Junkyard Gem: 1988 Pontiac 6000 LE Safari Wagon

The Detroit station wagon was rapid losing product sales to minivans and trucks as the 10 years of the eighties progressed, but Pontiac consumers continue to had plenty of selections as late as the 1988 product calendar year. A go to to a Pontiac dealership in 1988 would have introduced you with three sizes of wagon, from the small Sunbird by means of the midsize 6000 and up to the mighty Parisienne-primarily based Safari. Modern Junkyard Gem is a luxed-up 6000 LE, total with “wood” paneling, observed in a car graveyard in Fargo, North Dakota.

Confusingly, the “Safari” title in 1988 was utilised by Pontiac to designate equally a specific product — the wagon edition of the Parisienne/Bonneville— and as the classic Pontiac designation for a station wagon. That meant that the wagon we’re hunting at now was a Safari but not the Safari in the 1988 Pontiac universe.

The 6000 lived on the GM A-Physique platform, as the Pontiac-badged edition of the Chevrolet Celeb. Manufacturing ran from the 1982 by means of 1991 product a long time, with the A-Physique Buick Century surviving all the way by means of 1996. The LE trim stage arrived concerning the base 6000 and the gloriously sophisticated 6000 STE (which wasn’t accessible in wagon variety, unfortunately).

I frequented this property in Fargo right after judging at the Minneapolis five hundred 24 Several hours of Lemons in Brainerd, Minnesota, very last tumble. Up to that stage, I had frequented 47 of the Lessen forty eight United States, with just North Dakota remaining, so I made a stage of doing a Fargo detour in buy to test that point out off my checklist. I am delighted that I observed these a good illustration of the 1982-1996 GM A-Physique in this property, due to the fact the most popular of all the A-Bodies is the 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera driven to Brainerd by the inept Fargo-primarily based kidnappers in the film “Fargo.”

This Minnesota-plated 6000 had some rust, but just negligible levels by Higher Midwestern expectations on a 31-calendar year-old car. The interior appeared really good, with the initial owner’s guide continue to within. The 6000 LE boasted “redesigned contoured seats and London/Empress material,” which appears rather swanky.

A thing significantly less swanky life beneath the hood: an Iron Duke two.5-liter pushrod four-cylinder engine, identified as the Tech four by 1988. The Iron Duke was, at coronary heart, a single cylinder bank of the not-very-renowned Pontiac 301-cubic-inch V8 even though fairly rugged, the Duke ran tough (common of large-displacement straight-four engines) and made just ninety eight horsepower in this application. Pontiac presented a pair of optional V6s in the 6000 in 1988, but no Quad four.

A rare wagon in unusually good issue, but not several lovers seek out out Detroit front-generate cars of this era, and it had small possibility of rescue as soon as it arrived right here.