By Sharon Aron Baron
It’s not too often that you see the car the size of a small boat come cruising down your street. My son and I had to do a double-take as we saw this 1970 Bonneville, humming by, with its proud owner and Tamarac resident, Ed Brown, behind the wheel. Since I’m such a fan of anything to do with the 1970s, I had to find out more about Ed and his car.
As a young man, Ed only drove sports cars like Jaguars, Mustangs, and Aston-Martins. He never considered a Pontiac before, but he was older and needed a new toy and was intrigued when he found a seller in West Palm Beach selling Bonneville. “It’s the last of the good old land yachts of the world!” Ed explains.
Purchasing the car in 2005 at a “good price,” Ed knew the car needed a lot of restoration. The upholstery and transmission are original; everything else is either restored or replaced by original parts,” says Ed as he has a long list of items that he replaced on the 40-year-old car. Not only did he rebuild the engine, but the convertible top had to be custom-made in brown. The car has new longer-lasting paint that matches the original color, the body has also been re-chromed, and the A/C has a new compressor. The Bonneville has a 455 horse-power engine and gets 11 mpg on the highway and 8 mpg in the city, but luckily, this car has a big tank to hold all that gas at 24 gallons. The car is garaged to keep it looking good, and he prefers to drive it only on nice, cool days. There are only 101,000 miles on the odometer, and Ed only puts less than 1,000 miles on it per year.
While photographing the car this week, I was amazed at how many people were awestruck by the Bonneville. One man with a major appliance service company drove around the block looking at the car; before he finally came by, stopped, looked, and was essentially blocking my shot of the car. He was so enamored with the Bonneville that he got out of his van and came out and talked with Ed in great detail about his car and other muscle cars from that era. Just looking at the car with the enormous trunk and the huge interior brings back memories of the era of big cars. After the mid-’70s, all these cars disappeared from the assembly lines making way for smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. Cars whose mundane style seemed to blend into the other ones.
Ed and his wife Maryelle have been living in Tamarac for almost 20 years. Originally from Montreal, Canada, Ed was renting an apartment nearby when he met a man who played golf with him and told him about the Woodlands. He immediately loved it and bought his first home there. In 2000, they found the home where they are currently living, where he and his wife now run their business, A-2-Z Ergonomics. As President of the company, he consults as well as sells workstations and chairs to businesses.
One of his favorite things to do is take the car to classic car shows. This past October, Ed and his Bonneville were at the Taste of Tamarac event at the Tamarac Community Center, where there were 25-30 classic cars on hand. Be sure to look for him again at next year’s event.
