Every Pontiac with pop-up headlights

Pop-up or hidden headlights are a feature that is rarely seen on cars. Although the slim headlight design has never been officially banned, new cars do not have pop-up headlights because this feature makes it difficult to comply with pedestrian safety regulations. These regulations are intended, among other things, to reduce protruding elements that increase the risk of injury when a person is struck by a motor vehicle, resulting in the slim front ends common on modern vehicles.

Safety regulations aside, the mechanics of raising the pop-up headlights or opening the hidden doors from the front of the car ultimately created problems. Some automakers used electric systems to do the job, while others used engine vacuum to start the mechanism. However, both types were prone to failure at the most inconvenient times, when one or both headlights refused to shine beyond the outside of the car.

Pontiac produced six models with pop-up or hidden headlights, including various years of the Grand Prix, GTO, Fiero, Sunbird, Firebird, and Tojan, a fairly unique Firebird spin-off. While some models, like the Grand Prix and GTO, are among Pontiac’s coolest muscle cars, others came later and were met with varying degrees of adulation.

(Featured image by Kahvilokki via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and resized | CC BY-SA 4.0)

The late 1960s were one of the best years for the Pontiac Grand Prix, including the 1967 and 1968 models with hidden headlights. The hidden headlights on these Pontiac Grand Prix models did not extend from the top of the front of the car. Instead, they remained hidden behind the doors until the headlights were turned on. The doors themselves relied on vacuum actuators to operate the opening and closing mechanisms.

Ideally, the doors should raise and lower smoothly when the driver turns the headlights on and off. However, cracked rubber vacuum hoses, damaged actuator seals or faulty mechanisms often caused one or both doors to operate erratically.

These late 1960s Pontiac Grand Prix were big cars, weighing over 4,200 pounds curb weight, and had a V8 engine with a power output of . The 400 cubic inch V8, the base engine offered, produced 265 horsepower with options for higher-power versions up to 350 horsepower. The most powerful engine offered was a 428 cubic inch V8 with 390 horsepower.

The 1968 Pontiac GTO Ram Air II is among the rarest Pontiac muscle cars, as only 246 were produced. Its rarity is not a function of low demand, but because Pontiac did not offer the Ram Air II option until late in the 1968 model year, after the initial Ram Air package, and then upgraded the offering to the Ram Air III in 1969.

The 1968 Pontiac GTO had a 400-cubic-inch V8 engine producing 350 horsepower, underrated by MotorTrend. The publication named the 1968 GTO “Car of the Year,” declaring it “the perfect package of supercar handling and performance” in its February 1968 issue.

Pontiac introduced the GTO Judge for 1969 with great success. The Judge enjoyed a production run of 6,833 coupes and another 108 convertible models. By comparison, the redesigned 1970 GTO sold fewer than 3,800 cars. Another interesting fact about the 1968 and 1969 Pontiac GTOs is that they were the last Pontiacs to offer hidden headlamps for more than a decade.

You may not know that the Pontiac Fiero was the first of its kind among American automakers to feature a mid-engine, rear-wheel drive vehicle. It also featured Pontiac’s first pop-up headlight design. While it wasn’t exactly a supercar, with the introductory 92-horsepower 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine or the 140-horsepower 2.8-liter V6 available from 1985, it beat the Chevrolet Corvette in the mid-engine class by 36 years.

Winning the mid-engine design race may be the only category in which the Fiero has an advantage over the Corvette, unless lighting fires is a category you follow. This begs the question, was the Pontiac Fiero’s winged horse emblem an adaptation of the Ferrari horse or an interpretation of the Phoenix, the mythical bird that rises from the ashes?

The 1984 Pontiac Fiero was the primary culprit, catching fire at a rate of about one in 400 cars produced that year. The fires were traced to a lack of oil, damaged connecting rods, and melted electrical wires near the exhaust manifolds. The lack of oil and wiring harness placement problems were the result of cramming the inline-four engine into the engine bay behind the Fiero’s seats. The connecting rod failures were likely caused by poor-quality materials.

