Stunning 1965 Pontiac Bonneville Flexes Rare Color, Had One Owner for 60 Years

AutoEvolution ^ | 08/25/2025 | Ciprian Florea

[Disambiguator]

Iris Mist was 1965 only.

[wjcsux]

“ Iris Mist was 1965 only.”
You are in fact correct. The 1967 color is Plum Mist.

[bruoz]

My parents turned me loose with a 1966 Ford Fairlane GTA for my H.S. graduation present in ‘67. How I and the rest of Tampa survived that summer is a minor miracle.

[Disambiguator]

I looked around a bit, and it looks like Plum Mist is more purple, whereas Iris Mist was more silver. Both are great colors.

[wjcsux]

What’s really interesting is that some of the least popular colors of cars back in the day were the most beautiful. Buick had a color called Champagne Mist in the mid sixties that was absolutely beautiful. Very few cars were painted that color, I recently worked on a 65 Riviera that was painted that color, beautiful car.

[CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC]

Small world! My first car was also a 1965 model. Here's one just like it:

A white 1965 Ford Econoline van. I absolutely loved that thing! Bought it for $380 in May 1975 at the annual CU/Boulder car pool auction. Had a dead battery and an almost-dead clutch. But it was my first. That's all that counted.

Had an engraved plaque on the dash saying: "A donation from the Denver Civitan Club helped towards the purchase of this vehicle for the patients of Colorado Psychopathic Hospital".

I got a big kick out of telling hitchhikers: "Yup! I just escaped from there 3 days ago". (But only if I judged them as having a healthy sense of humor).

[Noumenon]

I had a yellow 65 GTO with a 4 speed Hurst shifter back in the day. Memories...

[Taxman]

Yes, it is a handsome car.

HST, in 1966, GM began the “rounding” look — ‘65s were sharper and more distinct, IMHO

[wjcsux]

That was the first car that I rode in over 100 MPH in. A yellow 65 4 speed GTO, I was 12 years old. The car belonged to one of our neighbors. His older brother had the same car painted maroon.

[powerset]

My second car was a 1965 Pontiac GTO in that color. It looked almost identical, except it was 4-door and, of course, smaller over all. It even had the black roof, and the elegant vertically stacked headlights.

I wasn’t enthusiastic about the color (pimp mobile?), but I bought it at the end of the model year, so it was that or nothing.

It had a 389 cu-in engine with a 4 bbl carburetor, a limited-slip differential, 4-on-the-floor manual tranny (no offense intended), and metallic-pad drum brakes. The differential had a ratio much more suited to drag racing than top speed or fuel economy. The handling was sloppy, as were almost all cars of that era.

I took it on several nice vacations with friends, driving from Chicago out west: once to New Mexico and Colorado, another time to Yellowstone.

In 1968 I traded it in for a brand new removable-hardtop Corvette. Even though it was again the end of the model year, the color was a more conventional bright blue. The engine was the relatively economical 327 cu-in, with a 4-speed manual, 4-wheel disc brakes (no power assist), limited-slip differential and radial tires (they weren’t ubiquitous then). For comfort, it also had air-conditioning (which was not as common as nowadays).

The acceleration was not quite as much as the GTO, but the top speed was higher, and the handling (and braking) was far, far better.

To break it in gently, I made sure to keep the speed below 105 for the first week or so. Later on, when I was out in the Utah desert on US 6, with 10 mile visibility, I got it up to what seemed to be its top speed: a power of 2. (I then thought it prudent to slow down before passing the lone car ahead of me.)

[TexasGator]

“My second car was a 1965 Pontiac GTO in that color. It looked almost identical, except it was 4-door”

4-door GTO?