[north]

I’m in good spirits because I’m finally filling in a hole in my collection, a LeMans Safari.

Found it thanks to a friend who spotted it in North Carolina on CL.

Nice two owner accident and rust free 47,000 mile car that is pretty much a survivor (untouched interior and mechanicals) except for a color change (originally Champagne) repaint and incorrect wood grain redo.

For now at least I’ll leave it black since all the jams were painted and I’ve got other repaint priorities. A challenge will be to find a rear inner hard plastic trim panel. It dry rotted as do all gold hard plastic bits for some reason. If anyone knows a possible source please let me know.

Option wise it is typically optioned with a 350 2bbl, AC, TH350, power drum brakes and steering etc.

An interesting tidbit is the trans is a TH350 which is the first time I see one installed on 350 2bbl with AC. Normally the auto trans 2bbl A and F bodies in 69 were built with a th350 without air and a th400 if they had AC. Strangely Pontiac charged the th400 at the th350 price ($205.92) when installed on 2bbl cars but at the correct th400 price when installed on a 350 HO or any 400.

I suspect the then brand new th350 had production limitations so to balance demand they used th400 on some applications till production levels allowed broader use of the th350. This wagon is very late production, august 69.

Anyhow I’ve been looking in earnest since 2005 so glad I finally found one, this is only the second one I’ve seen for sale and the last since 2007.

4th photo is from the 69 wagon brochure, shows how far off the replacement wood grain is. I order a sample selection from stripe man. Looks like the have a very close pattern available.