Pontiac Aztek Owners Club

• What was going on at this time in Pontiac’s History (2000-2005)
• Where did the idea of Aztek come from?
• What were the sales specs like on the Aztek?
• What kinds of unique features did the vehicle have? What is the best thing about the Aztek?
• When the Aztek was phased out, did it morph into another vehicle? Does it live on as something else?
• Are there any famous/celebrity Aztek owners? Who’s got the biggest collection? What are some of the craziest mods you have done (or have seen others do) to an Aztek? 

and much, much more!

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Gran Touring Motor Sports Podcast, break Fix, where we’re always fixing the break into something motor sports related, the ugliest car of all time. One of our friends who works here has this project that he’s working on and it, it’s a, it’s a spectacle. We are the most unattractive car.

There’s so many, oh, whatever the thing was. That was the cousin to the Buick Rendezvous. What is that, uh, Pontiac car that they said it was the best car of all time. And I just, I don’t know, man. They’re just really ugly. I don’t know if people are buying those site unseen or what happened. I’ve seen the, uh, car that, uh, Heisenberg drill was at the Aztec.

The Aztec, the Aztec. Looks like it got beat by the ugly stick. What was that? Aztec? An Aztec. Aztec. Was that the Aztec? Yeah. Yeah. Pontiac. Aztec. I’m gonna speak in its defense for me. The Aztec did have some cool power. Did you just use Cool and Aztec in the same Synthes? Sadly, yes it was. But did it have to be [00:01:00] shaped like a juice box?

Please tell me it’s an Aztec. We really wanna interview somebody with an Aztec Pulitzer Prize-winning automotive journalist, Dan Neal named tonight’s featured vehicle, one of the 50 worst cars of all time, saying it violated one of the principle rules of car design. We like cars that look like us with its multiple eyes and supernumerary nostrils.

The Aztec looks deformed and scary. Something that dogs bark at and cathedrals employ to ring bells. The shame is under all that ugliness. There was actually a useful. Competent crossover. The Aztec has always been noted for its controversial styling, but thanks. In parts of Hollywood and passions of folks like our panel tonight, the Aztec has gained more than just a cult following, and we wanna explore that.

So without further ado, we want to welcome John Peterson and Paul Gunn from the Aztec Owners Club to break fix, to [00:02:00] unpack this legendary Pontiac Aztec story. So welcome to Break Fix, gentle. Yeah. Thank you. Glad to be. Thank you. Here we gotta talk not about Pontiac’s history, about its origin. We have to fast forward the clock in the 85 year span of Pontiac to the year 2000 and talk about what was going on when a lot of critics were saying this was supposed to be the Renaissance for Pontiac.

Uh, just a lot of bad things happened around that time. So the Aztec had been around for a year. Then nine 11 happens and the whole nation’s focus goes toward the Middle East and fun kind of goes away for a while. People become rather conservative on their spending because people are uncertain about the future and all that sort of thing.

So at that time, we had the grandam, the Bonneville, the Montana, and the reintroduction of the gto, which was a Holden, the Manna. We came to find out later an Australian product and then suddenly comes. The Aztec, all these other cars are [00:03:00] carryovers from the 1990s, but again, here comes the Aztec. Where did it come from?

Where did this idea for this crossover SUV suddenly emerge? Other than that, I didn’t really have much following of Pontiac during that time. Think that’s around the same time that came out with the solstice, which was to compete with the small little two door coupe type cars and things like that. Other than the little bit of knowledge I do have with the Aztec, I don’t know, it’s baseline of where it came from, the thoughts of building it or anything like that.

And luckily we got the guys here tonight to give us those details. Pontiac was experimenting with it, and they created their prototype, which got all these great reviews. You know, you hear that these cars that are anomalies many times have these great reviews at car shows back through history. You’ve got the Edsel, the Nash Metropolitan, some of these cars that are just some car show in New York, and the public reaction is so strong that the manufacturer just thinks we’ve got a winner right here.

They got Tom Peters involved in designing this crossover. I’m not even sure if they’d used the [00:04:00] word crossover at that time, but you know, it’s real angular, all these angles, and which, oh, by the way, Peters said that we wanted to build a bold in your face vehicle. That was not for everybody. So I mean, he did that.

And so while many people consider the car failure except for, uh, fans of the car, of course, Tom Peters ended up designing the Corvette C seven. You know, you see all those angles that come out now on this wildly popular sports car. When the Aztec came out, it was an odd vehicle at the time. You know, the Montana was just another nerd minivan.

And so now all of a sudden you’ve got this car that’s got all these unusual features. And I remember the first time I saw an Aztec, it was a yellow one. I just couldn’t quit staring. I thought, you know, what planet did this come from? And then I saw that it was a Pontiac, and I thought, this just doesn’t line up with Pontiacs.

As we know Pontiacs, you know, this is not my dad’s Pontiac GM estimated that they would sell 75,000 Aztecs per year. You know, you think [00:05:00] GM’s been around for a long time, so that type of market study, they missed it. But why did they miss it? And they needed to produce 30,000 per year to break even. But in none of the production years, did they reach 30,000 GM lost money all the way around.

So you’ve got the last year only 5,020 sold, plus 90 to Mexico. And then in 2006 there were still 2000 and fives lingering and there were 247 sold in 2006. And then there were still 2000 and fives lingering in 2007 and 69 of them sold. So you, you know, you had 69 that were, had been on the lot for two years.

Brad would love this. It’s like lost the pound where you can buy a new 2016 Dodge Dart still today on Chrysler Lots. Yeah, their bestselling year was one of the earlier ones. They only made like tw they only sold like 27,000. So, so we’re gonna then how did, then, how did the Aztec make it into production?

The [00:06:00] same reason the Ford Ltd made it into production. Say what you will about the Ford l t d, but it was just another big American car. They went to all the focus groups and picked one thing out of each focus groups that, that they said they wanted. Did they, were they all, everything else out? There was some redneck in the background going, I like him nostrils on the Firebird.

I need that on my suv. I, for the Aztec, I think the writers and directors from Breaking Bad, long before the story was written, went to General Motors and said, we’ve got a story we want to write and, and broadcast. We need a vehicle that says I’m a midlife crisis. I need a car for that. So they, they already made that.

It’s called the Geome. You know who bought the Aztec? If you look at the packages, nobody, the Aztec, nobody. Nobody bought the Aztec. Well, I’ve seen exactly zero on the road. You can lease a General Motors product if you work for General Motors, you know, for practically nothing. This is when I was working in Detroit, apparently quite a few of those middle managers had [00:07:00] Aztecs.

There was nothing else on the roster. In other words, you wanna lease a uh, Pontiac 6,000 Ste. You have to have an Aztec, you want to get a Firebird, you have to have an Aztec, you want a Cadillac, you have to have an Aztec. Cause they couldn’t sell them. It was the same reason why Ford corporate guys were driving two explorer sports forever.

Couldn’t sell it.

So it’s just one of those cars that slipped through the cracks of design and a promotion. It picked up a niche market. The Grand Dam in the Bonneville both had history going on many, many, many years. Oh yeah, Mon Montana. The Montana evolved from the silhouette, the dust buster of the eighties. Right? Yeah.

Well that was a weird car too. But you know, that’s another, that’s another podcast. Well, they’re that generation for the uh, the Grand Ams. I do know they did have, I think it was a 3.8 liter supercharged V6 in some of ’em. The gtp. Yeah. My mom, she had the [00:08:00] regular Grand Am gt and she actually still has that car.

And it was just the natural aspirated engine. And I’ve actually looked around at Junk Yard to see if I can find the E C U and supercharger I wanted to put on hers cuz engine and bottom end was the same. Yes. That was the hot, hot thing at the time at Pontiac, that everything was just kind of, it was just there.

Yeah. It’s kind of boring. Yeah, exactly. But the part that perplexes most people is where did the Aztec come from? Just from somebody’s imagination because it’s not based on anything. It’s not like some of the Japanese entries where it’s like, well, we took a Toyota Camry and we built a minivan on top of it.

So we already had a chassis. It was a ground up. Just start from scratch while the world. And the intention that I heard was that it needed to feature this extreme futuristic styling, and it promised all this versatility for people of Dan and, and my generation, the Gen Xers. Right. And we’re like, is this what we wanted?

