first reply... (the John Chung he refers to I know, and seen his car)
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WOW! Yep, PMD did indeed build '71 LeMans' - 'verts, coupes, sedans and 4-door cars (ala John Chung's black car) - with 455 engines - even 455HOs!
Might be worth contacting Jim Mattison with the VIN to see if it's the real deal. If it is, and numbers still match - it's a valuable car if not rusted to death . . .
I will go and take a look at it this weekend, have to check the vin and engine # The owner says that it has never been messed with, original engine, th400 and 12 bolt in the rear. No rust but the original paint is not good, I have seen pictures of it and it has what's look's like original 455 emblems on the fenders and a dual snorkel aircleaner.
Yes, you could order the LeMans with a great number of options including the many available power plant combinations offered. 4-speed or auto... you could basically make it a badgeless GTO and then some...
Have been taking a look at it now, and yes it is a # matching car, I did check engine, carb, trans and the rear axle all good :-)
It got a repaint in the 80s paint is thin/bad 2-3 small places with surface rust, radiator is not original, dealer innstalled aftermarked AC, everything else looks original (Maybe the top has been changed) interior is ok drivers seat need some stiches, not many options power top, steering and brakes, that is about it.
To much I guess, Bjorn has been doing some checking for me and it is not a high value car, PM me if you want to know more.
It will need a repaint, new front suspension, interior, convertible top, brakes for starters.
If I am going to buy it the price has to be much lower and I would have to make a complete restauration... As of now I think it will cost much more than I ever will get back if I sell it. And sure, it looks good on the picture :-)
I may be wrong, but that 455 emblem looks to be in a very weird location under the side gills.
The 71 Lemans 455 isn't that desirable or collectible. The Lemans Sport is a nice car, ragtop even better, but unless it has the 455HO, there's not much of a market for those right now.
Ha ha ha ha Where do you think all your old irons go ? Iron heaven ? nope, Norway ;-)
But really we Norwegians really like American cars and we have a lot of them, I would guess that here in europe we have the most US cars per citicense, then Sweden and maybe Iceland as # 3, Holland and Germany and then all of the other countries.
As we speak I have a choice of 173 Corvettes where 63 are ragtops on the largest Norwegian website where they sell cars. remember that there are under 5 millon people living here...
Finn.no is a good place for sure, here is a link to my Eldo, more or less sold now, but there is a bunch of pictures if anyone is interested, just click on the large main picture.
I may be wrong, but that 455 emblem looks to be in a very weird location under the side gills.
The 71 Lemans 455 isn't that desirable or collectible. The Lemans Sport is a nice car, ragtop even better, but unless it has the 455HO, there's not much of a market for those right now.
Do not know about the emblems but here is a closeup, I do not know about the value either but if there is only 50 made there should be an interst in it sooner or later, I look at this car as a real sleeper, it will be fun to see how it runs :-)
Nice work... even if you do just the basics, drive it and enjoy it... you should be able to do your research and advertise it much better at that point which will net you a profit I'm sure if that time comes... Lots of upgrades available for it if you should choose and lots of factory options you could add etc...
Have been driving it for a couple of days now, it will need some front suspension work, but a new compleete rebuild kit was included in the sale, I will also change all fluids and repack the carb this weekend and that should be all it needs to give me some great fun this summer.
It runs really strong and will smoke the tiers in first and second with really firm shifts from the TH400.
After going over it I did also find out that the paint is original, not bad for a 40 years old car.
So even if it is not a FB I am pretty happy with the deal on the Lemans
So it has been here for two years, was first put out for sale in 2010 whit no interst, then it had a couple of pricedrops, and still no interst, and at last I placed a low bid on it.
I do not think the seller did a good job selling it, we have a lot of pontiac fan's here but no one did realize what it really was, good for me :-D