Junkyard Find: 2002 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP "JuggaLambo"
We had Volkswagen Junkyard Finds all last week, and this week we’re going to have 21st Century Junkyard Finds. To start things off, how about a genuine, numbers-matching, 240-supercharged-horses-havin’ sixth-gen Pontiac Grand Prix?
Eric Rood, who lives in Illinois and understands the local culture, dubbed this car the JuggaLambo, because Juggalos— who tend to be a Midwestern phenomenon— seem to love GM cars of the 1990s and 2000s (even those who are cast out of the Juggalo community drive 1990s Pontiacs), and thus the Grand Prix GTP is the pinnacle of this category of cars.
The Eaton blowers found on GM 3800s of this era are always easy to find at cheap self-serve junkyards, and the current street price for them is about 50 bucks. You can even put two of them on a Chevy 454 in a Murilee Martin-themed Rambler Marlin (yes, the blowers exploded).
These cars are not particularly uncommon in wrecking yards these days, so I assume you can find runners for low, low, low prices.
This ad is for the following generation of Grand Prix GTP, but the ’02 was just as good for blind drivers.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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I have a girl that comes in to help me out. Single Mom low. Income. She had a 04 GP. When the brake and fuel lines rotted out , she sold it for scrap price. Some guy got a hold of it ,and got it back on the road. She managed to pick up a 6 year old Mazda. Within 18 months the rear quarter showed serious rust. Now the Mazda needs brake lines. She told me she sees her old GP on the road everyday.
I'm late here, but my first car was a 2000 Pontiac Grand Prix. I actually quite liked it. The worst thing about the car was that everything would fall apart around it, while the engine and trans kept truckin'. The parts were cheap and readily available, and the car was very easy to work on even for a complete novice. I got it up to 250k miles before rust really started eating at it. It was shoddily maintained, but didn't see a check engine light past 100k miles. I don't think it handled too badly at all, considering its weight and size (sedan was actually eeking into full-size category.) In typical Pontiac fashion, I have it sitting in my yard, unsure what to do with it. Body and interior in awful condition (rainwater leaks were a huge issue,) but it still drives beautifully. Never let me down, ever. It's sad. And, yes, the interior was awfully ugly, but very practical. The controls all made sense and were very easily accessible, and there were TONS of storage compartments.