attempt to build an import-quality car. It was pretty good, but soon became part of the hum-drum GM legacy; that is, a Chevrolet rebadged as a Saturn.
The other Big Three automakers also dumped brands.
Ford dumped Mercury, and Chrysler dumped Plymouth.
“Plymouth” was Chrysler’s attempt to market a low-priced car to compete with Ford and Chevrolet.
Suddenly the “Low-Priced-Three” became the “Low-Priced-Two.”
Before the 1955 model-year, when Pontiac debuted its first V8 engine, Pontiac was a “Grand-Pop’s car.”

Bunkie.

Semon Emil "Bunkie" Knudsen (“NUDE-sin”) was made head of Pontiac to spice up the brand, and make it appealing to the youth-market.
Knudsen had a hard time changing stodgy old Pontiac, but by 1959 he succeeded.
That V8 helped. Prior to the 1955 model-year, Pontiac’s engine was a flat-head inline eight.
Flat-heads were as inspiring as lawnmower engines — and most small lawnmower engines are flat-heads.
“Flat-heads” are side-valve with flat cylinder-head castings. Side-valve is in the cylinder-block, usually parallel to the cylinder-bore.
Cheap to manufacture, but they don’t breathe well. Intake-charge and exhaust have to twist and turn every-which-way, and then migrate over to the cylinder-bore.
It’s not a direct shot, as is overhead-valve.
Buick used overhead valves to get more performance. Even Chevy’s old “Stovebolt-Six” was overhead-valve.
The fact the engine was an inline eight is also debatable. That long crankshaft could whip. The shorter V8 crankshaft didn’t.
The Buick engines were inline eights, but overhead-valve.
Pontiac’s V8 of 1955 brought Pontiac into the overhead-valve camp.
But the old flat-head Pontiacs are collectible and worth seeing.
But only two cars ain’t much; there were more earlier, perhaps two or three more.
Also later more in downtown Canandaigua — perhaps they were there, instead of the motel.
One was a ’50 or ’52 woody wagon, although by then it was probably wood applique on steel.
One was a ’62 Pontiac; hardly a flat-head. That’s one of Bunkie’s cars.
Pontiac adopted a “Silver-Streak” on its hood to give itself definition.


Note Silver-Streak atop hood. (Google Image.)


An earlier Silver-Streak. (Google Image.)

The “Silver-Streak” was eventually fluted steel — the first Silver-Streaks were just individual trim-bars like above — much like Budd Company’s streamlined railroad passenger-cars, which were sheathed in fluted steel. (Budd also supplied car-bodies, and pioneered all-steel auto construction.)
For years every Pontiac had the “Silver-Streak” on its hood. It lasted until the 1956 model-year. Both the ’55 and the ’56 had small twin Silver-Streaks, known as “suspenders,” on their hoods.
By the 1957 model-year the Silver-Streak was gone; Knudsen had triumphed.
Every car I’ve pictured has the Silver-Streak on it. And that hood-ornament of Chief Pontiac was perhaps the best ever made.
Chief Pontiac was lit; not strident, but a soft amber glow.
Glowing Chief Pontiac and the Silver-Streak compared to Buick’s port-holes. GM products seemed to have some identifying icon, at least Buick and Pontiac.
With Buick it was the port-holes; and Pontiac had Chief Pontiac and the Silver-Streak. —Chief Pontiac and the Silver-Streak were how you knew it was a Pontiac.


A 1941 Silver-Streak. (Google Image.)

There were various Pontiacs in my past; although my family never owned one. We always bought Chevrolets.
The family two doors from us in Erlton (“EARL-tin;” as in the name “Earl”), whose father got my father a job at Texaco, had a ’49 or ’50 Pontiac sedan. He repainted it with a brush; which looked okay, if you overlooked the brush-marks.
The car also had a windshield-visor and spotlight.
My father was thereby prompted to repaint our ’39 Chevy with a brush. He had to repair a crack in the right-front fender first, which he did with some metal pieces he purchased at a hardware-store.
He then repainted the whole thing dark-green with a brush.
The crowning achievement was a yellow pinstripe on the molding under the side-windows.
My father was an artist, and did it perfectly. The entire pinstripe was over nine feet long, and was perfectly straight. Not a wobble or paint-blob, and about an eighth-inch wide.
I was impressed. Too bad there were brush-marks otherwise.
And that ’39 Chevy broke its timing-chain, smashing valves into pistons.
We had to junk the poor thing. A ’39 Chevy in the early ‘50s was a bit of a stretch, but my father was always pinch-penny about cars.


“Puke-green” fastback. (Google Image.)


A ’48. (Google Image.)

Another Pontiac I remember is that owned by George, who graduated in my high-school’s first graduating-class, 1960. I’m Class of ’62.
George’s car was a dark-green Pontiac convertible, about ’51 or ’52.
He always drove it top-down, and hadn’t customized it. You couldn’t customize a Silver-Streak Pontiac.
The fact it was a convertible made it incredibly appealing. He’d sit atop the driver’s seat-back and steer with his feet.
Rain-or-shine, he always drove it top-down.
The poor thing probably had to be junked.


’52 two-door sedan. (Google Image.)


A fastback Silver-Streak. (Google Image.)


A ’53 two-door hardtop. (Google Image.)

A third Pontiac was a stationwagon owned by our newspaper-boy’s father.
The newspapers would get tossed out of a delivery-truck late afternoon at a gas-station.
Father-and-son would be waiting in the Pontiac.
Together they’d fold the newspapers for distribution, after which they got put in the back of that Pontiac.
Son would position himself atop the closed tailgate with the rear-window open.
He’d reach inside, grab a newspaper, then hurl it toward the target house.
One afternoon as they left the gas-station, father backed that Pontiac into a telephone-pole, killing his son, crushed between the pole and the open rear-window.
We were devastated! That newspaper-boy was a hard-rock greaser, a ne’er-do-well, but we were devastated just the same.
The accident was so random and stupid.
I don’t think that wagon was an actual woody. As I recall, it was two-tone blue on faux wood molding.
At the motel I had seen a wagon with wood applique on the molding.
That was what I wanted to photograph more than anything.

• “Erlton” is the small suburb of Philadelphia in south Jersey where I lived until I was 13. Erlton was founded in the ‘30s, named after its developer, whose name was Earl. Erlton was north of Haddonfield, an old Revolutionary town.
• The Chevrolet overhead-valve inline “Stovebolt-six” was introduced in the 1929 model-year at 194+ cubic inches. It continued production for years, upgraded to four main bearings (from three) for the 1937 model-year. In 1950 the Stovebolt was upsized to 235.5 cubic inches (from 216), and later upgrades included full-pressure lubrication and hydraulic (as opposed to mechanical) valve-tappets. The Stovebolt was produced clear through the 1963 model-year, but replaced with a new seven-main bearing (as opposed to less — like four) inline-six engine in the 1964 model-year. The Stovebolt was also known as “the cast-iron wonder;” called the “Stovebolt” because various bolts could be replaced by stuff from the corner hardware.
• RE: “Puke-green.....” — An expression specific to our family, referring to a light grayish-green color tinged slightly yellow that looked the color of vomit.