You know, is this what we were looking for? Wayne Cherry, who [00:09:00] was head of design at GM at that time, when I asked him one time, I said, Wayne, what were y’all thinking when you came out with the Aztec? And the answer was, well, it played well in the clinics. But you know, that was back when General Motors had what they called vehicle line engineers, BLEs, and they had the last word statement on manufacturing.

So the designers would come up with a great design, but the Vle would say, well, you know, if we used the sunroof from the. Car, we can save $2 a car, so it makes the roof look goofy. And then they decided they needed more air coming in the front, so they made the front end look like some sort of a car pumpkin.

And then they decided to save money on the wheel size. So they put these little dinky wheels on it. And when the BLEs were finished with it, it didn’t look a bit like what the designers would come up with. So that’s when the bean counters are in charge of what’s going on. But I’ve also heard that Tom Peters was the head of design for the Aztec, who happens to be the gentleman that designed the C seven Corvette.

I just really, I’m curious how we get from A to B, [00:10:00] but maybe that’s a whole nother episode into itself. Right. I think it, it determines what marketing and, and the, and the division says they want in a package, and then they gotta design a package for it. But that, that was a, that was a pretty good failure I thought.

And I think the market proved that too. That and the Buick Rendezvous, which is built on the same, uh, platform where General Motors, high watermarks, and the guy who really turned that around was Bob Lutz. The distant cousin? Well, the close cousin, no, uh, Aztec owner wants to admit it, but the cousin is the, the Buick Rendezvous, basically the same vehicle.

Although e every Aztec owner is going to disagree with me on that same engine, same, uh, uni body, different metal, and a third seat. So you did have that luxury. Rendezvous version, and I’m not sure which came first out of those two, it’s probably a simultaneous, uh, you know, in case that the Aztec didn’t make it or in case the rendezvous didn’t make it, they would still have all these parts that could go into the other car.

You know, no doubt it was an unusual car for its day. The rendezvous, [00:11:00] especially later, became part of the GM 360 chassis, which shared with the trailblazer that last of the body on frame SUVs that GM was building in the later two thousands, they rebadged that, you know, they had the Envoy and a bunch of others.

So it was kind of a drastic shift from that Aztec platform to the Trailblazer platform. But that also begs the question, where did the name come from? I’ve heard some different rumors about where the name Aztec came from, because it’s really a step away. From Grandam and Bonneville and Lamonds and all these other names that Pontiacs are synonymous with.

Honestly, I’m not sure where the name Aztec came from. It’s the one thing online that like, if you dig and dig and dig and you can’t find it, you know, I, I’ve looked for that answer everywhere. Maybe we should ask Tom Peters. The one thing I found that lent me to sort of in a halfway understanding why it’s called the Aztec, was apparently they were built in Mexico, so it was to pay homage to the Mexican culture coming from the Aztec, something [00:12:00] like that.

And I went, that’s a bunch of Malarky. I don’t know, but that’s to John’s point, that’s the closest thing I’ve been able to find in my research as to why they, what they did. Yeah, a lot of cars have been made in Mexico, so I don’t know, that’s kind of a stretch. Maybe like the Aztec in the May buildings that were all very square, you know, not very circular.

Maybe it took some of its, you know, squared to mine from that as where they got some of their ideas from. Is that what explains those fender wells? I read an article about how a lot of the Aztec was designed by a computer. It’s one of the first cars that was solely computerized before it was actually manufactured.

I don’t know exactly what that means, but you’ve got like the, the rear window on the side. Is it a little lower than the driver’s window and the passenger’s window? Kind of odd. Apparently that’s part of the computer program that helped design the car. But wasn’t that also the issue, like with, was it the pacer where one door was longer than the other?

Did they [00:13:00] do that on purpose? Yeah. Yeah. The pacer. Yeah. Accidentally on purpose. Yeah. You know, I think the Aztec was probably really an A M C. That just slipped into the Pontiac world, you know, it really is. It’s kind of like an amc, right? It fits in there with all those oddball, the gremlin, the all the pacer, the hornet, or whatever that car was called.

I’ve been in a lot of sticky situations being, you know, from Pennsylvania in my Aztec, those, uh, big vender wells that actually, you know, protected my car from getting quite a lot of damage. Just from everything from deer to potholes in the Pennsylvania roads. I liked them more than I did when I first got the car.

So let’s talk about each of yours, Aztecs, and we’ll start with John. When did you get yours? But even before that, what was your first impression of the vehicle and what drew you to it? When I first saw one, it was probably about in 2006 and to be honest, I was just entering middle school. I had a friend whose parents bought him one, and I just thought it was the coolest car I ever saw.

He [00:14:00] had the complete tent package and everything, and I go camping all the time and I just thought that was rad. But $27,000 sticker price. I was a pretty poor kid from the outer eerie area, so there was no way like I was ever gonna be able to afford one. So I, I bided my time and I drove a 2003 Ford Taurus until about five years ago.

I found one pretty close to Pittsburgh for a few grand. And it ended up being rusted out. I ended up saving more money and then finding the queen in Florida and I hauled it back up and I’ve undercoded it like every year since. I absolutely love it. There’s nothing I found that I really can’t haul, and that’s a very important point about the Aztec.

One of its features, which we’ll talk more about the special features of the vehicle in a little bit here is that it’s one of the few vehicles that can hold inside of its entire cargo space, a four by eight sheet of plywood without any sort of interruption. There’s a lot of pickup trucks that struggle to do that because of fender arches and things like that, like the [00:15:00] Dodge Caravan, the early ones, the Aztec can swallow a piece of Sheetrock or a piece of plywood, which is pretty cool.

Yeah, quite incredible because a lot of people give the Aztec a lot of flack and everything, but like John was mentioning, he camped a lot and everything, and that was, for me, being an outdoor type person, I thought the Aztec was phenomenal for a lot of the options it had for the AZ aspect of camping related type stuff.

Because Subaru was catering to with the Outback and things like that, catering to all the people like Go outdoors and hiking and stuff like that. And I think that was the market Pontiac was intending to go for. But I don’t know if it really worked out for them the way they were possibly thinking and the way I saw it.

So I’m wondering what did your dad think about the Aztec as a Pontiac Man, I love the Aztec. Oh my God. Love the Pontiac. I wanted one so badly. I can’t tell you what he really thought of it, because I really liked that stupid car that was the most ridiculous, terrible suv. And I [00:16:00] loved it so much because of the stupid camper that came with it.

And I love camping. And that marketing campaign got me and he totally called me out on it. It was not a great car. And he was. Somewhat vocal on the fact that it was not a great car because I did not get one, which means he very much convinced me not to get one, and I wanted one very badly.

There was an article that talked about how the Pontiac Aztec concept car was supposed to have this extreme futuristic styling to, uh, reach this intended Generation X buyer demographic. Well, I’m Gen X. I’m, I’m like the oldest of the Gen X, you know, no one’s really been able to market anything to us. So you, do you remember the, uh, Suzuki X 10?

Yeah. You know, the little squatty thing, you know, that was supposed to be a Gen X car, but, you know, it bombed. And so they came out with this and, uh, [00:17:00] tried to reach the Gen X buyer demographic, but I, I think on resale it’s happening. I don’t think it really happened at the beginning because Gen X was, Couldn’t afford, like you was talking about the price.

Or maybe Subaru capitalized on where Pontiac failed because that marketing campaign didn’t come till later and then they were able to pick up where the Aztec sort of left off. So we gotta kind of look at it chronologically and say, you know, it’s not a chicken and egg. It’s where Pontiac tried and didn’t succeed.

Others took that ball and ran with it. I wanna talk to Paul about his impress. The first time he saw an Aztec and what led him to buy one and, and what his, you know, first one was like, and things like that. I had a friend who had one and I, I just kept asking. Every time I saw her, I said, how do you like this card?

She just said, we love it. And then I’d see her a few months later and said, how, how do you like this? How do you like it? We love it. I just, I couldn’t really quit looking at it, but I didn’t know if I liked it or not. But here’s what happened. My son came home from college just a few years ago. He said, dad, There’s this TV show called Breaking Bad.

[00:18:00] Something got me thinking that maybe I could get one of these and it would build community between my sons and me. I started looking on Craigslist, Facebook, uh, marketplace and this, and I, I found one Price was right. I bought it from the, uh, woman and did not tell my sons that I bought it. So they came home from college for Christmas.

