[Bullydawg]

Cool stories guys...Keep them coming!

[unclescratch]

1962. Family moves from Oak Park, MI to Royal Oak, right behind the Totem Pole Restaurant. (How cool is that !?) We ride our bicycles 1-1/2 blocks and park behind the wooden fence at the rear entrance on Lafayette, and watch the waaay cool cars come and go. '57 chevy's and ford's w/blister hood scoops, baby moons, etc., etc., Get serenaded to sleep all summer long to the sound of power shifts and squeeling tires. (Early brainwashing scenario) Fall 1963. Around the corner a new car is parked at the curb still wearing window sticker. (1964 GTO) I often stop to reread the sticker on the way to school. Right across the street from school is parked a maroon '64 LeMans, 4-speed car w/aftermarked triple gauges under dash, dog dishes, hardtop, white interior. Hormones and other things coming online, I'm not shy, I knock on the door to inquire if the car is for sale. Real swell guy invites me in, introduces his wife, He is way cool but car is not for sale. Actually see the car (and dude going to work ((Ace Wilson,s Royal ???)) one day. Love that car. 1967 Have driver,s license now. Lady at work (with gorgeous , triple black, '65 LeMans) has her son's car with her and it's for sale. White '64 tri-power GTO, light blue interior, power windows and buckets, column shifted automatic, ((son has prosthetic device for right hand)) optional wheel covers w/spinners. She offers car to me to take for test drive/check-out. Heartrate begins to increase to dangerous levels. I head straight for home to show to Mom for her appraisal/approval (emphasis on power seats and windows and column shifted automatic) but mostly to see who else is home who wants to go for a ride. Older brother agrees and I head straight for Woodward Avenue. Put that sucker in drive and mashed the loud pedal. Holy**** did that car go! All my brother could say was " you'd better slow this thing down!!!". My dad wouldn't have anything to do with co-signing for a hot rod. #$%&*#$@ Next fall, walk (less than a mile) to Ace Wilson,s fall festival/new car intro/Bobcat stuff on display/promotion. Eventually meet and deal w/George DeLorean @ Leader Automotive. Do I have it for GTO's?? You bet! '65 in garage, 4-speed, V-8 (BIG ****EATIN GRIN!!!) 12-bolt posi, no ps, nopb, radio delete, big and littles, no power but HP, .................................................. ............

[gto4evr]

Hmmm... the fever was a delayed reaction. I was 3 yrs old when Gramma brought home a 71 Lemans. I used to sleep on the rear package tray and mess with grampa by turning up the AM radio to full blast before he would start the car up. In 1975 Gramps slid the car in some gravel and kissed the front right into a car. Not too bad, fiberglass nose cracked, and punched the fender in a little. They couldn't get squat on the trade in so it went into the garage to be my first car. When 1984 rolled around, I was a spoiled kid who instead of appreciating the car, wished that it was a 70 SS chevelle because the peer group was CHEVY and no one had ever heard of a Lemans. After hearing the story from Gramps that the only reason it was a 71 Lemans instead of a 71 GTO was because Gramma HATED the hood scoops I started learning a little bit about GTO's. Fame started to grow as my 350 2BBL with the powerglide lunched on my friends 78 camaro, the other guys 72 chevelle, and the 3rd guys 75 monte carlo. Now comes 1986. My carless friend will not let up trying to buy my Lemans. He thinks it's the coolest car out there. I refuse to sell it (and still have it), but I agree to aid him in his quest to find one. On the way to work after school one day, we drive past this orange Lemansish looking car. We stop by after work and see the GTO letters on the fenders. Car looks stupid being orange, but it's got a cool wing on the back. (remember, this is 1986, NO cars had wings back then). Anyways, we look inside the interior and see that it's a 4 speed car. We both laugh about "The Judge" thing on the dashboard. Neither of us had ever heard of one and thought it was just some more bad taste on the owners part besides painting the car orange. (there were no stripes on the car). My friend had never driven a stick before, but I'd driven my mom's Dodge Omni manual so my friend talks me into taking the car for a test drive for him. The owner hands me the keys and my friend and I get in. The guy just says: "take it easy, it's quick". I start the car up and we're deafened by the open manifolds -- there's NO exhaust system on the car. Clutch is WAY stiff compared to that Omni.....So my first attempt at leaving spins the tires. I see the guy shaking his head. A few streets over, I go through the gears in the car and my friend and me are crapping our pants -- NEVER been in a car that moved out like that! We come back and he drops the deposit on it without even haggling. Pick up the car the next day and take it back to his house. Next day at school, he trys to sell me the car. His mom is PISSED about that rattle-trap POS with no exhaust on it for $1400. That night he brings the car by and I'm considering a trade for my 71. Problem is, my 71 is solid, new cragars, new paint and that GTO definitely needs work, no exhaust, bondo trap, shredded interior. No way I'll go even swap even if it was a GTO. We start discussing possible addition of money to the deal, then out of the blue my Mom suggests I just buy the car outright and she'll loan me the money. (This is my mom we're talking about -- she HATES cars as anything other than a necessity). I got the car, and unfortunately the resto never happened -- it's still sitting in my garage, completely stripped into boxes in my cellar. 20 yrs gone by, NEXT year for sure! There's always some other project in front of it for some reason. So far I've escaped the temptation of selling it as the ebay numbers keep climbing. I went from plain jane Lemans to The Judge in one step. I didn't even know what a Judge WAS when we got it. I still remember the guy "Proving it was a Judge because the last "7" in the vin code of 24237!! (I did a PHS back when it was free and it really is a Judge (w/ THM400 option -- no stick from the factory) I only drove that car a week back in 1986. It got stripped for paint, and the paint shop wouldn't hang the repro quarters on it because of how bad the quality was. They threw it back in primer and gave the car back to me. At that point, every year it got taken apart a little more, until now it's ALL in boxes. So was this catching the fever or a slow viral infection that completely converted the host body into a Pontiac cyborg?

