[65nss4spdGTO]

As some know, my dad was a big Pontiac racer dating back to the 1956 Pontiac he first owned. Later he purchased the 59 Catalina with the 345 HP Tri- Power engine, street raced on the northside of Chicago in the early 60's, he would tell me how guys would have to call him out from the apartment he lived in cause the poncho was building a reputation. He then drag raced it locally as I grew up going to the drag strip most weekends, pretending to race the 59 when I wasn't even able to touch the gas pedals, I would pretend to shift the Muncie 4 speed as it sat in our garage.

So 1984 rolls around and I'm 19 years old, I'm working for a company with owners who happened to own a 1965 Pontiac GTO with Tri-Power and a 4 Speed. I was told it was a 389ci engine, had a decent rear gear and was a "handful" on the street. They knew how much I loved the car and told me they were thinking of selling it, I took my dad to look at the car, he put it through the paces and said "I didn't need a car like that". My dad wasn't a GTO guy, he owned "Big Pontiac's". I bought the car the next week. I fixed the clutch after tearing it up the first week, swapped the rear tires for some MT SS Street tires and I'm out having fun with the car.

It's Friday night at the local 7-11, a thumping Dark Green 68-69 Roadrunner has it's hood up when I pulled in. The guy says he wants to run me as he has beat most of the cars in the area, I declined. We hung out for a bit, jumped in the car to leave when I noticed the Mopar guy shut his hood and fired the engine quickly and proceeded to follow me out. I headed north on Spring Road (Elmhurst, IL), a small 1 lane each direction with houses on each side, it was freshly paved concrete, the 4 speed Mopar pulls up next to me at a roll in the oncoming traffic lane, I looked over and down shifted into 1st and we both let it rip. I went through 2nd and 3rd gear as we were both side by side, I'm guessing we approached 80-90 MPH in this residential area. The Mopar thought he could walk me, as we blasted down that road I saw the lights from oncoming cars in his lane approaching. I could hold him off and make him hit the brakes hard, but I got off the gas so he could get around me. I found out later he had a built Mr. Norms 440ci engine in his Roadrunner, mine was a junk yard 455 with 67 GTO heads and RAIII cam. That similar combo went 13.20's @ 113MPH the first time out when I went to the strip.

I never street raced again.

I've attached a couple of pics from the way the car was back in 1984.

Calvin Hill
Hill Performance
708-250-7420