I took much interest in Matt Litwin’s profile of a 1972 Pontiac LeMans Sport convertible in HMN’s October, 2022 issue (plus his earlier, April, 2022 “Driveable Dream” piece for Hemmings Classic Car that identified Cathy Stewart of Guildford, Connecticut as its owner-since-new). My father Norman J. Merksamer used an Endura-nosed version — evidently finished in the same Aztec Gold color — as his sole daily driver for 22 years until a brand new, bright yellow Mustang convertible became his everyday transportation in 1994.
My father, dearly departed since 2017, drove drop-tops exclusively starting with the Miami Cream 1949 Ford that helped him snare my mother when he was a Class of ’52 Lehigh University student, and I can still recall how one motivation of his 1972 LeMans purchase was the tempered glass rear window Matt mentioned in his October feature. Aside from specifying the GTO-evoking front end and exterior paint I had heretofore assumed was metallic orange given my color blindness, my dad also went for the larger 400 V-8 but not the styled Rally II wheels seen on Ms. Stewart’s car, since he would be fitting studded snow tires half the year. Much to my eternal shame, my nine-year-old self angrily kicked its right front tire when dad took delivery at Klinger Pontiac in Mamaroneck, New York, in December, 1971, as I was extremely fond of the 1967 Bonneville four-door hardtop
