1981 bonneville safari in Cincinnati

[zzzizxz]

Hi all,

I've been a member of the site for a little while, but I never got around to posting anything about my bonne.

It's a 1981 safari wagon that I bought from the goodwill auto auction for $1000. I got a steal on this car, and I absolutely love it!
The only thing I had to do to make the car road-worthy was to put in a new battery, a new speedometer cable, and bleed the driver-side brakes.
It has all the options available for the year, and maybe even some that weren't available.
Power windows, power locks, dual power side mirrors, power 6-way seats, A/C, cruise, in-dash CB radio, power antenna, rear automatic leveling, cornering lamps. This thing has everything, and the craziest thing is that essentially all of it still works!

It was missing the side plastic body filler panels front and back, but I fabricated the rear ones, and bought and painted the front ones.

The dark blue paint and the wood paneling were in terrible shape, so I needed to do some work to that. My wife absolutely can't stand woodgrain, so I had that taken off, then I had the whole thing repainted. I didn't go with original color, I actually had it done in late 1990s GM emerald green, and I replaced the tan carpet with dark green carpet that almost matches the paint.

I've had the windows tinted, A/C converted, redone the brakes, ball joints, new tires, new master cylinder, new rear shocks, front coil springs, removed and repainted all the interior plastic trim, redid the headliner, recovered the sun visors.

I've built custom center consoles for the front seat, and rear seat, complete with cupholders, two extra 12v outlets, vents and fans to pull air from the front back to the rear seats, and I replaced all 4 speakers.

All in all, there's not a whole lot I haven't done to this thing. It really is the ultimate cruising machine. In the two years since I've owned it, I've put about 30k miles on in. We've gone to the DC area 3 times, Milwaukee twice, southern Michigan twice, gone camping just across the Kentucky line in Tennessee, Northern Indiana probably 10 times, and I've got more trips planned this summer!

I'll post pics when able.

[1oldman]

Glad you made your presence known. Sounds like you have a real time machine on your hands. Hope the photos are posted soon. - BC

[WhiteArrow3800]

Cool! Welcome to the club! I look forward to seeing pictures when you post them.

[nos4blood70]

Welcome to the forums

[dadofone2011]

I can't wait to see photos of this

[kpopbonn]

love the Safari Wagon. Our neighbors had a 1979 or 1980 Safari Wagon growing up back in the day. The stuff we did in that wagon brings back good high school memories. Sounds like a great ride. Good for you fixing it up. Would like to see pictures when you get a chance.