Even if you don’t care about baseball, you can at least respect the impressive car collection Major League Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson’s amassed after his playing career.
Jackson’s been a frequent guest at some of America’s largest and most noteworthy classic car auctions, but this time, it’s the five-time World Series champion’s turn to sell his car, not the other way around.
His 1962 Pontiac Grand Prix Tri-Power is one heck of a car to be sold without its famous owner. Admittedly, the car is for sale via a deceased person’s estate out of Obispo County, California. But there’s all the paperwork present in the listing to confirm the owner purchased this Pontiac from Reggie Jackson’s personal collection in 1996.
A pro-ball player with 2,500 base hits and 500-plus home runs to his name deserves a top-of-the-line engine. That’s why the top-of-the-line 389 cubic-inch (6.4-liter) Tri-Power V8 finds its way under the hood of this Grand Prix, complete with all three two-barrel carburetors. Good for 348 horsepower and a quarter mile time in the mid to upper 14-second range.
Not bad for a car that’s 60 years old. With flawless-looking bright red paint and a white vinyl interior, you can tell this classic beauty was looked after to a better degree than just changing the oil. Power is fed to a four-speed manual transmission and the stock rear axle. It won’t be a sports car quick by any means. But with this kind of a cruiser, you don’t need it to be.
As a lifetime California car, there’s not a spot of rust on the exterior to be found and only small patches of surface rust underneath. We can only imagine the mild California air did wonders for conserving old American steel and iron.