The Pontiac Club de Mer is a 2-door roadster from Pontiac, built from 1956, at the height of the post-war boom. Under the bonnet: 287 cuin Pontiac OHV V8.
The background
The Pontiac Club de Mer was a purpose-built, experimental car that was built by Pontiac for the General Motors Motorama in 1956 to celebrate General Motors' commitment to futuristic design. The brainchild of GM engineer-designer, Harley Earl (Paul Gillan was also involved, being the Pontiac Studio head at the time), the "de Mer", or French for "of the sea", was a two-door sport roadster that incorporated innovative breakthrough styling like a sleek, low-profile body encasing a large powerplant, a design trend used widely in LSR (land speed record) trials at Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah during the 1950s. One Club de Mer prototype was constructed and unveiled, along with another quarter-scale model, in Miami, Florida. As per GM's "kill order", it was reportedly scrapped in 1958.
Only the model exists today, which was owned by Joseph Bortz of Highland Park, IL. until it was sold to noted car collector Ron Pratt at the 2007 Barrett-Jackson Classic Car Auction for $75,000. A running replica based on a 1959 Pontiac chassis was also built by Marty Martino. Taking three years to complete, it sold for $110,000 at the 2009 Barrett-Jackson Auction in Arizona.
The engineering
Power comes from 287 cuin Pontiac OHV V8. It shifts through a transaxle. The wheelbase is 103.251 in. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Where it sits
Its family tree is legible: it took over from the Pontiac Strato-Streak; its successor was the Pontiac Banshee. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Fiat 500, the Nissan Skyline, the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL — show what else the money bought that year. Its Pontiac stablemates include the Pontiac 2+2 and the Pontiac 6.
What it costs now
There is no federal ownership record for the Pontiac Club de Mer — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.