Of the four generations of the Pontiac Firebird, the third and fourth generation Firebirds, produced from 1982 to 1992 and 1993 to 2002, may be the least desirable to collectors, but they had the coolest pop-up headlights. Sure, the first-generation Firebird (1967 to 1969) was a beautiful machine, and the second generation (1970 to 1982) featured one of the most famous movie cars of all time in Trans Am form, but the third generation had Kitt, the car from Knight Rider, and the fourth generation brought back the convertible model option.

Hot Rod magazine called the 1982 Pontiac Trans Am “the best-handling Firebird ever” in its January 1982 issue, according to MotorTrend. The Firebird’s base engine was a 90-horsepower four-cylinder. S/E models came with a 2.8-liter V6 and an optional four-barrel carburetor fed by a 5.0-liter V8 producing 145 horsepower. The Trans Am had a standard 5.0-liter four-barrel V8, but the T/A-exclusive dual throttle body injection (TBI) option provided improved performance with 165 horsepower.

By the end of the Pontiac Firebird’s production run in 2002, engine choices ranged from a base 3.8-liter V6 with 200 horsepower to the 310-horsepower 5.7-liter V8 from the Trans Am. If that’s not enough to satisfy your needs, Car and Driver magazine shared the story of a GMMG-modified 680-hp, 454-cubic-inch 2002 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am that went up for sale earlier this year.

(Featured image by CWeitzer via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and resized | CC BY-SA 2.0 Germany)

In the mid-1980s, Pontiac partnered with Knudsen Automotive to create a third-generation Firebird prototype that would prove the automaker was serious about its “We Build Thrill” motto. Car and Driver says the result was an 800-horsepower, twin-turbocharged V8 capable of propelling the Tojan prototype to a top speed of 206 mph. In addition to its power, the Tojan featured a sleek exterior inspired by the renderings of Hot Wheels designer Harry Bradley.

In reality, the production model Tojan, produced from 1982 to 1991, was less impressive due to the 205-horsepower 5.7-liter V8 as the top engine option (rumors of production models with forced induction cannot be confirmed). However, it did offer European styling, a WS6 suspension, a limited-slip rear differential, and four-wheel disc brakes. While the interior had some hard plastic trim, there were some upscale (for the time) touches, such as Recaro bucket seats, air conditioning, cruise control, and a subwoofer to provide more bass from the AM/FM stereo. Like the third-generation Firebird on which it was based, the Tojan had pop-up headlights.

The Pontiac Sunbird and Firebird share similar names, but that’s about the only thing they have in common, other than the Pontiac badge and the fact that they’re both hidden-headlight models. The Sunbird’s hidden-headlight feature was limited to the GT trim from 1986 to 1993, and on some models the headlights were more squinted than completely hidden.

Of the various engine options installed in the Pontiac Sunbird GT over the years, the turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder offers the most power, with 165 hp and 175 lb-ft of torque. For example, the 1990 Sunbird GT was equipped with a Garrett T25 turbocharger, which delivered nine pounds of boost pressure during wide-open-throttle (WOT) acceleration.

The Pontiac Sunbird was built on General Motors’ J-car platform and weighed 2,674 pounds. But even at that low weight, compared to the 1990 Trans Am’s 3,510 pounds with its 235-horsepower 5.7-liter V8, it was clearly outmatched in any acceleration test.

As proof, MotorTrend tested a 1990 Sunbird GT and found that the five-speed manual version accelerated from zero to 60 mph in just over seven seconds and covered the standing quarter-mile in the mid-15s at 90 mph. Equipped with the automatic transmission, the Sunbird GT accelerated from zero to 60 mph in just under eight seconds, while quarter-mile times hovered in the “high 15s to low 16s” range, crossing the line at speeds around 85 mph.

(Featured image by Tony Slosarvia Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and resized | Public Domain)