It was in the driveway. My son’s just freaked out. It was yellow, just the in your face, yellow. Paul, since you mentioned Breaking Bad, did you go out and buy yourself one of the pork pie hats, like Heisenberg War to Wear Around? Yeah. No. No, not yet. Sounds like a stocking stuffer to me, Dan. Yeah. Stocking stuffer.

I bought it kind of as a joke, but not really a joke because I wanted my sons to have reliable transportation in college. They took it to their university, a big university in a small town. It was the only Aztec they think in the whole county. My son said all day long, they would get videos from their friends of them driving the [00:19:00] Aztec going down the road.

And then my daughter saw it and she got jealous. She said, you know, I’d really like to have one of these. So I ended up getting a, a copper colored one. Uh, she drove it through part of college and I ended up giving it to her and she loves it. She teaches at an inner city school and, uh, the children, when she drove in, one of the kids said, wow, miss Gunn, you looks like you’ve got something that came from outer space.

And they, they have never seen one before. Now here my kids had them and I wanted one. I kept looking, oh, family’s got Aztecs. I know, I know we have a fleet of them. You know, so I, I was able to get a gray silver one that is probably the best. It’s got the highest miles of the ones that I have. It was a one owner car price was like cheap, like $1,400, you know, a bit of work done to it.

It’s just been great for us. And fortunately I have a son who’s gone overseas with the military. So, uh, he brought the Aztec home and I told him to prepare to buy his own car. Because I want this one for me. It sounds like with the yellow and the copper, are these the all body [00:20:00] colored Aztecs, the later ones or these early Aztecs?

Yes. I do not have a 2001. It is, they are the all body color, same plastic on the, whatever they call it, some kind of protection guard or something. But, but I think it was just a 2001, you guys correct me if I’m wrong, but I think it was just a 2001 that had the, the black at the bottom. Yep. So John, how about you?

What year is your Aztec? I have a 2002 Arctic white and a 2003 Arctic white. And my mom has a 2002 steel blue. Yeah, the fleet, it’s like Lays potato chips. You can’t just have one, right. Yeah, you can’t have one. And uh, the fleet kinda worked good for the kids in college, you know, because I could go to pull apart, you know, just pick all kinds of parts.

Now, of the ones that you guys have, are they all front wheel drive or are you guys fortunate enough to have picked up a all-wheel drive Versa Track? Mine are all front wheel drive. Unfortunately, that’s like one of the bad things that I hear about it is that the versa attract is unpredictable. Yeah. Hard to manage.

So did they borrow that [00:21:00] system from like the, the Safari vans or something like that? Or it was it its own, I think it was its own thing. Cause it had its own fluid. Dan would probably know. He knows all that technical stuff. Our resident GM bow tie expert, the versa attract that was in ’em, uh, did a quick look up on that and it showed that other than the Aztec, it was also offered in the Montanas and silhouettes and Renez.

Oh wow. So is, uh, like a hallex system like they used later in the, um, probably in the Sr Xs and some of the, you know, the Cadillacs and things like that. So they did have it in quite a few, and that’s a common thing with most manufacturers in GM in particular. They used stuff across the board throughout multiple different vehicles and that’s following GM parts.

Yeah. In my opinion, GM is one of the most versatile with being able to have. Parts off of one vehicle can fit on 10 other vehicles. That’s big reason I’m a GM guy. As soon as I got my Aztec, I knew nothing about cars before then. I just drove them until they crapped. I love to the cars so much. I, I had to start learning about it in order to start fixing it.

So I’m learning slowly but surely. [00:22:00] So you talked about the price. John mentioned about 27, 20 $8,000 when they were new. I happened to see the Aztec at the New York Auto Show when they debuted in 2000. Saw them again in DC 2002 with a friend of mine. We would go on a pilgrimage to DC Auto Show every year, and it was always one of these things where there was a huge crowd around the car.

Yes, you would see the sticker in the window and go, my God, really $30,000 after destination charges and taxes. Can you really stomach that? Yeah. So now here we are 22 years later. Yep. What’s the market look like, especially in this crazy used car market for an Aztec? Have they held any value or they pretty reasonable?

Yeah, they’re pretty reasonable. Yeah. The other guys may have some opinions there, but you know, I’ll see them anywhere from running $2,500 to one with really low mileage of like 45,000 miles. I think one was on our page there and our group page sold for maybe 7,500 or $8,000. It’s like in, you [00:23:00] know, garage condition.

They’re pretty inexpensive on the used market. At least that’s my experience here in the south. I can say that some dealers are starting to get. It’s growing popularity. I have seen some people try to ask four or 5,000 for one with over 200,000 miles. I’ve seen those Facebook ads, but generally you can find pretty reasonable prices for them.

I have two that tells you anything. Yeah, and to that point, you know, before we sat down for this episode, I was texting back and forth with you guys. There are some Aztecs showing up even in museums, obviously from the popularity of breaking bad, but you spot them. I mean, they stand out and you’re like, look, there’s an Aztec in the museum.

There are quite a few out there. So to your point, Paul, I think it’s a good starter vehicle, especially if you’re looking for something a little bit older. You know, you guys talked about higher mileage, Aztecs. What motor is in the Aztec? The center of reliability. Is that engine, is this a borrowed GM power plant from something else or did they develop a new engine just for the [00:24:00] Aztec, I don’t know.

Wasn’t it from the Montana? I’ve actually bought some Montana like engine covers. They fit right on both R 3.4 So that would’ve been a carryover from like the Beretta that also had a 3,400. What else had a 3,400 in it? Dam, the Montana had it in it. Grande View showing a handful of different vehicles that had that engine in.

And I know even the Grand Am, I think at one point had 3.4 in it. Yeah, it was an odd size. It didn’t come in a lot of cars, so it’s kind of interesting that they decided to put that motor in the Aztec. Something to be said about that. GMV six, right? They run forever. As long as you take care of ’em. And that actually leads into a great conversation about cost of ownership.

You guys are both turning wrenches on your Aztecs, you’re maintaining ’em now, 22 year old cars, right? 20 year old cars in some cases. What’s it like to own, operate, and maintain one of these? Like what are some of the known, let’s say, fail issues or things that you guys have had to deal with? You know, do a lot of things go wrong with them, especially now being as old as they are?

I’d say the main thing is the cooling system. [00:25:00] It’s the one thing that can make or break your engine. You see a lot of these things in scrapyards for cooling failures, blown head gaskets. Yeah. My experience is you check that coolant level and you check that oil level and you keep checking them and if you start getting the leak, you fix it.

Now. My first one, I did let it go. When they overheat, they are done. Yeah, so keep it cool. If I recall correctly, those were aluminum engines and the aluminum they were using during that generation did not like high heat levels. I discovered the fans come on at an unreasonable temperature. It’s higher than it should be.

I was talking with my mechanic and he said something about it being like 40 or 50 degrees higher than when the fans kick on in other vehicles. It’s outrageous and it’s why I tell people in our group, when I see mine, Even a little bit past that halfway mark on the heat meter, I kick the heat on and bring it right back down just to be safe.

I haven’t had any problems with mine with the heat being an issue on [00:26:00] those GM having so much like interchangeability. I wonder if the sensor for when it kicks the fans on for the relay, if it could be changed out with another vehicle where it would bring it down. Cause I know a lot of GM’s, normal operating temperature for thermostats is normally around 190 degrees and when you’re going down the road, it’ll sit a little bit above that one 90 cuz the thermostat opens at one 90.

I know with the older V8 s and stuff, I always run 160 degree thermostat to keep ’em running cooler. I wonder if they offer a lower running temperature one for the Aztecs that could help with that cooling issue. We’ve also discussed like a switch. Override the fans and kick ’em on. And I’ve got like the seat warmers and stuff.

There’s one button I have in the middle of the center console there. It doesn’t do anything. So I’ve thought of having him wire switched directly to them. And you know, John, that little trick that you’re using is something we actually use on the track. You use the heater core as an auxiliary radiator to dissipate heat when you’re, it’s on a really, really hot day.

So that’s actually very insightful for you to do that. Another trick some people will do is kick on the air conditioning without actually [00:27:00] kicking it over to cold. So, because that’ll force both fans to turn on as well for extra cooling. But the trick that you’re using though, it, it stinks on a super hot day, is to kick on that heater and dissipate some of that heat.

