10 Year Anniversary

"NinetyQ" (NinetyQ)
05/05/2016 at 22:09 • Filed to: None

On May 5, 2006, I bought my ‘96 Grand Prix coupe. 10 years and 100,000 miles later, I still love it despite it not being a particularly desirable car. It’s just mine.

This picture is from my mock Senate campaign from senior year government class in the fall of ‘06.

DISCUSSION (40)

jkm7680 > NinetyQ
05/05/2016 at 22:12

Props for holding onto it that long!

And wow, that things 20 now.

TylerLinner > NinetyQ
05/05/2016 at 22:14

I think we need a comparison photo from 2016. Same clothes and location, if possible.

NinetyQ > jkm7680
05/05/2016 at 22:15

Yeah! Seems crazy to me that it’s 20. Well, actually it’ll be 20 in September. It was a weirdly late build date for some reason. Considering the ‘97s were a totally new body style, I would have guessed that they had definitely transitioned manufacturing to the ‘97s before September 1996. Mine might have been one of the very last of that generation to be built.

Birddog > NinetyQ
05/05/2016 at 22:15

Awesome!

It’s nice to see an original W body getting some love. Those GPs with the squinty headlights and fender flares are my favorites.

66671 - 200 [METRIC] my dash > NinetyQ
05/05/2016 at 22:18

Congrats on the anniversary lol, I hope to keep my first car for as long as I can, and then after that, I gotta start checking off a very long list....

NinetyQ > TylerLinner
05/05/2016 at 22:18

I wish I still had that shirt. It was a Lovedrug shirt, one of my favorite bands in high school.

But this was taken at my mom’s house, and she still lives there. So I might be able to make it happen at some point. The car looks pretty much the same, except for a small bubbling of rust in a couple places and a dent in the front-left from when I rear-ended a Suburban with a hitch in the rain. Damn that lack of ABS.

mazda616 > NinetyQ
05/05/2016 at 22:20

Are you or have you been a member of the W-Body forum? I was on there for several years. I know way more about W-bodies than I should.

NinetyQ > Birddog
05/05/2016 at 22:22

Kinja'd!!!

Yeah, I still love the looks of it.

NinetyQ > mazda616
05/05/2016 at 22:25

I’ve been on there. I haven’t had as much hands-on mechanical experience with this car as I should. I did much more with my old Audi, but I actually needed to be able to drive this one. I’ve really only done some basic maintenance to it plus swapping the front struts, which was when I really used the forums a lot.

mazda616 > NinetyQ
05/05/2016 at 22:28

Cool! My aunt had a red on black leather ‘94 Cutlass Supreme coupe with the 3.4 that was supposed to be my first car, so I joined the forum all excited. Then, the transmission blew out and she sold it. :(

If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent > NinetyQ
05/05/2016 at 22:28

10th anniversary... I think that means you have to buy it some diamond jewelry.

TylerLinner > NinetyQ
05/05/2016 at 22:28

Do eet! Get on Ebay and get another shirt (jk).

I feel your pain with the rear-ending. I had a fender bender with my Mk1 Rabbit years ago (also in the rain), and needed $1500 worth of frame/body/paint work to get it right again. Consider yourself lucky!

NinetyQ > TylerLinner
05/05/2016 at 22:31

Yikes! Luckily mine was just cosmetic. The plastic/rubber front bumper cover kind of bent out of the way and the paint got scratched, and then the hitch lodged itself firmly in the leading edge of the left side quarter panel. The hood also got bent slightly along the leading edge, but it’s pretty hard to tell unless you go looking for it. I was determined to fix it myself at some point, but the damage is really not all that noticeable. I’ll save that work for an eventual restoration, lol.

TylerLinner > NinetyQ
05/05/2016 at 22:34

Well, I used the opportunity to convert it to squares, so it was one of perhaps five Cabbies in the world to have a ‘79/80 Westy front end. That was a great car.

Good luck on that resto. I think every car nut secretly wishes to “one day” restore whatever old pile of crap he or she is driving. Not saying your GP is a pile of crap- just that I get the resto joke, as I’ve thought the same way before. ;)

NinetyQ > mazda616
05/05/2016 at 22:35

Dang, that’s bad luck! With the right exhaust, those 3.4s can sound pretty awesome.

NinetyQ > TylerLinner
05/05/2016 at 22:37

Yup. Though I do plan on keeping this car long-term even if I don’t restore it. My family has a barn it can go live in if the time comes. It’s just worth more to me in sentimentality and memories than it would be to someone else in dollars.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > NinetyQ
05/05/2016 at 22:37

That looks really clean. I like these things way more than anyone reasonably should.

NinetyQ > AMGtech - now with more recalls!
05/05/2016 at 22:38

Well that makes two of us then, lol.

PorkchoPlissken > NinetyQ
05/05/2016 at 22:46

Congratulations! 10 years is a big milestone. No matter the car.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > NinetyQ
05/05/2016 at 22:48

Call me crazy but I think that gen coupe W is easily top 5 best looking Pontiacs ever built. If I had a bottomless bank account I would probably convert one to RWD and re-engineer the suspension to make it perform like it looks like it should. Everything visible, interior and exterior, would only be brought up to really good condition, no mods.

