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A Triptych of Pontiac Misfortunes and the People Who Shouldn’t Have Owned Them

I. The Accordion Chief

1962 Pontiac Catalina

Back in 1962, a Pontiac Catalina was the kind of car that whispered class while still offering enough under-hood menace to blow the hair off your scalp. Marlin Dacus bought his brand new—triple black with a 389 and enough chrome to blind a possum at noon. It was sold to him by a fast-talking son-in-law at Cactus CHEV-OLDS who knew Marlin would never read the fine print about dealer financing or the rustproofing “guarantee.”

Marlin was a bachelor in the way that men who drink gin for breakfast tend to remain bachelors. He managed the Glidden Paint distributorship west of the Pecos, which meant he spent his days convincing ranchers they needed barn red by the barrel and his nights prowling the Lucky Lady Lounge with a confidence built entirely on misunderstanding the odds.

He named the car “Judgment Day” after a gospel program he heard once while hungover. The Catalina was sleek, fast, and in Marlin’s hands, doomed.

The end came on a Wednesday—a sacred day for sales reps and light drinkers. Marlin had spent the better part of the afternoon mixing spirits at the American Legion fish fry and reportedly tried to impress a substitute teacher from Alpine by doing a burnout in reverse.

He missed a turn near the old Fort Stockton radio tower and kissed the concrete with such passion that the entire front end of the Catalina folded like a pressed suit. Witnesses say the hood buckled in the exact shape of a heart, which the substitute later described as “unsettling.”

Marlin crawled out with a busted wrist and a head full of excuses. “Armadillo the size of a lawnmower,” he told police. “Took me by surprise.”

The Catalina was dragged behind the Rusty Hammer Hardware Store and sat for years, too bent to drive and too handsome to scrap. Rusty eventually made it a display piece, hanging a “SAFETY FIRST” banner across the windshield and putting a used toilet in the back seat for visual impact.

Tourists mistook it for modern art. One woman from Austin asked if she could buy it for her wine bar.

“Judgment Day” was finally hauled off in 1987 by a welder from Monahans who planned to turn it into a barbecue pit. He died before the conversion, and the car was later spotted as part of a failed floating pontoon project on Lake Amistad.

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II. Tree’d and Forgotten

1955 Pontiac Star Chief

There are rusted-out cars and then there are relics, and the ’55 Star Chief in Doris Bellweather’s backyard was a bit of both. She bought it used in ’57 from a Corpus Christi used car dealer named “Alibi” Hernandez, who promised it had once been driven in the Fiesta Flambeau Parade—by who, he never said. Doris didn’t care. The Star Chief was two-tone seafoam and cream, with chrome thick enough to reflect bad decisions and a hood ornament shaped like the ghost of Pontiac himself.

She named it “Mister” and treated it accordingly. It drove her to First Methodist, the Piggly Wiggly, and a particularly ill-fated elopement attempt with a sheet metal worker from Terlingua. It was said that Doris kept her birth certificate, a .38 revolver, and the complete works of L. Ron Hubbard in the glovebox, just in case she needed to leave town on five minutes’ notice.

The tree—an old hackberry with a grudge—fell in 1967. No storm, no warning. One minute it was standing, and the next it had laid itself across “Mister” like it had something to say.

Doris didn’t take it as a tragedy. “That’s what happens when a man stays too long,” she said, lighting a Virginia Slim. She never moved the tree or the car. “Let them fight it out.”

Neighbors filed complaints. The city issued citations. But every time a code enforcement officer showed up, Doris met them on the porch with a rolling pin and a highball glass. The city eventually marked her property as “emotionally protected.”

Over the years, raccoons nested in the engine bay, teenagers used the back seat for chemistry experiments, and the car’s roofline sagged like a broken promise. By the mid-’80s, “Mister” was covered in kudzu, moss, and gossip. A local art teacher tried to claim it as a collaborative sculpture, but Doris ran him off with a garden hoe.

When she passed in 1991, the tree had started growing through the windshield, and “Mister” was officially designated “Urban Fossil #17” by the Fort Stockton Junior Historical Society.

No one’s quite sure what happened after that, but rumor has it the tree and the chassis are now one inseparable organism—something between a Pontiac and a pulpit. One kid swears he saw sap leaking from the hood in the shape of Elvis.

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III. The Flip Side

1969 Pontiac Catalina Sedan and Camper

Herb and Lucille Rawlins had spent thirty years working the kind of government jobs where you got a gold watch and a hernia. Retirement came like Christmas in August, and with it, the purchase of a 1969 Pontiac Catalina four-door sedan in Sandalwood Gold, complete with air conditioning and AM/FM stereo. It was a sensible car—until Herb attached a thirty-foot Shasta camper trailer to the back and declared, “Let’s see the damn country.”

They named the camper “Manifest Destiny.” Every summer, they headed out—Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Galveston, twice. Always with their dog, Rushmore, a tan mutt with beagle ears and a bark like a coughing chainsaw. He’d been with them since their final paycheck and had his own seat at the dinette.

That final journey began in 1974, bound for Carlsbad Caverns, which Herb swore would be “the best hole in the ground we’ve ever seen.” They stopped for coffee in Fort Stockton, refilled the camper fridge with deviled ham and RC Cola, then merged back onto Highway 285—grinning like they had nowhere to be and all week to get there.

Nobody knows what caused the flip. Herb says it was a side wind. Lucille says it was a June bug. The state trooper’s report said “operator error due to excessive lane dancing.” What’s clear is that the Catalina launched into the ditch and rolled like a pill bug on fire, dragging poor Manifest Destiny with it.

The camper split on impact, spewing canned goods, orthopedic shoes, a full tackle box, and every back issue of Good Housekeeping since 1968 across a 200-foot radius. Rushmore, who’d been promised Carlsbad Caverns and a Sonic burger, was ejected mid-tumble and met his maker somewhere between Mile Marker 23 and eternity.

Lucille emerged from the wreck with a smile and a scraped elbow. “Well,” she said, brushing off her skirt, “that was bracing.” Herb stood beside the upside-down Catalina like a man meeting his own mortality—or at least the deductible.

They posed for a photo, Lucille holding the broken coffee pot, Herb gripping Rushmore’s leash with no dog attached.

The car was totaled. The camper was declared a biohazard. But the photo made the front page of the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch with the caption: “Retirees Roll with the Punches—Literally.”

They buried Rushmore just outside Fort Stockton under a picnic table near the Dairy Twin. Angus Hopper painted the marker:

“Rushmore Rawlins – Beloved Companion, Untimely Exit, Didn’t Deserve It.”

Cactus CHEV-OLDS gave them a loaner Buick and a gift certificate to Piggly Wiggly. The Rawlinses never traveled again.

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Epilogue

They say all three Pontiacs eventually found each other. Not just in a junkyard, but in legend.

Somewhere out at Earl’s Salvage Yard & Formalwear, there’s a clearing with a rusted ’62 hood folded like an angry love letter, a ‘55 Star Chief slowly turning into forest furniture, and the stripped chassis of a ‘69 Catalina facing west like it’s still trying to reach Carlsbad.

And if the wind’s right, you can still hear a bark. Or maybe it’s laughter. Either way, it’s Fort Stockton. Stranger things have happened.

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