Well, when you’re in Pennsylvania and it’s only summer, you know, Few months. It’s not too bad. You roll the windows down, you get used to it. Paul, what other known issues with the Aztec have you faced, you know, with having so many in your fleet as well, or things that you guys have learned from the forums?

Mm-hmm. The cooling problem is a problem when you read about it on our group page and, uh, when you look at the ads. But I haven’t had that problem, but I’ve done my best to use really good radiator fluid Cardinal rule with my sons was you gotta check your radiator fluid level and you’ve gotta pay attention to this hot and cold thermostat in there.

The other problems that we’ve had, the dashboard warps, it shrinks the pad over the top of the hard plastic shrinks. Now, I think in the, the latest models. They were [00:28:00] probably okay, but in the earlier models it just shrinks. But I think it did that on other pontiacs too. The glue broke down and then the actual pad shrink.

It’s ugly. It’s just part of it, you know? I’d like to see an aftermarket pad that would fit over that. That’s a cosmetic problem. Was the Aztec plagued with the same issues that a lot of cars during that time period had? Yeah, which was the whole soft touch where they made a lot of the hard plastics feel almost leathery, where they would spray on whatever that chemical was.

I know like the German cars, man, they were drenched in that stuff and it became, oh yeah, no, no. This was gross. Yeah, yeah. No, this is. It’s different. It’s, it’s just an actual typical soft pad. But I saw, I think it was a Bonneville from the same era and it was the same deal on the dash, so it’s just something about the GM glue they were using and then they, I think it was materials GM was using at that time too.

Were just subpar material could, yeah. Yeah, I agree. A lot of plastics would crack and it was just horrible. Yeah. Unfortunately, pulling one from a junkyard [00:29:00] and trying to repair all that is just almost impossible. We had some people who had some clever repairs that they’ve done that look okay. I can tell you the one that, that’s the death of my yellow Aztec, unfortunately, and I’m about to post it.

As a giveaway if somebody wants it. John, you may have seen this too, on the driver’s side rear fender well, there was a sticker. Yeah. And this sticker was something in the manufacturing process and the sticker’s about the size of a, a cigarette pack picture a car going down the assembly line and the wheel is not on yet, and there’s some kind of sticker that just went on that fender well, then they put the weather coating over that, you know what happens here?

The, the weight of the weather coating over time pulled that sticker away, and then that’s become a classic rust spot in the driver’s side rear fender well. And so salt water, Especially in our northern states. Uh, the one I got was from Illinois. It just creeped into [00:30:00] the, the suspension in the un body one day.

Just, you know, the, the spot welds in there just broke loose. Here’s my son driving this thing that’s just going all over the road. And I said, what in the world are you doing? And I drove it and I said, the car is finished. No way we can fix it. Somebody’s looking at an Aztec, they need to look that over really well, and they need to get under it.

And you can see visually if there’s damage that’s been caused by that flaw. Trying to think through some repairs on how to fix that. John, if you have any idea there, but think I’m just going to get some type of roofing material with mesh. Just cover it. I’m not sure what to do, but that is a, it’s a major problem.

And then transmissions are also can be problems. I’ve had two rebuilds overall. When I look at getting three kids through college, you don’t wanna put a lot of money into your kid’s college car. It’s been well worth the money, even including the, uh, transmission rebuilds. I feel like we’ve got our money’s worth now.

The best running Aztec I have has probably 330,000. Wow. Get in it. And [00:31:00] Rod, it’s just as smooth as a brand new car. Yep. What kind of unique features did the Aztec have? So many. I mean, it’s got the tent package. Of course there’s a sliding rollout cargo tray, which I love. Never have I ever not spilled more groceries in my life than when I’ve had this car like it.

It’s amazing. I drive carelessly with bags full of glass jars in that cargo tray, and I don’t worry about it ever. There was a D V D player, it had OnStar many different leather and clothe packages. They had cargo nets. They had these little bags that. Sat in the doors. They were like leather pouches, lots and lots of stuff.

I distinctly remember the vents, I don’t want to say they’re 360, but they’re just gyro, right? I mean, they can move almost in any direction is is that right? They’re kind of bug-eyed. That’s how I’ve heard a lot of people describe ’em really bug-eyed ever since I heard that. Now I can’t think of anything else to describe it, but yeah.

Yeah, they are interesting vents. They do blow very hard. They’re huge too. Right? So that [00:32:00] kind of helps. There’s two that right on the back of the console that blow toward the back too, so that’s kind of a neat feature in a vehicle like that. Reminds me of the all chiller they had in the Fords, right Dan?

Yeah. That makes said, what’s one of the best things about the Aztec? I mean, John has told us about this camping package, I guess what they used to call a camper special, you know, back in the old days. Is that the best thing about the Aztec or is there something else that is just like one of these creature comforts that you’re like, I don’t find this in any other car.

I just think it’s more comfortable than any other car I’ve driven. I’ve never been more at one with a vehicle than I have with this car. It’s just so smooth. I would agree. Very smooth car. Despite the miles, despite the age, the, uh, seating position, back support, the seats are very well made. Maybe they didn’t spend money on the dash, but they did on the seats.

One of the real clever features is that the backseats can come out easily, and so you have this large flat space. Now, John’s got this cargo tray that can hold up [00:33:00] to like 400 pounds of cargo, but if you take that tray out, you’ve just got a flat bed there. There’s an inflatable mattress that fits for the tent.

You can put a four by. Piece of plywood or drywall in the back of this car. It fits great. You’ve got a hatchback and a tailgate in the same vehicle. Just the versatility of it, the cooler between the seats there, that’s cool. But, uh, I don’t really use it that much, but it’s a hot item that gets stolen. I hear from Aztecs.

The overall versatility of the vehicle is what makes it so unique and, and the comfort of the driving. So you mentioned it’s a third row, s u v, right? No, that was the rondevu. Okay. So they added a road to that. So when you fold down the seats to get that plywood in there, are they like a tuck and fall into the floor like a caravan?

Or do you have to pull the seats out or did they fold down like a Volkswagen golf, like how does that work? From an interior composition perspective, you would just fold down the back of a sea, which would go flat over the chair of the sea. And then there’s just a [00:34:00] clip on the bottom similar to uh, how I remember a suburban that I had one time.

It just pulls right off of the fasteners on the floor. And you just pull it out. You know, it’s a little heavy, but you can take them out in no time. They’re compact, put them in the corner of your garage or your house, and then you’ve got all the space, more room than a pickup truck in some respect. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. Another cool feature that I like was on the tailgate. They have kind of imprinted in the plastic two seats with cup holders. Yeah. And also in the back some models had controls for the radio. Yeah. And I use that all the time. We have a drive-in out here and it’s amazing. Like I don’t even have to go up front mess with the radio, I can mess with the radio while I’m sitting back there looking at the movie volume, everything.

That’s one of my favorite features. They came with pioneer speakers. That model with the, uh, the rear control. Powerful pioneer speakers that tailgate. That was a great thing with my sons when they went places. You know, they’ve got the seats, the tailgate goes down, has these [00:35:00] seats and these inserts for your cups, you know, those were great features.

Well, you mentioned the controls in the back end. One of the key things that stuck out to me was fact. I don’t recall many or any vehicles prior to that that had power port in the back you could plug into to power accessories and things like that. Now it’s a common thing across the board with so many manufacturers, and I think the Aztec was one of the first cars that I recall ever seeing have that.

Yeah, it also had an air pump. My SS Trailblazer had an air compressor in the back. It also doubled to work the air suspension as well, so it was kinda interesting. The Aztec has air ride as well. Yep. I have air ride shocks. Yep. Yeah, so it’s self-leveling in the rear. Yep. Yep. I mean, who knew? Right?

Obviously you guys did, that’s pretty cool. Not all Aztecs, but some, so are there different trim levels then with your shopping for an Aztec? Like what’s the name of the base model versus the mid versus the top of the line? Like, you know, Pontiac’s famous for the GT model sort of being the top, but is there an [00:36:00] Aztec gt?

There is an Aztec GT and it’s identifiable by, as on the rear doors, there’s little plastic as that they put near the window. To be honest, I’ve went and checked out ones for sale base models for sale that have way more options than some GT models. I’ve seen dealers ordered these on a custom basis to what some people.