NinetyQ > AMGtech - now with more recalls!
05/05/2016 at 22:51

I’ve had much the same thoughts myself, haha! It definitely has FWD proportions though when you look at the front overhang. It’s not all bad, but I think if I still had that bottomless bank account, I might also reposition the front wheels and do some clever sheet metal work to make it look stock, but clearly more RWD-looking, with the engine behind the front axle instead of directly over it.

Bottomless bank accounts are wonderful for the imagination.

TylerLinner > NinetyQ
05/05/2016 at 22:56

I totally get you, man. I’m the same way with my F-100 (first drove it around 2006, as well), but thankfully it’s never had to be my daily for any significant amount of time, and never in the winter.

Chuckles > NinetyQ
05/05/2016 at 23:01

Damn, I forgot how good those cars look when they are clean! Most examples that I see these days are a lot rougher than that. It looks like it would be a great car for a cross country trip.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > NinetyQ
05/05/2016 at 23:07

Maybe convert the engine bay to a frunk, lose the backseat, and install a mid-mounted V8 fiero-style.

NinetyQ > Chuckles
05/05/2016 at 23:07

I used to drive it from northern Indiana out to Kansas City a couple times a year when I was in college. It’s a great highway cruiser. Even better now that I’ve fixed the A/C that was broken for the first 8 years of ownership! lol. 1200 miles round trip in the summer with the windows down at 75 mph gets a little irritating after a while. And now that it’s fixed, I freelance and stay-at-home-dad it up and barely even put many miles on it.

NinetyQ > AMGtech - now with more recalls!
05/05/2016 at 23:09

But then I figure you might as well just have a Fiero and drive the Grand Prix as the family car.

At least that was my plan, until my ludicrous idea of building a ‘20s/’30s European-style grand prix car popped into my head. Now I’ve gotta save money for that.

NinetyQ > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
05/05/2016 at 23:10

Hmm... that might double the value of the car!

Chuckles > NinetyQ
05/05/2016 at 23:13

I wouldn’t mind a nice highway cruiser like that. The Miata is tons of fun, but when I drive the 450 miles to visit my parents it’s running over 4k rpm pretty much the whole time.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > NinetyQ
05/05/2016 at 23:13

Unless like me you’re not a fiero fan.

ttyymmnn > NinetyQ
05/05/2016 at 23:16

Exactly how I felt about my 01 Golf. It had 212k miles on it before some drunk totaled it while it was parked in front of my house. There was really nothing at all desirable about the car, but it was mine, I bought it new so ALL those miles were mine, and it was fun to drive. Happy anniversary.

NinetyQ > Chuckles
05/05/2016 at 23:20

O_o’

My Grand Prix barely turns 2,000 rpm at like 65 mph. Maybe 2300 or so at 75-80. Can’t remember for sure, but it’s pretty low. I averaged 31 mpg over 450 miles once. That was nice.

My old Audi (90 Quattro 20V) was more like your Miata.

wafflesnfalafel > NinetyQ
05/05/2016 at 23:22

never owned a car that long, (though all my folks’ cars hung around a long time like that....)

NinetyQ > AMGtech - now with more recalls!
05/05/2016 at 23:22

True... but why not! Give me an ‘88 Fiero GT anyday. Upgraded suspension and brakes for that model year, and the fastback looks of the GT body. Plus it’s the only rear-mid-engined American car ever mass produced. And it’s RWD with a manual transmission (ideally, anyway). And lightweight. And strangely very safe for its time.

What’s not to like?

Kinja'd!!!

NinetyQ > ttyymmnn
05/05/2016 at 23:24

Dang, that’s a lot of miles! It took me 10 years to put just over 100k on mine. So it’s up to 226,000 now I think. Somewhere around there anyway. I just drove it like an hour ago, you’d think I would know that figure for sure, lol.

Chuckles > NinetyQ
05/05/2016 at 23:27

The speed limit around here is 70, so that 4k is when I’m running 75-80. The Miata feels way more at home on a back road where the limit is 55 and the curves are plentiful.

NinetyQ > Chuckles
05/05/2016 at 23:31

I need a Fiero for that kind of driving. My Grand Prix is better than some of its competitors on the curves, but it’s certainly not at home there.

XJDano > NinetyQ
05/06/2016 at 00:17

I'll have my 10 year anniversary of owning my metro in December. After putting 126,000 miles on it myself and fixing it mostly myself when things go wrong, I kind of don't want to get rid of it. I just don't have space to keep it & the chassis is starting to show rust.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > NinetyQ
05/06/2016 at 00:55

No nostalgia for me. It certainly makes more sense. But I could build the GP to be better than a fiero in every way. Who doesn’t like a good sleeper in a completely unexpected package in a completely unexpected way?

Darkshoe (With Straight 6) > NinetyQ
05/06/2016 at 04:10

I had a 2002 Monte Carlo SS which I loved, flaws and all. It was a good platform.

Svart Smart, traded in his Smart > NinetyQ
08/01/2016 at 02:19

10 years and 100,000 miles later, I still love it despite it not being a particularly desirable car. It’s just mine.

Perfect Opponaut sentiment.