[gtoric]

John, you've heard this story before, and anyone who's taken the time to read the intro to my book has also heard this tale.

The year was 1973, and I am on my way to my first year of college. Not having a car of my own, I was dependent on purchasing rides to and from the 100+ mile-distant institution of higher learning. Cost me $2 one-way for the two-hour trip. One of the most consistant commuter drivers, and certainly piloting the most impressive mode of transportation, was Dave and his '68 GTO 4-speed convertible.


Dave's car with Rally One's.

Although Dave and I had graduated high school together, we were not real close friends. Dave was a farmer's son, and as such didn't spend too much time on afterschool activities. He did own one of the best cars in our senior class, and I spent many 4-hour round trips in that Goat during our first year of college. This car was extra impressive since it was the first genuine muscle car I had ever ridden in.
My father was not a gearhead, and none of my immediate relatives, of which I had almost too many to count, were drivers of any sort of high performance machinery. At the time my family's daily driver was a 4-door sedan '69 Catalina. The Pontiac was my dad's first new-car purchase, and it never gave him a day's worth of trouble the entire time he owned it. Dad also had a '63 Ford F150 camper special (heavy duty half ton) which he drove back and forth to work on a daily basis. I learned to drive a stick in that pickup.

With those facts in place, I started looking for my first car in 1977. Since I was still a year from finishing with my college experience, I would have to borrow the purchase funds from my parents. A muscle car was out of the question (not reliable enough). The closest I got to any sort of performance car was a Bucanneer Red '74 GTO, but at $3,000, that was a little out of my price range. I settled on a very base '74 Ventura with less miles, less engine, and most importantly, for less cash.


I've done a few upgrades to the Ventura over the last 29 years. Still own this car.

When I finally got a real job, one of the first big dollar purchases I made was for a '67 GTO convertible. It was painted resale red (originally Linden Green) and had a TH400. After replacing the timing chain in the parking lot of a Minnesota apartment complex during a snowy March weekend, I had that car running pretty good. What I really wanted was a '67 ragtop 4-speed, so in 1982 I sold the red Goat and purchased a black 4-speed convert that appeared to be in much better condition.


Still have this one too.

After a restoration in 1985, the black GTO returned to Signet Gold and received a few non-original options.

[blown 68]

i'd say i was five or so, about 1972, is about when i really remember liking pontiacs. i grew up in a 1963 catalina with dad banging four gears, see pic,(just got it back into the family a few years ago, now I'M driving it....) and my uncle owned a matador red/black interior, 1968 ramair I, endura delete 4 speed hardtop. i LOVED that car, so much that when he sold it in 1976, for $600,(ouch), when i later turned 16, i asked if he knew where it was. he did, but it got wrecked before i could take ownership. always had a crunch for a 68 since then. fastforward to 1998, my uncle,(who is handicapped), and i were looking for a project car, to keep him busy, we found a 1 owner 1969 ramair III hartop. we bought it, restored it, and wanted to do another car. we then found a 1968 lemans, already red, and turned it into the brute you see below.
we are having fun with pontiacs, and plan to for many years.