Because I’ve found a few very weird base models out there. Yeah. Like mines I got from Florida is loaded, is absolutely loaded. But my 2002 that I got from Pennsylvania that’s rusted out is a GT and it has nothing. So I actually took the as off of the 2002 and I put ’em on 2003 cuz I mean it’s just the car’s.

John probably knows more information on this than I do, but you have the Aztec rally, which was like the sport model of the Aztec, and I think the, uh, suspension was, the vehicle rode one inch lower than the other ones. So my copper one is the rally. You do feel like you’ve gripped the road [00:37:00] a lot better, even though it’s just one inch lower.

You can tell that the rally by these, uh, aggressive looking chrome wheels, there’s all kinds of different wheel options with the Aztec. But John, you may know a little more about the rally than I do, and the only other thing is that the grill inserts for the rally are same color as the car. Yeah, so, and they have rally under the, yeah.

So now you mentioned the rally sits an inch lower compared to the conventional Aztec. It’s that inch higher. And you said it rides a little better, the center of gravity, is it high on that vehicle to where going around turns, you kind of have a lot of body roll. It has potential to roll. Personally, went 360 on, not very snowed roads.

I mean maybe about half an inch of snow on the road. The my back end slipped out from under me and I did 360, probably four or five times. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know how well the Versa track performs in the snow because I don’t have it, but I actually bought a 1988 Buick Riata, so I don’t have to drive that in snow anymore.

I mean, talk about another, another oddball too, [00:38:00] right? It’s an oddball, yeah. I like odd, odd cars with features. What do you guys consider to be the worst feature of the Aztec? I’d probably say the dashboard and the uh, instrument panel. The lights, the gas gauges. They always go out. My lights are going out now.

It sucks at night. I’ve not found many people who are willing to, uh, fix it yet. So you mentioned the, uh, dash is, uh, the Aztec of the vehicle. Cause I know a handful of late nineties, early two thousands model gm, even Dodge cars, their gauge clusters were horrible for like the lousy electronics in them to where they would eventually go bad.

Is that a common thing for that to happen in the Aztecs? The radio display, they always go out. It’s rare to find one. I think that’s working perfectly. Mine worked a little bit. I mean, I could actually see it when I bought it, but now it’s completely black. Thankfully I have the heads up display so I can see where I’m tuning the radio to and stuff.

If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to tell. Wait. So this has the heads up display [00:39:00] that Cadillac five years ago and some of the other GM brands were touting. That was super awesome and they just invented it. You’re saying it, it already existed. On the Aztec 2001, again, who knew? You guys knew? We knew it. I think the first car I ever saw that had, that was back in the nineties.

It was, I think a Plymouth acclaim. Wow. And I’m like, why does this car have that as an option? I was like, that option didn’t seem to go with a car. Cause a car was like, why would you put that effort into a car like this? But they did. You know? It’s so convenient though to not have to look down to see your speed.

Yeah. I, I do a little bit of speeding on my way to work and stuff. I, I know where the cops sit. I, I don’t even have to not pay attention to the road. And I work third shift, so it, it’s really, really nice. There’s always good, bad, and indifferent with every car, right? Whether you’re a Pontiac fan, a Volkswagen fan, Honda Porsche, you know, you name it.

They’ve all got their issues, right? And they all have their right. Their ups and their downs. As we know. The Aztec only lived for five years. Yeah. But, but did it really, and I started digging into this a little bit, and I’m gonna [00:40:00] ask you guys as the experts, did the Aztec morph into another vehicle? Does it live on as something else?

If so, what? Is that something else? Hmm. I think maybe that’s still being defined in our Facebook group. We’ve got people who want to own one. They can’t afford to go get the free one that’s only, yeah. You know, an hour from them. And then we’ve got these guys who are really like John, who just really babying their card.

Keeping it up as much as possible. So I don’t know that it’s morphed into anything else. Are you talking about a modern vehicle that echoes the Aztec, or has the Aztec become like its own brand? Well, maybe a little bit of both, but here’s what I’m thinking. So the Aztec went away in 2005. Mm-hmm. And then suddenly in 2006 there was a slightly less aggressive looking, similar styling cues.

The Torrent. Oh, right. The torrent. And that lasted through almost 2010. Right. Okay. So the question is, is the Torrent really the Aztec generation two? [00:41:00] Yeah. And, and if so, did they water it down too much? Mm-hmm. And take away the personality of the Aztec, not just in its aesthetics and it’s styling, but overall, and do people look for the torrent over the Aztec?

I think that’s a fair assumption. Anywhere you go and dig about the Aztec, you’ll read that they were trying to be aggressive, or aggressive in this sake. They were trying to be so out there. Obviously, when it fails, the company doesn’t want to eat that. It has to be fixed. So I think that’s fair. They trimmed it down, made this car, they’re going back to being safe.

Yeah, that’s it. You look at the body lines and the way they changed the torrent, in my opinion, it was a predecessor to the vehicles like the Acadia and things like that because it looks very similar to an order version of our Acadian. Well, yeah, the Equinox. The Equinox based cars. Yeah, I could see that too.

I mean, granted the first Equinox was based on the trailblazer, that GM 360 chassis that only lasted during that time period. And then they replaced it with the new chassis, which now everything seems to [00:42:00] be based on that. So I see where you’re going, but there’s certain design cues in the torrent, especially that back window and, and the snout and some you’re like, man, that is still an Aztec a rose by any other name.

Still arose, right? So, mm-hmm. To John’s point, I think they watered it down. They took the safe approach to keep the Aztec line going now, changing the engine, changing some other things. The 3.4 liter was out by that point. So yeah, it’s a modern version, so something to consider if you’re not a big fan of the look of the Aztec, but you still want some of those cool features and some of the other stuff, the Torrent might be a place to look.

That also brings me to something really interesting that I think would make you guys really happy, and I’m sure you’ll post about it on the club page. We interviewed Team Cadillac, captain Team Corvette, Mr. Andy Pilgrim, you know, who was a factory GM driver for years, and I asked him during his session, what is the coolest car of all time?

And he said, point.

[00:43:00] Outside of all the race cars, is there a sexiest car of all time? Something that really gets you excited? Mm, I’m not gonna say what I normally say, which would be a Kia Soul. Um, but because I, I kind of like boxy cars and I’m a big fan of the Pontiac Aztec, so the fact that most people have just turned off the broadcast, I do like funny, weird looking cars, but.

He’s the first person on the show to say that. So you guys could take that to the bank. And we have it recorded. Yeah. That Andy Pilgrim says he loves the Pontiac Aztec. So I thought that was pretty cool. That’s cool. So that brings me to my next question, which is, are there any famous or celebrity folks out there that are Aztec owners?

Not that I know of. I tell everyone Breaking Bad is a five season commercial for that car. Yeah. Um, when people think about the Aztec, they think Brian Cranston, they think Breaking Bad. So in the club there’s always that one guy, right? Or there’s multiple guys. [00:44:00] That strive for the biggest collection? Who’s got the biggest collection of Aztecs out there and where?

Where are they and how many are there? I mean, there’s quite a few collectors. We have a guy who done his Aztec up, just like the breaking of bad Aztec. It looks phenomenal. You wouldn’t be able to tell that it wasn’t that car that’s in the show. We’ve got people that own like four or five of them. People like me, I own some of the dealer items, you know, like the jackets and stuff that they would have that has Aztec printed on ’em.

I have a videotape of VHS tape. It’s kind of like they’d pop it in before they’d try to give you the sales pitch and it would go over all the uh, features of the car and everything. So that way they’d walk out knowing like everything about the car, it’s like 20 minutes long. It’s something that only existed in a dealership just to train the employees.

I found somebody and I bought it from ‘EM shirts. I have ultra rare seating for the car interiors, bunch of stuff. I have almost every accessory except for the DVD D player. I, I don’t have five Aztecs though. [00:45:00] So you mentioned the Jack Jonn. Did Pontiac have a lot of promotional things like that when they were pushing it?

I, I have, uh, like booklets, magnets. They used to have like these whole set of little magnets that stick on the cars, um, in the dealerships. And it was like just pictures of the Aztec pictures of like road signs. Camping. Trying to like appeal to those people. We wanna find the guy that’s got like 50 of ’em.

You know, there’s somebody out there that’s collecting these things, one in every color, one in every year, and every color. You know, there’s somebody out there that’s nerding out on these things. That said, how big’s the club? It seems like you guys have a good presence on Facebook. You keep it under lock and key cuz obviously you don’t, people coming in trolling you and things like that.

