1979 Pontiac LeMans Safari

Unusual car - I have never seen one these GM midsize wagons with manual crank front windows and power rear vent windows. :confused:

http://www.1ownercarguy.com/1979_Pontiac_Lemans_187425084.veh

 

not too shabby

...well... except for that front seat! if I had the money and a ride out to El Cajon(about 120 miles) I'd get this one. Looks good enough. And they make re-upholstery kits for those front seats, don't they???

 

I believe on these A/G-bodies that the front/rear power windows were separate options, as evidenced by this weird one. In fact, I believe that if you ordered both the front and rear power windows, the driver's door panel had 2 separate 2-switch units, not one 4-switch unit.

 

Still weird and green after all these years...

I do like the wheels..

 

Any upholstery shop can reupholster any seat, kit or not. All they need to do is to cut the selected material to the correct shape and stitch it on.

 

The ad now says it's sold.

I don't believe that's a 305 Chevy; sure looks like a 301 Pontiac engine to me.
That means any Pontiac 350/400/455 will fit in there.

EDIT: Just looked again; it is a Chevy 305.
Guess I need to look a little more closely before typing replies. DOH! :sorry:

Wish mine was originally a 301...would have made it easier to drop in a "real" poncho engine!

 

Rear power vent windows are strange, I never even knew they offered those as power operated on those cars, especially on the ones with manual front windows. lol.

I always found it strange that the rear door windows on these cars didn't roll down.

 

GM claimed at the time that the fixed windows added shoulder room in the back seat. Of course, just coincidentally, it also made the cars cheaper to manufacture by eliminating the roll up/down mechanisms inside the rear doors.

 

LOL!!! True. That would have been sick with a 455 and a 4 speed. I like the color and the wheels!!!

 

I worked at GM back when these cars were being developed. I think there is some truth to the interior space claims; they were able to make some marketing claims and got the benefit of an EPA (or DOT?) size/mass classification by recessing the armrest area into the rear door cavity. (IIRC, the critical measurements were rear hip room, total interior volume and total vehicle mass).

BUT, I also know that the lower window seal is designed as if the window was moveable.

I always suspected that these vehicles were WAY above the design mass target. They came up with the brilliant (NOT!) idea of eliminating the rear window mechanisms to get below the mass limit for the vehicle classification.

 

The four doors sedans have fixed rear windows and had a power vent window option too. The vent window was behind the rear door in the sail panel.
The flow through or astro ventilation was another excuse for not needing the rear windows to roll down. I think that the power rear vent windows were standard with air on some models?
I've been looking for a set of those '78-'80 four door Malibu/Le Mans/Century power vent window actuators and motors since I bought my car so I can convert it to power rear vent windows, very hard to find.
The wagon type are a lot more plentiful.

 

You need to find one with the 1/4 glass on the quarter, like this:


Not one with the 1/4 glass in the doors, like this:


....but I think you already knew this.