GM's 69 Enduro Bumper Commercial

[StealthBird]

Mark, they officially still referred to it as Endura through 1977-1978, but as we discovered, Pontiac basically tagged the name 'Endura' to anything that was urethane coated and could absorb a impact. The official Pontiac description for the 1977 nose was. "Sandwiched between the RIM fascia and steel reinforcement is either an energy absorbing device made from low-density cast urethane foam or from a thermoplastic material injection molded into a honeycomb pattern.”

So the 1977-1978 Birds had a flexible urethane fascia with with molded thermoplastic injected material to allow the soft fascia to hold its form. The 1979's had the redesigned nose where the grilles were under the headlights, and the flexibility of that fascia was much more apparent especially to the left and right of the Pontiac arrowhead emblem.

Bumpers today use the same basic design. a soft fascia with a molded, injected material behind it to hold its form.

[StealthBird]

The Pontiac arrowhead found on the front of the 1967 Firebird 400's was the first use of a solid urethane product, also created by GM's Inland Manufacturing. When people see a 1967 Firebird 400, they think that emblem is some cheap repop because it's painted silver and black, it's not die-cast or chrome to match the chrome front bumper, but that's how they did them. The designer of the material said it took a long time to develop paint that would stick to that emblem. It had to be able to withstand heat and cold, and the occasional 'bump' into a pole, without cracking the paint.