Yeah, it’s gotta be a growing population. Especially, I’m sure there was a huge surge after enduring Breaking bad. But what’s the community like for Aztec owners as you guys are part of that? We just try to help each other. Fix our cars, keep ’em running, keep ’em on the road. Generally, everybody’s pretty helpful.

Passions run high, especially when car theory gets [00:46:00] involved, when there’s problems, generally, everybody’s really nice and respectful. We do keep it under lock and key. We have been trolled before. Like I said, I, I don’t know a whole bunch about cars. I actually do like comic books and I’m a collector and I come from like the meme world and like the people who are trying to come in and control us.

So I review the people that come into the group, make sure that we’re not getting trolled. Well, since you brought that up, John, I got, I gotta ask because you know, there’s a lot of memes out there and some of ’em, they’re good. Like you gotta say like, They make you chuckle. I mean, there’s ones for Volkswagen owners, there’s ones for Honda guys, you know, there’s ones for Subaru peoples and all that kind of stuff.

What are some of your favorite Pontiac memes Or you go, you know, you do crack a smile and go, all right, all right, you got me that. That was pretty good. The best one that I ever saw, there was a meme that went around where it was like the astronauts and he’s like looking at the planet and the astronaut behind the astronaut looking at the planet, has a gun to his head where the earth is.

It has like all the GM U bodies, the guy’s like, wait, it was all the same U body [00:47:00] and he’s. Always was.

I mean I’ve always considered the Montana to be the mother of the Rendezvous and the Aztec because of that You body, it was the same chassis You mentioned in your group that you guys just help each other out with knowledge on how to fix ’em and stuff. Is there any particular parts with the Aztec that are one off to the Aztec that is hard to find or that key part that everybody’s looking for?

Usually coolers, tank packages I find in like my repairs, it’s not hard to get the parts just a little pricey. Sometimes wheel bearings are up to $124. The Aztec is unusually heavy and so I think it chews through wheel bangs a little bit faster. I definitely chew through ’em on these Pennsylvania mountains pretty quick and it gets expensive, but I don’t have trouble finding like maintenance parts.

Some really, really rare brush guards, taillight guards, and step bars. Those are incredibly hard to find. They were [00:48:00] made by a brand called Manic. Very rare. So they were aftermarket, not factory parts. Right. They’re not factory parts. So speaking of aftermarket parts, is there a decent size aftermarket out there for the Aztec?

Is there variety for that or is it for a few between companies? There’s nobody out there rebuilding the Aztec, like the DeLorean is being, what’s the company in Texas? It just, they’re, that’s all they do. So the Aztecs a long way from something like that, but it might come someday. We can all hold out hope.

Yes. Yeah, we can hold out a hope. If there was one area of aftermarket you guys would like to see more of for Aztec, what sort of products would you like to see from the aftermarket community that would be beneficial to the a. For me, it would be, uh, some type of simple dash repair system. Whether it’s a, a replacement cover, something that could fix that whole dash situation, the gauges, you know, some type of pop in pop out gauge replacements, that would be helpful.

Some fragile plastic here and there. A good [00:49:00] one that we need out there are the headlight. We need good replacement headlights. John might know the source for that. You know, those do tend to go dull and need to be buffed out quite often. And then at some point, You’re going to run out of plastic to buff out.

So I’m not aware of any aftermarket lenses that we can buy. Occasionally, there are problems with the hatch. The spoiler in the back. There’s a piece when you raise the hatch, there’s a trim piece inside that. That’s just kind of where the. It’s kind of hard to explain, but it’s just a, a trim piece that’s inside the hatchback on the back of the spoiler.

Once it goes, it goes. I don’t know how you could fix that. Yeah, there’s probably a small market out there for some aftermarket things that would be helpful to people. For a lot of us, the aftermarket is rock Auto, right? It’s the greatest place to get parts in the world. You never know what you’re gonna find on the, in their inventory, but that kind of breaks up the question.

What are some of the craziest mods you’ve seen other people in the club do? Are there any people racing Aztecs? Are there any people like slamming ’em, putting on bags? Like do you guys do car [00:50:00] shows for the Aztecs? Do you have get togethers within the club? There have been some Aztec get togethers. I haven’t been able to, to go to one.

I don’t really see a lot of racing mods or anything like that. And the reason I brought up racing Aztecs, by the way, is I can’t believe somebody hasn’t run one in the 24 hours of lemons yet. But I’m gonna dig into that a little bit further and see if, you know, somebody has, you know, campaign and Aztec in racing.

I believe I saw somebody who ran one in some race or something, but they had the tent attached. Ooh. Yeah. Like they were forced. I saw that. I saw that the tent was attached in the race. Yeah. That was crazy. Well, you know, you take, uh, a whimsical design like that, you know, if you had somebody that was really great at custom work, they could do one of those crazy, uh, dual axles in the back and sink an engine in that big empty section in the back and Yeah.

I, I could see that probably somebody will turn a rally into one of those and, and just turn, or, or a dragster Right. Put the body on top of a, of a drag car. Yeah. And then go for it. Yeah, sure. [00:51:00] They’ve done that with school buses and stuff. It’d be pretty cool, you know. Yeah. It’s going to happen. Fastest Aztec on the planet, you know?

Yeah. Didn’t one of the head guys at GM have like a super customized Aztec? The thing looked tough. I’ve seen some renderings where they added additional nostrils and wide body kits. There’s all sorts of people that are like, put out these, you know, highly photoshopped what they think the Aztec could have been had.

They kept going with it, and I think they’re pretty cool. They’re pretty neat. Yeah. I mean, obviously they’re lowered big wheels, you know, all that kind of stuff, and I could see the potential there. Right. If you dress it up a little bit and you add some of the modern things that we’re accustomed to on, like you were saying, with the C seven Corvette, some of those, you know, more sporty touches, I could see.

The Aztec being appealing to a modern crowd outside of the current generation of styling cues that are out there. You know, the culture of the group, I would call it. A lot of people, like this is their first collector car that are in this Facebook group. They’re trying to, uh, accumulate [00:52:00] parts. So if I go to the junkyard and have some parts, I’ll put some photos on there of what I have, and then we just work out some kind of financial transaction and I’ll mail the parts or what everybody’s, everybody’s real helpful to each other.

One of the things that kind of reaches out to me that’s kind of inspirational every now and then, I’m sure John has seen it, some kid from another country who’s English is just challenged, will practice for a long time, probably to put out this sentence. He lives in wherever on the planet and it’s just his dream to own an Aztec proud to be a member of the club.

And these, these are real sincere guys who want to be a part of something unusual like this. There’s a car club for everybody, right? And this is just one of them where the Aztecs sold overseas. Actually, I do have some stats right here for that. Only in 2005, the Aztec was sold in Mexico. Now they were made in Mexico, but 90 were sold in Mexico in 2005.

I wonder when they called them. Yeah, that’s a good question. I don’t know. Other than that, it looks like they [00:53:00] were all sold in the US. I gotta say though, it’s just kind of a philosophical side of, of it all. I don’t think it’s just that ugly of a car. If you Google worst car is ever made, the Aztec is always in that list, but I really don’t know why.

You know, I had a Ford Tempo and let me tell you, that was the worst car ever made. Well, you had the limbo. I had Theo. That’s pretty, that’s pretty awesome. It’s really hard to, you know, top that. So, I mean, so it’s funny, as we talked about the tempo on another episode, I’m just waiting for the day that somebody comes on this show and was like, yeah, and I owned an Aztec.

So what do you, what do you want to say about that? So that leads us into the next question. What do you think is the ugliest car of all time? Ugliest vehicle of all time. An Aztec is, is pretty damn cliff, although I’d love to have one. Um, he’s a breaking bad fan. That’s what he is not telling you. I’d love to drive one off a cliff.[00:54:00]

And then you’ve got the ugliest car ever made. You know, that’s, that’s always on that list. You know, I look at some of these cars today, like the Nissan Ju, what that is an ugly car that takes the place of any ugly car on those lists. And you know, there’s other cars out there that are just ugly. But you know, in every generation of cars there’s all this finger pointing that happens from car enthusiasts and people who write articles kind of just tag onto it.

