The Story on the Wide Track Pontiac : eBay Guides

I encounter confusion repeatedly on ebay relative to the purchase and sale of promotional model cars. One in particular is the wide-track Pontiac, the 1/25th scale promo model, a valued collector's item. Persons who should know better, such as journalists, do not, and articles discussing these cars are sometimes wrong. I'm old enough to have been around when the real wide-track Pontiacs were on the road and remember them distinctly.

Everyone who owned a real wide-track Pontiac has a wide-track story. I was impressed by these cars early on until a friend attempted our farm driveway after an Indiana snowstorm. I'd plowed out the drive with our old Ford tractor because I needed to attend a reserve meeting with my buddies. Dick arrived with the group and promptly got stuck in our drive. His 1959 Bonneville four-door hardtop had zero regard for my hard work.

The tracks that worked fine for the rest of our cars weren't wide enough for the Bonneville. I hooked up our trusty log chain, my father's cure all, to the Ford and proceeded to drag loose the bumper and grill on the Bonnie. My screaming friend and the rest of the group wound up using shovels to dig out the car. The wide track concept died it's own death after two years because of many such stories.

The wide-track Pontiac vehicle was made in 1959 and 1960 only and included the Bonneville, Catalina, and Ventura full-size models. The promotional models, all 1/25 scale and all Boonevilles, were made at the same time - not before and not after. All are plastic, and just like the real car, they all had problems.

Some of the promos have a neat working mechanism that allowed a demonstrator ( i.e. salesman) to move the wheels from normal road position to the new wide-track position. There's a little round knob on the underside that controls movement. Almost all remaining models that have working wide-track mechanisms are badly bowed, with the front and rear bent down. I'm told the wheel moving mechanism caused the bowing.

More modern promos are made from non-warping acetate, which ended the bowing problem, but such materials were not available on these promos. The more the bowing, the less the current value of the scale model car. These little cars range in value from $25 - to $50 currently depending on the degree of bowing.

The promos were also made in friction models that do not have the bowing problem or the wide-track mechanism that caused it. The friction models are worth more because there is no bowing. All are neat collecor's items that will always have value and will always generate discussion.

Lee Wolverton