[eaglesan13]

It was the mid 70's and my older brother was 16. He had a 68 mustang, nothing special really. There was a 65 GTO for sale around the block from where we lived and my brother was thinking of buying it. My brother and my dad went to look at it and my dad test drove it because my brother couldn't drive a stickshift. Dad says no, you can't buy that car. The next day my brother comes driving up in the GTO. It turns out he had gone behind my dad's back and borrowed money from our grandfather till he could off the mustang. My dad was pissed. A few days later some of my brother's friends came by and asked to go for a ride. I got to go too and I sat in the right rear. My brother got on it and was going through the gears, I tried to pull myself up to see the speedo but I was just a kid and was pinned back in the seat. That car was fast. My brother had numerous problems with that car and it mostly sat in the driveway, which further pissed off my dad. A few years later I was taking auto shop in high school and the GTO was sitting with a bad clutch. My brother owed my dad some money so my dad offered me a deal, replace the clutch in the GTO so it was drivable and my brother could sell the car. My dad would get paid and he would kick me some of the money. So, I replaced the clutch. As I was road testing it I thought it was way faster than my beater 65 mustang so I sold the stang and bought the GTO from my brother. My dad was pissed all over again! Anyway, that's the one that got it all started for me. It was a 65 hardtop, Plametto green with black interior, tri power, 4 speed with a posi. I bought it for $600.00.

[68addict]

Oh man these stories are awesome...but please stop the torture of buying GTO's for under 1,000 in the 70's.... when they were everywhere...it hurts so much LMAO!!! I barely remember them a sa child...born 74....I love these stories....great thread...

[gtokid68]

I have loved anything with wheels my whole life. It became only pontiac in about the 8 th grade. An older kid in the neighborhood had a freshly painted two tone green 69 gto bench seat column shift. It was his older brother's car left for him, it just happen to have an offical fraternal order of police sticker in the middle of the back window. So we just never got into trouble, and I don't remenber EVER getting beat. I was, I think a very lucky kid I had knowledge and tool's but no car. So I worked on many of my freinds car's in the afternoons and hang out at Johnson's blue top evernight and went street racing very often. I was voted most likly to be called the gto kid for the rest of my life by my high school class. It took me a long time to get my own gto and it was very much worth the wait. The first time my old freinds from the neighborhood saw my car they were speachless.and very happy for me even more so when it ran at the track all day without ANY problems. I could go on for ever about pontiac's I just LOVE em THE GTO KID 68

[hotchief]

MY start with pontiac's in 1957 my buddy wrecked his 51 2dr chieftain and I bought it for $25 it took me almost a year to straighten the front end so it would pass Pa.law for it to be driven. Just out of high school and money for parts was HARD to come by. while reparing it a neighbors friend needed a straight 8 for his car I sold the car for $200 and never looked back. I street raced a 57 Olds with a 406 j2 setup for awhile. Then my buddie blew up the 347 in his Georgeaus 57 Pontiac Starchief (charcoal with a silver arrow).To make a long story short I put that 406 olds in the pontiac. Almost a bolt in. I eventually put a Mc coulough supercharger on it and for quite awhile It was no 1 in the areaof pa where I lived.Eventually I tired of the car and sold it less motor. I changed to a 62 cat. raced it then sold it to myx fatherin law. He put a 421 in it and it really flew then. While rebuilding the 406 I discovered olds and pontiacs used some of the same parts rods lifters etc. From then on I had pontiacs as my fun cars. A lot of street racing going on then (70's) I lost a few but won many more. $10-100 a race.Good old days. sorry my message took so long. Opens up pandoris's box so to speak. hotchief

[uneasyrider]

Well I don't have a GTO but I sure want a '66. My Dad bought one new. It was a tri-power 4-spd, posi. It was Navy blue with the full size hub caps. I heard many a story about the GTO from my Dad and his friends. They street raced the car constantly. Every chance my Dad got the peddle was on the floor. Here's why these cars are rare. This kind of driving by many owners gave an early end to these cars... (Most owners weren't this well... stupid)