If there’s something that’s just a little non-traditional out there, they just go after it and then it’s a snowball effect. And then every car writer everywhere has to have his article about that. I think that’s really what happened to the Aztec as much as anything. Now it’s funny you mentioned that because you know, we put together something called the uncool wall.

We’ve done a couple, what should I buy, episodes of revolving around, you know, ugly cars and uncool cars and things like that. And there’s some real diamonds in the rough there. Things that were not cool when they were introduced are cool. Now let’s take the Aztec in into consideration. It’s funny you say that because we ask people a [00:55:00] lot on this show as part of our pit stop.

What’s the ugliest car of all time? And I kid you not. I mean, the Aztec comes up more often than any other car. Much like on the other side of the equation. What’s the most beautiful car you hear? The E Type Jack, you know, things like that all the time. In your guy’s opinion, I’m gonna ask you both this, let’s put the Aztec away.

What’s the ugliest car of all time?

I’m gonna have to agree with John. A unanimous vote right there. I laugh and I expected it a hundred percent and I’m glad you guys said that because I think that is right next in line Europe, it’s the fiat multiply and then you kind of go down from there. There’s some awful looking cars out there, but I wanna ask you guys, let’s take the Aztec off the table, keeping things.

What is the sexiest car of all time? Oh wow. Uh, I’ve had two BMWs. I absolutely loved them. 19 94, 3 18 base model. Probably my favorite car of all time. Got totaled. Some lady running out of control hit me in, totaled it. [00:56:00] I just got rid of a 2005 three series. I loved it, but it, it just wore out. It does have a similarity to the Aztec.

That’s the only similarity between the BMW three series and the Aztec. It’s that the tolerances are real low on the cooling system. You know, that’s, that’s it. But for me, for uh, I guess everyday drivers, it would probably be the bmw. I always wanted to have a 71 Plymouth Super Superbird. Oh yeah, sure.

That’s a really good answer. I like that. That is a good answer. We can’t agree on what cars you should buy, but I think we can all agree on what car you should not buy. You know what Car didn’t make this list. Pontiac Gas a hundred percent. I’m gonna get one just to be cool. Yeah, be ironic. That’s going to be a collector.

Breaking the ad, I think changed the profile of that car. Not enough.

Let’s kind of switch gears a little bit and talk about some of the future things, right? If we could go back in time, you know, if we could do things [00:57:00] over again. Are y’all sat by, or how do you feel about GM’s decision to Sunset, PON and a as a brand? It was bad. You know, we all just wish it came back or that one of the cars become so popular that they’re forced to bring it back with gm.

I, I don’t think it’ll ever happen. I never had owned a Pontiac before, so, um, I don’t know. I think it ran its course was no longer profitable for whatever reason. You know, that whole downhill spiral that started around what, 2008, 2009, when, you know, the economy tanked and the bailouts. I don’t think Ford got the bailout, but everybody else did and Saturn went down.

I don’t know. I think it had lived its life, just time to let it go. Unless you have all these pontiacs on the lots that aren’t selling and two years later, you know, they’re just trying to get rid of them. So in my opinion, it was probably best just to go ahead and kill it off. Would be great if they could bring it back because of demand, but I don’t know.

I think it’s probably gone. So John, with you being passionate about Pontiacs, if you could bring back one Pontiac or even a Holden right from Australia, which would it [00:58:00] be? Would it be the Firebird, the Tempus, the GT O, the G eight, the Aztec, or maybe something else? You probably know, I’m gonna say the Aztec taking that off the table.

I really like the uh, Pontiac Grand PR and the G six s where I live. We’ve got two really, really nice G six s around the corner, and every day I walk my dog and I look at those cars and wish there was a for sale sign on ’em. They got that hard body convertible one. Definitely the 98 0 2 WS six TransAm when they brought it back out as an awesome looking car.

And one of my favorite versions of the TransAm, other than the earlier generations. Yeah, that’s a nice car look. Slick, slick car. So what about you, Paul? If you could bring back a Pontiac or Holden, what would it be? It’d probably be the gto o You know, I was a little kid during the muscle car days, you know, I’ve never owned one of those muscle cars.

Boy, I really liked them. I just remember the, the large motors, the street racing that went on in my neighborhood. And there was just something about the G T O that was just kind of [00:59:00] invincible. You know, the beast shows up kind of. That’s America, you know, America in a car to me is the gto o. So when you mentioned like when the GTO judge came out, like the her shifter and things like that.

Oh yeah. Those were key things. Yeah. That were solely with Pontiac. They weren’t across the board with the rest of the GMs. If we look at GM and Pontiac specifically, obviously there’s some famous names associated with it. People like Bunky Nuon or John z DeLorean. You mentioned DeLorean earlier. Yeah. He’s famous for birthing the G T O from the Tempest.

DeLorean was still alive when the Aztec was produced. He died in 2005 at the tail end of the Aztec line, you guys as Aztec experts, did DeLorean ever make a statement about his thoughts on GM at that time period? Especially about Pontiac, you know, part of his namesake of where things were going? You know, he had his opinions in the seventies when he co-wrote on a clear day.

You can see gm, which was all about his exit from GM and things like [01:00:00] that to go start DeLorean. But what were his thoughts, if there were any? Was he quoted as saying anything during that? You know, I am not too sure about that. Something to put on the message boards, right? Yeah. Something to dig into, right.

If we could bring back a Pontiac product today, and it was the Aztec, if the Aztec came back as an ev, even leaving it in its original state and just making the Aztec an ev. Knowing what we know today, more people are into camping and outdoors. And all the work that Subaru’s done to kind of change the latitude there in the automotive market, do you think people would be more accepting of the Aztec if it was an EV and presented today rather than 20 years ago?

I think so. Yeah. I agree. And I’ll tell you why. Because if you look at any modern S u v now, man, they look awfully similar. Funny story about that. I work third shift and sometimes I, I stay up longer than I should. And one night I was driving, I was falling asleep at the wheel and I rolled over onto this median, heard a big bump, woke me up.

So I pulled over into a McDonald’s, checked [01:01:00] out my wheels, everything looked good. Went on my merry way. Two days later, cop shows up at my house. He says that my car went into the McDonald’s parking lot, rammed into a sign that hit a lady’s car, and then the car rammed up the sign and he’s looking at my car and there’s like no damage on it forces me to call this other cop, and this other cop eventually admits to mistaking my car for a Honda c r v.

Interesting. Yeah. Just because I pulled over like 10 minutes before this happened and looked at my wheel. He thought that I had done this. He had to apologize to me and everything said, oh man, this, you wouldn’t believe it, this srv, it looks just like your car. It’s got the back slanted window and everything.

You know, in my mind I thought, you’re ridiculous. You get to looking at ’em and you get to see in the features, like I think that GMC X U V, they have a tent now. Somebody just posted that on. Something that wasn’t popular back then, but you’re definitely seeing a lot more, I think, inspiration from the Aztec.

[01:02:00] Now, you know, as far as design goes, cars, they go through these cycles. You’ve got boxy, round, angular, or whimsical, you know, those are the four classifications of car designs that I’ve noticed through the years. The angular parts of the design of the Aztec just came out of time when there were not a lot of angular cars.

However, now there are more angles in car designs, but I think if it were an ev I’ll grit my teeth here, but promoted as a green vehicle, it’s gonna be good for the environment and that type of thing. And if they included this outdoors concept, the, the versatility of it marketed a little stronger with some of those features, like the tailgate, the rear controls.

I don’t really remember a lot of that being marketed, but yeah, I could see, I could see it as an EV making a hit and, and cause it is different than other EVs. And I think you hit on something really, really important about that angular design. There are some cars that I look at now and it’s like, why didn’t you put the door handle there?

What’s up with this [01:03:00] teeny little penant window in the back that when the Aztec was introduced, we all gasped went, what have they done? And now it’s become super acceptable to have all these strange things that in my mind, don’t make sense to even produce. It’s like, how much does it cost to make that tiny triangular eight by eight piece of glass that you could have just made metal and kind of changed the shape of the door or whatever.

Some of these things just don’t make sense, you know? Maybe just maybe, like we said at the beginning, the Aztec was actually ahead of its time. Yeah. And like one of you guys was saying it was the car of the future, but the future wasn’t then. It’s now. Yeah. But based on how we’ve enjoyed these, if I were doing it again, I would not have waited until my son said, Hey, have you seen the TV show?

