1978 Pontiac grand safari wagon 

Love these. Love wagons in general as they were the most expensive models in the lineup...so much content. Have driven both gens and I have more connection with the 1st Gen, I own a '75 Grand Ville convert, but the 2nd Gen drives superior and is a better car...really got your money's worth. Last of the real American cars...once they wholesale went FWD and rubber bumpered in the 80's I kinda lost interest Led zeppelin but don't recall name of the song...Ramble On?

I bought one of these in 1986 from a co worker for $900 bucks . Beautiful ride and had the 401 cubic inch V8 .Driving it back home for first time I wondered why everyone was driving so slow . I looked at speedo and I was doing 95 and didn't even feel like it ! Last of great GM cars and I still think about it . .

My mother had a blue 78 with spoked hub caps 6L v8 it hauled groceries and all eight of us kids. This was a nice riding car back in the day.

I owned the 1983 Pontiac Parisienne Wagon. Three years old at the time. Very similar to this. Fully optioned, a true family vacation cruiser. Great highway car. I sold the car two years later to an entrepreneur who was using these cars for taxi service in Sweden. He had purchased others. I’m thinking the Swedish Krona was strong against the dollar to facilitate the cost with overseas shipping. The wagon could hold a 4x8 sheet of plywood flat on the floor.

My Dad's last GM car was a 1978 Pontiac Bonneville Brougham. He test drove one with the 301 V-8 and it was s-l-o-w. So he ordered the optional Pontiac 400-4bbl. V-8 which was optional on the sedans. Now that car was quick for a malaise era vehicle. That may have been the last year the Pontiac 400 was available...its lineage traced back to the original Pontiac 287 V-8 of 1955. We still had that car when he died in 1994 & then I sold it. Sure wish I hadn't. An extremely reliable car.

This Pontiac wagon is an excellent survivor & is in great shape!!! The Malaise era was in full swing & all cars suffered many downsizing & emissions issues. The ugly wheels on this Pontiac wagon are unfortunate!! It would be so much fun with stock wheels & wheel covers!!! Thanks for sharing another fun video!!!! 👍👍🙂

I owned a 1979 Pontiac Bonneville Safari, same colors featured here, 301CID, unusual clothe seating, sold it with over 200,000 miles.

They were an AWSOME car aka wagon! 👍👍

My brother and sister in law had one of these big Safari wagons in the 1980's. I remember it had striped upholstery on the seats.

Love this car I had the same model Grand safari, with a 455, and I guess specialty luxury package they were cigarette lighters sticking out of the rear of the front seat and ashtrays mounted in the back of the front seat. It had tilt wheel, awesome vehicle would love to own one now.

This brings back memories. Me and my buddy were 16 at the time, and my buddy had just gotten his license like a month before. One day he was driving his mom's Grand Safari wagon (with the woodgrain sides) and I was riding with him---he made a left turn in front of a car, and the car slammed into the right rear quarter. Nobody was hurt, and it didn't total the wagon, but it sure did leave a nice-sized dent---a dent he had to explain to his very irate mother

Great review and video ! My parents had one of these a 1984 Pontiac Parisienne safari wagon . Ahh the memories ...

Luv that 65 Ford pick-up next to the Safari. 8-tracks were made to the best of my knowledge from the late sixties to the early eighties. That two way tailgate was first done by Ford in the late sixties and eventually copied by everyone else.

Thank you for sharing. The Pontiac Safari is a line of station wagons that was produced by Pontiac from 1955 to 1989.

Pontiacs full size cars , chevy s with extra chrome outside , wooden dash inside.

I owned both a 1976 and 1977 Grand Safari wagon. Smooth and quite cars. This one is nice, but why is the rear end jacked up? While I would prefer stock wheel covers, at least these appear to be the correct diameter. Kudos for the white wall tires. I do not recall that Pontiac had a different rear suspension than the other B body wagons. I know the 1971 thru 1976 wagons had leaf springs, but the B body 1977 and forward wagons had coils. The tail gate functioned as a door, with window up or down or as a flat loading platform with window down. Ford introduced this tail gate concept (called the "Magic Doorgate) in 1966. It was quickly copied by other US wagon manufacturers. GM offered their clamshell tail gate design in all 1971 thru 1976 full size wagons. While I personally liked the concept and never experienced any problems with my clamshell gate, it has a reputation of being problematic. You are correct regarding the Pontiac 301 CID V8. It was not a particularly durable engine. The Sunbird wagon was an updated Vega (later Monza) subcompact 4-passenger wagon.

Any pontiac with an Oldsmobile 403 was definitely a California car this pontiac station wagon reminds me of the Chevrolet caprice

sure do miss them !

Back when wagons STILL ruled! National Lampoons Vacation ruined it. We looked at them all. Olds, Buick, Pontiac. I still have a "soft spot" for wagons. I had a '95 Ford Escort Wagon & a '99 Saturn Wagon. Could get (2) 2"x4"x10' in either. (8) 2"x4"x8' in either! These '78's can get a "lumber yard" in there.

