There are roads in Bucks County, Pennsylvania—more than you might realize—that were first scraped from the soil in the late 1600s, especially along the county’smeandering creeks, back when the followers of William Penn were carving the country from thick forests. Even today, Bucks County belies its just-north-of-Philly location, thanks to its abundance of narrow, high-crowned roads dotted by stone bridges that are close to semicircular as they arch across the streams.
Remember, these roads were built for primitive carts pulled by draft horses and oxen. You’re reminded of that every time you take on one of these lanes in any kind of internal-combustion vehicle. They’re narrow, undulating, and meandering. You’d get that point if you were wheeling something as tiny as a Yugo. So, imagine what it’s like traversing this terrain in an American convertible that tried to out-big practically everything else on the road. You’re forcefully reminded, every time you approach a bridge, that your car is positively gigantic.
Picture yourself rolling your way through this verdant old country, whichlong and more than six feet wide. The ride is airy. You’re navigating across narrow humpbacked bridges with strips of the convertible top waving in the breeze. That’s the kind of experience Amy Burbage and her husband, George, have enjoyed in this 1972 Pontiac Grand Ville convertible, one of the last true mastodon-proportion rear-drive convertibles produced by General Motors before its wholesale downsizing commenced in 1977. As the roadscape of Bucks County quickly makes clear, a Grand Ville is a huge, huge car. In the years after this one was built, the Grand Ville was joined by the equally huge Chevrolet Caprice Classic as GM’s only full-size, rear-drive convertibles until the Grand Ville range was dropped after 1975.