My Dad bought the car for my Mom. Yeah right! She only drove it when she was trying to find him at one of the bars he hung out at. When my Mom wasn't driving "her" car my Dad was out rodding it into the ground. My Dad and his buddies were on the way back from a road trip and three sheets to the wind when my old man told his best buddy to drive because he felt he was to plowed but he wouldn't let him drive if he let it drop below 90mph. Safe and sane. To make a long story short they kept it over 90 until someone parked on the side of the road pulled out in front of them and while avoiding it they put the car on it's side. None of them had seat belts on and they were all lucky to not get hurt. The State Police show up and tell them that they wont write them up for a DWI if they state to the press that they were saved by thier seat belts! The police knew they didn't have thier belts on but they were pushing seat belt use and wanted this to be an "example of seat belts save lives". I found the news paper clipping that showed the car on it's side and these stupid kids in thier early 20's standing by the car looking humble. They rolled the car back onto its wheels and then kicked the windshield out of it so they could see. They stopped at a gas station and bought sunglasses to keep the wind out of thier eyes. On the way home they got to a spot that had been freshly crack sealed. There was an oncoming semi that was spraying gravel out behind it so they ducked behind the dash to avoid the gravel and they could hear it pelting the back window. Well there buddy was passed out in the back seat and he looked like someone had taken pot shots at him all day with a BB gun! To avoid responsability for his plight they threw him out unconscious into his parents front yard where they found him that night. They told them later he had gotten into a fight. The car ended it's life (with my Dad anyway) in a minor selfimposed collision. My Dad was parked at an intersection when the light turned green. Down the road about a block a man was pulling out of a side street onto the road my Dad was on. My Dad said to his buddy (the guy that was driving the GTO when it rolled) "I hate it when people pull out in front of me like that!" and floored it and started grabbing gears. They plowed into the front of that car a God knows what speed, smashing the front end of both cars badly of course and luckly not hurting the guy in the other car! My Dad pulled the GTO into the parking lot and called GMAC and told them to come get the car! That was the last of the GTO until my Dad saw it about five years later down in OR with some kid driving the chit out of it. It had been pounded back into shape enough to drive and was back on the road. When my Dad wrecked it for the last time it only had 12,000miles on it! As you can see my old man wasn't the most responsable guy on earth but WHAT A STORY! WHAT AN IDIOT!!! I sure wish he would have been smarter and kept that car. Oh, well...

[Philo]

I got it one night (in 1964) during a street race between a 1960 Ford and a 1958 Ford, both with the 352 Intercepter engine. I was a passenger, my car at the time was a '63 Cat. Just as we took off, a 'small' car came out of a side road and fell in behind us. At about 65, he pulled up beside us, paused, then zoomed up to the '58 that was ahead at that time, paused again, then really took off. It turned out to be a light blue '64 GTO. It took me two more years to get one, but I got a white '66 3x2 four speed. It had steel wheels, full caps, red line tires, radio, ps, pb and little else. And, fuel was expensive, at about $0.32/gal.

[gtoroadracer]

Like BUQUICK my love started for the GTO with the first ride I ever had from the Hospital in my fathers 1964 Pontiac GTO at 5 days old. I started helping him working on cars at the age of 4 and I bought my 1964 GTO at the age of 13. 23 years later and sinking enough money into the car that I could of purchased a casino in Vegas I still love the GTO. I would not have it any other way.

[4spdTA]

My dad bought a nice 64 GTO convertible for $750 in 1976, I was 8 at the time. He sold it in 1978 for $1800. It was a 389 4 bbl, automatic with power windows and A/C. It was red with black interior and a white top. My dad put a set of superior chrome steel slot mags and a set of billbopard white letter bias plys on it. I remember doin 110 with the top down... I was hooked!

[Wareagle]

Great GTO stories--I drove a nice 74 GTO for a couple of years -Burgandy with tan interior --it would sure light up the inside rear tire on a corner from a stand still--turned a lot of heads --fun times.

