The 1964 Catalina four-door hardtop with the Custom Ventura package offered a lot of swank per dollar, with a price starting at $3,063. That’s about $29,821 when converted to inflated 2023 dollars. The main benefit of the Custom Ventura package was an interior done up entirely in Morrokide upholstery. Morrokide was the name GM applied to Naugahyde fake leather
when used in Pontiac vehicles; when used in Buicks, it was known as Cordaveen, while Oldsmobile Naugahyde was called Morocceen. Naugahyde took its name from the town of Naugatuck, Connecticut, where it was invented.
This car’s Morrokide is in rough shape. In fact, everything about this car is decayed and probably infectious.
You know to be careful when a junkyard car has warnings about rat feces inked on the glass.
That said, I couldn’t resist examining the 8-track tapes that littered the interior. Here’s Hotel California, the 1976 hit album by the Eagles.
Supertramp’s Paris, a live album recorded from the 1979 Breakfast in America tour, is here as well.
The tapes were played on this Sparkomatic player, which probably lived in the glovebox or under the seat.
The factory radio was AM-only, and includes the frequency markings for the atomic-attack CONELRAD emergency frequencies. 1964 was the last year for mandatory CONELRAD radios in the United States.
The wretched condition of this car suggested that it had spent at least several decades abandoned in a field or driveway somewhere, but the bumper has a series of recent parking permits for the busy Westside neighborhood of Santa Cruz
. This car must have been street-parked and registered, and it may even have driven in this condition.
The base engine in the 1964 Catalina was a 389-cubic-inch (6.4-liter) Pontiac V8 rated at 235 horsepower, but that was just on cars equipped with the base three-on-the-tree manual transmission
.
This car has the optional three-speed Hydramatic automatic transmission, which meant that the car got a 389 with higher compression and 267 horsepower; a four-on-the-floor manual was available as well (and was dismayingly rare on full-size Pontiacs).
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