1969 Dealer Sales Album

ABC123 · Uber Guru

RE: 1969 Dealer Sales Album

4SPEED427 · A Poncho Legend!

My neck was hurting!

CdnGMfan · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

North wrote:

...
Info on the chassis...

Noteworthy is the following...

No front sway bars on Strato or Laurentian

Only one upper rear control arm on six cylinder or 250 horse engine (except on wagons or if F40 ordered)

if You ordered power steering on Parisienne, 2+2 or grand parisienne it was variable ratio, on strato and Laurentian it was normal constant ratio.
brake shoes were glued not riveted.

ront stabilizer was standard on all but six-cylinder Strato Chief & Laurentian coupes & sedans. Parisienne six-cylinder models came with the bar. If you wanted it on those excluded models then order Z04 H.D. Chassis. You get the front bar, F40 suspension,dual upper control arm 12-bolt rear axle. Other H.D. stuff came with it as well.

It is great to see how deeply you delve into it, John. You know what they say, when the student is ready, the teacher appears.

Thank You for posting this. It is PURE GOLD!

Pontiacanada · A Poncho Legend!

Like I said, nice album!

North · Guru

Was Z04 a regular option, I don't see it listed anywhere.

davepl · Poncho Master!

Makes sense to not have posi on a taxi, would likely wear out the side clutches!

On the floor shift option, is it related at all to the very base 2+2 which was 3-on-tree with a console? Perhaps it added the 3-speed floor shift as a replacement/upgrade that month?

North · Guru

Dave, No because it specifically required the auto trans. As I said I suspect they were considering adding the "Rally Shifter" from the American A, F and G cars. Sort of a poor man Hurst dual gate. I don't believe they ever did it, would have required a different console I guess since the shift plate is larger on Chevy consoles.

CdnGMfan · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

North wrote:
Was Z04 a regular option, I don't see it listed anywhere.

It was for a few years in the mid-to-late 60s. It was also part of the police & taxi options (B07 & B02), but I don't know for certain if Z04 was available separately in 69/70. My friend's dad had a '67 Biscayne with it, and you could get it on corresponding Strato Chief & Laurentian models. Dad could have benefited from it in his '70 Biscayne 250 3-speed, though he really should have gone for a 350 to begin with.

I don't see where Floor Shift is mentioned in your '69 stuff. Excluding police cars, all bucket seat full-size models came with a console when you ordered buckets, meaning the Grande Parisienne. The 2+2 came with buckets & console as standard. The console came with buckets even on 3-speed column-shift cars. A floor shift sounds like an early 60's U.S. Pontiac option for the 3-speed, as in Hurst Indy shifter (probably dealer installed anyway).

Police cars could be ordered with buckets and did not get a console. They usually had so much radio equipment & perhaps a Winchester pump rifle mounted between the seats.

North · Guru

It's on this page half way down, note the mention of starting in February production. It requires Automatic and buckets (and buckets included a console) so it isn't any of those things. Best guess is that they were going to make a "rally type shifter" (as used on the US built Firebird, GTO, and Grand Prix) mechanism optional on cars with automatic and console. A rally shifter had a sideways to the right movement possible when upshifting from 1st to 2nd and 2nd to 3rd that limited how the forward movement of the shifter to only one position at a time. It was a GM cheapo knock off of the Hurst Dual gate.

Whatever it was it never made it to production.

CdnGMfan · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

Sport Shift! That was actually a super obscure and rare option that turned a conventional staple-type automatic shifter into a ratcheted detent shifter. It was really rare in the U.S. on Impalas & Chevelles, and offered in the U.S. only on the solid-lifter high performance big blocks together with the special Bang-Screech! TH400 that was paired with them. The shift map was not on the console, it remained on the dash (like a typical Canadian Big Pontiac) and said "Sport Shift" in cursive script on the console.

I have to dig up whatever documentation I have on it as it relates to Chevrolet. Quite a mystery.

You learn something new every day!

CdnGMfan · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

After a bunch of digging I found the reference to the Sport Shift. I had it saved on an old external drive from a previous computer. Coincidentally they were discussing rare Chevelles over at Team Chevelle & I posted about it there today. Anyhow, it was an option for Chevrolet consoles in 1969. Since the Pontiac 2+2 & optionally the Grande Parisienne used the Chevrolet consoles, apparently they offered it on those models as well (or at least planned on it, as evidenced by North's posting here of the dealer sales album). My understanding was that it was to be offered only on the solid-lifter big blocks with the special h.d. TH400 trans, but the '69 Canadian Pontiacs didn't offer those so I'm a little surprised. You learn something every day.

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So, has anybody actually seen one? It would be easy to miss as it looks like the regular console except for the lack of shift map (it is blank except for a Sport Shift logo).

North · Guru

Good sleuthing!

Ive never heard of it but its a variation on the Pontiac Rally shifter idea. Wonder how well it worked? The Pontiac one on GTOs etc didnt have the One by one downshifting capability of this unit, just upshifting. The trouble with the Pontiac unit was that most of the time the shifter cable linkage wasnt adjusted just right so the slap shift feature couldnt work dependably.

davepl · Poncho Master!

Just FWIW, my 350 Laurentian had a front sway bar. In fact it was optioned with the F40 setup, now that I think about it.

I had a 1975 Monte with a factory racket shifter (up and right got you exactly one gear) that I drove for years before I discovered it! GM had a number of examples back then...

-- Edited by davepl on Saturday 9th of May 2020 10:23:11 AM