Well, I was 12 years old and my older brother Paul was 16 . He was at an auto parts store buying parts for his junk chevy chevette when he met a guy who owned an auto repair shop. They got to talking and my brother told the guy how he fixed his car himself and liked working on cars.
One thing led to another and the shop owner Tucker told my brother he was welcome to come by his shop if he needed help with anything.
So one day his chevette started over heating and we happen to be close to Tuckers shop so we pulled in there to replace the water pump. As we pulled in the first thing that caught our eye was Tuckers 68 Charger R/T, he was a Mopar guy. He eventually started to work for Tucker after a few months of hanging around the shop and I used to tag along with him sometimes and I was always amazed at seeing engines taken apart.
Tucker used to put me to work cleaning parts in the parts cleaner which seemed like the coolest machine in the world to me the way it would remove the grease from parts and made them look brand new again. Eventually my brother learned enough from Tucker to be able to do just about all the things you need to know to build motors.
One day Tucker told my brother he needs to get a real car so he can fix it up and restore it so the search began. We decided to build a Nova so off we went looking for novas, we wanted a 66 but they seemed hard to find. Then one day a neighbor told us he thinks a local car shop has an old 66 nova behind his car dealership in the weeds and it was just down the street from where we live, so off we went to check it out. Well we pull in and drive towards the back and we dont see any nova but we do see a chrome bumper peeking out from the weeds and we notice it had cool looking stacked headlights, we thought it was a fairlane or something.
We get out and walk towards the bushes and brush away to weeds and the first thing we see are the letters GTO on the front grill! It was a 66 GTO convertible. This was the first time I had ever seen a GTO or even knew what it was. We both looked the car over and it was pretty rough but we both fell in love with it just looking it over, we were so excited at the prospect of finally finding a car we can work with and the search for something cool might be over. We walk back up to the front of the building and go inside where the owner of the car dealership is sitting behind a desk. We ask him if that old car in the back is for sale or not? He says he wants 500 dollars for it but it doesnt run and has been sitting back there for many years. This was in 1985 so the amount of years is anyones guess.
My brother said he had a deal for 500 and we would be back in a week to buy the car.After we left he called Tucker told him what we had found, Tucker told my brother he would give him the 500 and he better hurry and buy that car before someone else does. So the next day we show up with tools and money in hand, we wanted to see if we could get it running. The owner of the shop looked at us like some crazy kids for thinking we could get that old car to run. Well we walk back and start cutting down all the weeds, the car was full of parts. The rear bumper was in the back seat along with a bunch of other parts form some other car. I remember to this day the first time I ever looked at the 66 GTO tail lights, they were so cool with the louvers and chrome trim. Well we get the hood open and there sits the 389 4 bbl engine . The carb was seized up but we decided to throw a battery in it to see if it would crank , sure enought the engine turned over but would not start . We go back to the shop and get a carb to throw on and we bring a can of gas back with us to see if we can get it to fire.
Crank it a few times and it just wont start, so we pull the cap and take some sandpaper to the points to clean them up a little, we pour some more fuel into the carb bang! The engines fires up, I can still remember the sounds of the exhaust. We put air in the tires, the brakes didnt really work too well but we were able to drive the car home down a service road next to the railroad tracks that led about a block from our house . We ran a fuel hose from the pump to a gas can to act as a tank because the gas tank was full of crap.From this time on I have been into pontiacs, a few years later I came of age and bought a 70 lemans sport for 600 dollars. Iv owned a 70 GTO, a 69 GTO, a 65 GTO and I now own 2 68 GTO's and havent looked back since. There is a lot more to this story but I will spare everyone LOL, great memories for me.
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