[kaysersuzuki]

i started for me in about 65 at least thats as far back as i can really remember,my dad was a salesman at a Pontiac dealership and while all we ever owned was Bonneville's,my dad would on occasion bring a gto home to show to someone,the dealership was in a different town,so he would bring the cars to them,sold a sh1t load of cars that way,in the bar too at that!
but then that dealer closed and he went to work at another Pontiac dealer 25 miles away and still would bring em home once in a while,the road to the dealership was long,straight but had 2 spots that with enough speed your head would hit the ceiling,riding to work with him on my days off from school or summer vacation was all i really needed,i was 19 when i bought my 1st gto and still have it,its the blue convert in my avatar i paid 50.00 for it in 1979,but what really got me going was when we moved about 12 years ago,my wife wanted horses and i wanted more than a 1 car garage,so we bought a old farmette with 10 acres and a 3car garage,40x70 pole shed and a barn,needless to say since then we have accumulated 8 horses but have 5 gtos and 4 birds and 3 mustangs,soooo guess where the horses are,wife still mad a me because she wanted the pole shed for the horses

[kaysersuzuki]

btw now i need a gto anonymous here as i keep buying parts i really don't need with money that could be spent elsewhere

[TxGoats]

I know exactly when my love of GTO's began, I was 14 and we had gone to Colorado to visit family. I had a brother that was 6 years older than me. He had left home and was living in Colorado, had been gone from home about 2 years and I hadn't seen him since he left. We were very close, talked on the phone alot, much to my parents dismay, no free long distance calls on cell phones back then. Anyway we got to town and he came by to pick me up, I was going to spend a couple of days with him, and he showed up as proud as he could be driving a new to him '69 GTO convertible Judge. Orbit orange with a His and Hers shifter, black interior and a black top. This was the coolest car I had ever seen, he had gained about 40 pounds and I later found out why, he was on steriods for testicular cancer. This was in 1975 and he passed away 2 years later. He was going to leave me the car but fell in love and left it to his girlfriend, I wasn't upset about the car, she was really a cool lady. Sorry so sad but it's a true story. I now own 2 GTO's, a '67 and '68.

[6704gto]

ive been hooked since i was in high school 1988 ,a girl there had a 72 gto and a friend of mines older sister had a black 69 gto,plus my mom bought a 67 gto brand new in march of 67

[Old Goat Racer]

That would be the Fall of 63'. I was 19. My buddies & I were hangin out at the local phone booth, callin our girlfriends when this strange lookin car pulled up with a mean rumble. As it drove away we looked at each other & said what's a GTO ?

[24237]

1975 i was 8yrs old liiving in north Jersey and my father was racing a 62 Catalina Super Duty, his daily driver was a 62 G/P , and my mother was driving a 69Judge, and they had a 66SS as an extra/back up , (all 4 cars where 4spd's) well, one late summer night my parents took me to my 1st street race in Newark on Avenue P, and we meet up with my aunt, uncle , and a bunch of other family members and thier friends, and i remember my father doing a burnout with his G/P and getting ready to race a White 69 GTO, and the Police snuck up on us without lights on and all of sudden they threw the cherries an headlights on and everyone scrambled, pops had just left the line, the Goat took off, my aunt stuffed me threw the passenger side window of my uncles factory SS 4spd nova and we were out of there! We all met up at the house and i thought it was the koolist thing in the world! well, 5 years later at the age of 13 i was joking around with my mother and said the Judge needed to be moved and i would be happy to move it for her, well, she had handed me the keys and said, "Here you go!" well, pops had already taught me the basics on how to drive an automatic, but not a stick, so after watching my parents drive sticks i always watched and observed an just applied, needless to say i did stall it the first time, but i learned quickly, we lived on a dead-end street in Lyndhurst NJ, so mom let me go back and forth with it untill i got the hang of it. Well moms left leg was taking a beating from the 3000lb clutch's pops had in the goat and mom went to a Cadillac, i kept begging mom not to sell it and give it to me when i turn 17, so the judge sat for a year and on my 14th birthday it was my birthday gift, i was the luckiest kid on the planet! i would learn how to do burn-outs with it in the driveway and pops use to take me out in it on nice weekends and he would take me to a big empty lot to drive it. I drove it every day of my junior and senior years of high school, I had the judge for 10 years and drove it every where, i did some street racing with it, hung out down the shore with it, left more rubber on the roads of Bergen County and pi**ed off more neighbors with the sound of me side steppin the clutch of the RAIII with shorty cherry bombs and puttin the hood tach into the red and then grabbing second gear just to jump on the brakes for the stop sign at the end of the block! HA HA!!!! MAN, INSTANT FLASH BACK . well thats what got my gear lube flowing!