Breaking bad. Do you know about this Pontiac? Aztec? I probably would’ve gotten one a long time ago. Eric was mentioning earlier how one of the things to do, we’ve had episodes say the, you know, what would I buy? So if an individual’s looking for a track car, we get a panel together of [01:04:00] people throw out suggestions of vehicles.

I’m gonna twist that question a little bit. Why? Should I buy an Aztec? I guess it just depends on what you need out of it. Me, I used to be a very small car person. I like to be close to the road. I actually used to drive a 2013 Hyundai Elantra and man, I loved how of tiny that thing was. I just bought a house.

It’s a fixer upper, upper, so I’ve been needing to haul tools, drywall, all this sort of stuff, and no way I could ever do it in a sedan. No. As I said before, camping has never been better with the Aztec, and when you’re camping in it, you don’t wake up with that dew all over you or all over your blankets. I, I love it.

It’s great for drive-ins, it’s great for festivals. It’s great for the beach. I, I love it. It’s a Swiss army knife if you think about it, right? Yeah. Yeah. Really it is the most versatile vehicle on the planet. Well, why should I buy one? Good question. John said, depends on what you, you need or what you’re looking for.

I think it’s been great with kids. Been great for, uh, trips that we’ve taken. [01:05:00] Now most of mine have been driven by my kids, so I’m looking forward to reclaiming the one that I bought for myself. You know, you could buy it as a conversation piece because wherever you go, people are going to ask you about it.

I’ll go down the road and kids will point, parents will look over at the car. Sometimes there’s a thumbs up, sometimes there’s laughter, you know, that type of thing. So if you’re looking for a vehicle that just blends in, this is not the car for you. Probably one of the top reasons to buy one would be to own an intriguing piece of history that is still maintainable with plenty of parts out there.

New old. Aftermarket parts as well as plenty of uh, junkyard parts for the the family thing. With my sons. It’s been really good. We’ve enjoyed it and the repairs we’ve done, which haven’t been many, we’ve done them together. Features that we fixed on the inside, we’ve done those things together. So maybe just family togetherness with your kids would be my reason.

Paul, to your point, I bet if you’re the only Aztec outta cars and coffee, you’re gonna be a really popular guy. Yeah. So [01:06:00] something to consider as well. I mean, people show up with their fancy PORs shows and their Ferrari. You show up with an Aztec, I guarantee you’re gonna have a crowd. I need to do that. I need to do.

That’s a great idea. We’ve had some people in our group actually win awards at car shows just because they’ve had the tent package and stuff for being so unique. Yeah, absolutely. Gentlemen, any shout outs, promotions, or anything else you’d like to share maybe about the Aztec Club before we close out here?

We’re the, um, Pontiac Aztec Band Club, and we’re on Facebook and if you want an Aztec or need help with your Aztec, join us. You just gotta answer a couple quick questions and then you’re in. I would agree with John. It’s a nice group of people. Everybody’s very helpful. People are very encouraging to each other.

We’ve got a lot of young people on the site, and for any car enthusiasts that are listening to this, I really want to encourage you to get young people excited about our hobby because it can fade away quickly. Hobbies like this are not cheap, and young people need that entry level [01:07:00] car, vehicle, truck, whatever.

That’s affordable for them and they need older people that have experience to encourage them or the hobby’s going to go away. I read an article in Hemmings magazine that said was an appeal to car enthusiasts. These older guys that just said, guys, we’ve gotta start embracing some of the older Japanese cars.

You know, we haven’t done that, but this is what the younger people like and they can afford to fix up. So I just wanna throw that out as an encouragement to all of our car enthusiasts to encourage, uh, young people to get involved on some entry level vehicle that is, uh, easy to work on and easy to get aftermarket parts for and affordable.

A big thing that’s become more common is like cars and coffee. Sure, you’re not racing or anything, but it’s just something you go out and hang out and look at other cars. If we can get the youth involved in that, it’ll. The har car enthusiasm to survive because with EVs coming and stuff like that, it, it’s difficult, I hate to say it, but it feels like it’s a, a dying thing out there.

I read one time an article that said that the mindset that used to be [01:08:00] caught up in engine rebuilds and hot rods, that’s the same minds that has transferred over to computers today. And I’d like to pull some of those video game guys and those computer games guys out. You know, have one of those times where you go to a car show and you see what’s going on and you look at the art and the skill and the enthusiasm that’s behind, you know, these great museum pieces that are still drivable and that people have taken the time to restore.

I wanna say this one last thing too. We gotta remember Tom Peters. I mean, this guy, he designed this car, which was considered by many to be a failure and to be an ugly car, and, and then he designed the Corvette C seven. And I don’t know how that happened. I mean, did Corvette say, Hey, let’s take the ugliest car of all time.

Let’s take the designer of the worst car of all time, and then let’s have him design the new Corvette. I don’t know how that conversation happened, but clearly when he designed the Corvette and his team worked on the c. They hit the market at the right time. You know, there’s the old [01:09:00] saying, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

So everybody out there aspiring car designers, if your car designer is just not getting a lot of thumbs up with your peers, keep working on it because you might hit gold one day. That is absolutely true. And you know what, guys, with your help, maybe we could get Tom Peters on here and ask him, Hey, what the heck was he thinking?

Oh, that would be pause B, how he made that journey from the Aztec to the C7 Corvette. Well, that would be State Tune Co, right? Yeah. Definitely invite us for that. And to your point from before, Paul Don Weber, who we work with over at Garage Style Magazine, mentioned on his episode resonating exactly with what you were saying is a lot of the older car enthusiasts need to embrace some of these odd cars, some of these entry level cars, and stop telling the younger enthusiast, you don’t wanna deal with that piece of junk.

What you need to go by is, is a nine 11. You know? Yeah. Or, or whatever. Or Camaro or something. No. Embrace these folks because as we talk about on this show and why we exist, is to [01:10:00] spread that enthusiasm to remind people that the car world is really, really big. And that if we bring more people into the fold and we embrace the oddities, like the Aztec, that car culture will continue to thrive.

Yeah. Even as it’s changing around us every day. Well, to quote Paul, who quoted very eloquently, Tom Peters, the chief designer of the Aztec during its 1999 concept debut. He said, we wanted to do a bold in your face vehicle. That wasn’t for everybody. And to that, I say, Touche, Tom. Touche. He accomplished it.

Yeah. So to learn more about the Pontiac Aztec searching, Google yields plenty of Pontiac and Aztec related clubs, forums, and technical specs and memes to boot. But for the best community experience, please be sure to reach out to the folks like John and Paul and the team at the Pontiac Aztec Owners Club on Facebook to get yourself involved in that [01:11:00] growing community.

So I can’t thank you both enough for coming on the show and sharing your corner of the automotive world with us and with our listeners, as many of the folks know, you know, jokes aside, this episode has been a long time coming, and we really do appreciate you guys spending your evening with us and talking to us about the vehicles that you are most passionate about.

No problem. Thanks for having us. Thanks, Eric. Thanks, Dan. Enjoyed talking to you. John, it was great to see you guys finally. Gosh, we’re petrol heads, right? Yeah, just least favorite in general. One of my roommates in college had an Aztec or his, his girlfriend dead, his now wife, and I think they still have it.

It’s got like 400,000 miles. The tent still works well, if you don’t look at it, it’s, it was a, it was wonderful, but so’s the Porsche 9 28 or, uh, that Lamborghini, s u v, you know, you’re a, you’re a interesting, the Euros is like the best looking Aztec, like they’re really, they’re not bad at some angles. Un unfortunately, it doesn’t look as good as an Aztec, honestly, but ugly.

It is [01:12:00] better looking than the Botox. Looking lip injected. Tesla front hand ask me how? Oh, yeah. Because I’m not classically trained. I don’t have to pretend to be poetic about every single thing that’s made. I don’t have to come up with these lies about, oh, these key lines are from, because it’s, it’s a Heisenberg.

It’s Heisenberg’s far, so, oh. I mean, a lot of people like to pick on the Port Aztec from Pontiac, but I think if you know anybody that owns an Aztec, they love them. That’s very true. That’s a very true statement.

If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about gtm, be sure to check us out on www.gt motorsports.org. You can also find us on Instagram at Grand Tour Motorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have [01:13:00] suggestions for future shows. You can call or text us at (202) 630-1770 or send us an email at crew chief gt motorsports.org.

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