"Mongo"

Owner:   Marc6670 Year: 1979 Make: Pontiac Model: Catalina Est.Horsepower: 375 Page Views: 3143 Comments: 2 Comments Ratings: 2 votes   Overall: Rating : Exterior: Rating : Interior: Rating : Performance: Rating :

It's hard to put into words what my Catalina means to me.  Long story short, it was my first car.  My mom threw me the keys to her Catalina and it was mine.  It was also the first "new" car my parents ever bought.  My sister and I grew up in that car...we went everywhere in it.  Road trips for my dad's softball games, going from Cedar Rapids, IA down to Corpus Chrisi, TX one Christmas break when I was 4...lots of great memories.  When I was 17, my mother lost a 3 year battle with cancer.  My dad asked me to sell it because it bothered him too much to have it around.  I didn't want to, but I did.  Not a week had past and the kid who bought it wrapped it around a tree.  I heard of the accident and I was just devestated.  I told my dad when I sold it that it just didn't feel right.  Guess no one else was meant to have that car.

I was determined to have another one.  After a search that lasted more than 10 years and some potential canidates here and there...I found a Catalina that was very close to what I used to have.  Obviously I couldn't find an exact match...but this one is an original 2-door with excellent sheet metal for a car this old and coming from the snow belt...it was close enough for me.  

So far, I've dropped in a '68 YC-code 400...the usual engine mods that goes along with a rebuild but nothing too radical, (heads and block decked .010", bored cylinders .030" Elderbrock Performer RPM intake, Elderbrock 600 cfm carb, Petronix Flamethrower HEI distributor), Heddman tri-Y headers, true dual exhaust with Flowmaster 40 series mufflers, TH350 with shift kit and 2500 stall converter, and an Eaton Posi with 3.42 gears in back.  Future plans are leaning toward building a stroker motor (400 block with 455 crank and pistons), switching to a manual transmission, and boxing in the frame to stiffen it up.  It's going to take some serious work, but I've been in the planning stages for some time now and I believe I have a pretty solid game plan when the time comes.  

I will say it's not the best on the eyes in the looks department, surly not as nice as some of the other rides in this section, but that's going to be changing sometime down the road...thank you eBay!  They've been my best friend when it comes to tracking down those hard to find N.O.S. parts.  I have some interesting plans for the interior...I accquired a pair of bucket seats and a non-shifter steering column out of a '77 Grand Prix, been tracking down black interior pieces to change the color, and I'm currently in the hunt for a center console out of a '79 Bonneville (the only year it was offered in the car).  I'm going for that look of "it could have been optioned this way, only if Pontiac would've offered it" type of thing.

My Catalina is one that you really don't see on the roads a whole lot anymore...not a very popular choice when it comes to cars.  I always get asked, "Why this car?  Why not something more common like a Firebird or Goat?"  Well, why not be different?  Why not do something that isn't really that popular?  Nothing against the more common rides, I'm a big Arrowhead fanatic, but I've always been a guy that's just been a bit different, not necessarily going down the mainstream, most going my own way doing my own thing.  My Catalina has very special meaning, very sentimental in my eyes.  When I bought it, it almost makes me feel like I "righted a wrong" in a way  People say that you learn from your mistakes.  I certainly did.  I have my Catalina back...and it will not leave me again.

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