1968 Pontiac Safari Lemans Pickup

1968 Pontiac Lemans Safari Pickup
In 1967 Gordon Theisen was the owner of Adirondack Auto Sales, a Pontiac dealership in upstate New York. Gordon sold plenty of GTO’s and Firebirds but did not have a product for customers desiring a sport truck since Pontiac did not have a truck in their lineup. As the demand for trucks steadily increased Gordon’s dealership and many others in the region urged Pontiac to build a truck to fill the demand in the market. After getting no result finally Gordon decided that in 1967 his dealership would build one to be presented to the president of the Pontiac Motor Division to show him that it could and should be done. And that’s exactly what Gordon did. His dealership went out and bought a brand new Chevrolet El Camino and then took one of their brand new four door Lemans and swapped bodies. They used only the cab and box from the El Camino, the rest was replaced with Pontiac, such as the interior, front clip , and rear. To get the front clip to attach to the body and appear seamless, the Adirondack Body shop has to do some minor body work. Gordon explained that other than the minor body work, the rest was basically bolted together, the way GM would have done it if they were to produce the truck. This would allow for minimal retooling for the production process. After the truck was finished, the dealership even made a window sticker for it in preparation for presentation to corporate officials from General Motors. With all its options, including a 350 cubic inch V8, powersteering, disc brakes, AM/FM radio, and cool “Superlift” rear air shocks, the final MSRP cam out to $3,882.32. Pontiac Officials reviewed the truck and even took some photos of it for their corporate publishing, but in the end they determined that Pontiac didn’t need to market a truck. Even though Gordon’s truck did not go into production he kept the truck in his personal collection from when it was new until recent years where my company, Leaded Gas Classics, acquired it. The truck now shows only 34,000 miles on it as its been barely driven all these years. It is literally one of a kind.