I'd happily take one of these. Drove an Impala wagon back in the day, solid car. Pontiac version in Grand Safari form better appointed of course, though the Estate Wagon Limited and then later the full on Electra Estate were the ultimate versions. The 301 was not a bad motor, and with a 4bl in the lighter Grand Prix (we had an SJ), it gave a decent account of itself - for 1979. Performance standards were totally different then and 0-60 in 11 seconds of better was decently quick - although our 10 year old Torino with a good 351 would clobber the thing. Would be much better with Rally IIs or the 'custom finned' covers.

Lead Zeppelin Ramble On. 8-tracks were more temperamental and prone to failure. Unlike the tape cassette that has basically a "Split" magnetic tape inside and could be as long as 30 - 45 minutes per side. That ribbon travels from one end to the other on side 1, then is manually flipped over to go in the opposite direction on side two, while passing over a single "read" head, the 8-Track went through a more mechanically complicated process. Inside an 8-Track cassette, there is one long magnetic tape ribbon that loops onto itself. This ribbon passes through 4 heads in the 8-Track player that reads 2 tracks per setting. Each setting had 2 songs on it, so basically the ribbon was as long as a single song, maybe 3-7 minutes long. Once the loop reaches the end of song 2, the internal mechanism "Steps down" to get to track 3/4, then steps down again to get to 5/6 and finally 7/8. Then at the end of track 8, the entire mechanism rises up to the initial position to get to tracks 1/2 and the cycle repeats. It's basically like a music Cd on auto repeat, but instead of a laser head mounted on a bar that travels from one end to another, there was lot of "Mechanical mechanism action" going on, and the older the 8-track player became, the more the internals went out of alignment, eventually leading to the head lining up in the wrong place or the 8-Track jamming up. 8-Track players were pretty good to listen to at one point in time. I have a few cassettes in my collection, like the Grease movie soundtrack, ELO and Led Zepplin. I bought a second hand phonograph cabinet with 8-Track player in it back in around 2008 for one of my hobby shops, but eventually everything wore out on it and then we got the 2013 Flood and the whole thing went under 5 feet of water.

Hard to find one of these gems down under I’ve been searching for one of these or something similar for a while.

I own a 77 Grand Safari here in the UK. I have had the 301 removed (engine dead), now having a pontiac 400 fitted. Should have it back end of July....

When I grew up through the 1980's, a lot of moms drove these wagons. I don't think many Gen X kids like myself would consider these cars as being "Classic" because they were pretty much everywhere and quite common, but time moves on, I guess. It would be like people today always seeing 2022 Honda Civics driving around and not really thinking of them because they just blend into the "Automotive Scenery" ...then your grand kids 40 years later saying "Wow! Look at that classic Honda Civic!" if you know what I mean. The speedometer has that crazy 0-80 mph limiter on it. That was a "Safety feature" on pretty much all the late 1970's to 1985 cars...it was suppose to be so people wouldn't race their cars around on city streets. A lot of people removed the limiter though.

Greetings from N.Ireland, love your videos, amazed by pathetic hp figures from US v8's back then, UK Ford's half that capacity were putting out the same power

8 track: In September 1965, Ford Motor Company offered 8-track players as an option in their 1966 model cars. A Ford spokesperson reported that 65,000 players were installed in the first year. Last year in vehicles? 1982. Why? Too large and casstte came out in 1966 in Europe. 301? I was a service manager at a Pontiac -GMC - Honda dealership at the time. The 301 was reliable and had some significant differences and very underpowered for something this size. It featured only two counter weights instead of the usual five and also featured lightened connecting rod journals. Technically the "Oldsmobile" engine by this year was named a GM corporate engine. These were great road cruisers.

nice 😀

I really enjoy these videos and appreciate that you do them. I am 55 years old so I been around many of these cars you show. I am hoping that your videos will spark people of your generation to have an interest in saving and restoring old cars

I had a 79 Plymouth Volare that had a 8 track

I had an 85 and an 86 Caprice Estate Wagon and it is amazing how many interior bits and pieces are exactly the same as this car. Fun facts: the 85 had a Chevy 305 V8, and the 86 had an Olds 307 V8 from the factory.

This is such a normal every day car that was everywhere not that long ago. It almost seems laughable that it would be at a car show, or we would have to describe "what these are like". I guess if you're pretty young you never rode in one of these, but boy these were common!

Portability of the cassettes vs bulk of the 8 track tapes

Tune is "Ramble On" by Led Zeppelin.

I remember ogling these beauties on the dealership lot in 1978, fresh from the factory. Stunning cars all the way around! The wheels on this particular model in the video has some scary looking rims on it - shame! Put on a set of factory Ralley ll wheels and now we're talking.

I was going to Led Zeppelin Ramble on but I figured someone would have it before me

Cassettes were smaller , hold more music.You could record or make your own mix tape with cassettes. I don’t believe you could with 8 Track..

My parents bought a '81 lemans coupe sliver with 305 V8 and automatic transmission it was okay until my mom vassa got into accident and it was gone

You seriously can't tell vinyl from leather?

When did they go to fuel injection instead of carburetor?

Do you have a favorite car manufacturer? I am a Pontiac fan.

I don’t do Facebook. I was banned from it a couple years ago. Sorry.

like a hoopty basic a-b

Wrong and ugly wheels. Those were dark days for the car industry. Smogged up underpowered cars.