The 1986 Pontiac 2+2 Aerocoupe was more or less the homologated result of Bill Elliot cleaning up the NASCAR competition behind the wheel of a mid-eighties Ford Thunderbird. As stock cars were still somewhat stock at this point in time, the Pontiac Grand Prix was in aero-trouble with its brick like nose and near-vertical rear window against the slippery T-bird. Throw ‘Awesome Bill from Dawsonville’ Elliot into the mix and the Pontiac division was in the soup on the speedways. The 1986 and one-half Grand Prix was the showroom result of adventures in aerodynamics from the Pontiac braintrust. The brick nose up front was sleeked out, and the bubble back window met up with a shortened fiberglass rear deck and spoiler out back. The production 305 V8 kicked out 165 horsepower through a 4-speed automatic transmission. The aerodynamic changes helped the NASCAR Ponchos chalk up a few wins, but teams succumbed to the unfortunate reality of using front-wheel drive bodies on rear-wheel drive race cars by 1988. This particular 1986-something Pontiac 2+2 Aerocoupe was seen parked and motoring about on a Van Nuys Cruise Night. As only 1225 or so of these cars were ever produced, the chance of seeing one in Van Nuys is about the same as seeing the same car featured in an in-depth article by Jeff Koch over at Hemmings.
MORE: Is Pontiac’s 1986 2+2 the Superbird of the ’80s? by Jeff Koch
I’ve seen many of these over the years, both in person and for sale locally (southern Ontario), which I’ve never been able to reconcile with the 1225 production figure. It’s always seemed to me that there were many, many more. I believe they were Oshawa built – I wonder if perhaps a lot of them ended up being built to Canadian specs and sold in the area when the dealer orders didn’t materialize.
My first car was an 88 Grand Prix. Needless to say, I despised GM long before they saw any bailouts. I notice a lack of body cladding on this car, but see design elements which made their way onto my 88 POS, particularly the center grille between the headlights. Man, that was a crappy car.
It’s also interesting to see that a 305ci GM V8 made a whopping 55hp less than my 122ci Mitsubishi L4. The rear glass is interesting, otherwise, just another cobbled together afterbirth of second-rate Detroit design. 🙂