[JUDGE3]

so here's a few pics of my 2 most recent cars prior to my 72 Trans Am clone project.

Iv'e had 3 (Judge3) 69 Gto Judges. first 2 were originals. a carousel red ram air 3, and a turquoise ram air 4. sold those in the 1980's sigh. anyway the 3rd one I cloned as i'm doing now with the Trans Am. originals are to expensive and I would feel guilty altering an original the way I prefer to do.

the 67 Firebird I had a 455 in, m22 supercase rock crusher, 3.73 moser. loved that car, wish I still had it but I just can't feed but one car at a time. sell one to build another. owned em breifly together for a bit.

Painted the Lemans/Judge clone myself, did all the work. first and only time iv'e done it. project clone Trans Am will be my second. painted the Judge in my attached garage. no shop at the time.

so the Judge clone started as a 69 LeMans...........gold/black. I didnt even know about PY back then. 2005 or so.

[JUDGE3]

never liked vinyl tops. trap rust. peeled it off. surprised all was good!

[JUDGE3]

when I went to paint the whole car, I had 4 cheap box fans and closed the garage doors on top of them. no where near enough ventilation. the clear coat fogged the whole garage, I said heck with that and painted it with the doors wide open scared a dang grasshopper would come flyin in. never did! yeha

[JUDGE3]

lotta work. lotta different products needed to. but learned a ton and am super confident and can't wait to paint the Trans Am.

[JUDGE3]

Ran consistent 11.80's at 115mph all day long.

I put royal bobcat decals on the rear spoiler. loved em, they looked like they belonged there but I took em off because it got to much attention! got tired of pumping gas and folks runnin up...."is that really a royal bobcat car! " lol then had to explain the whole clone thing. ha.

[JUDGE3]

this car was fast. nvr took it to the track oddly enough. loved the 4 speed but didnt like changing clutches. when your hard on em like me, no matter the clutch your gonna wear it out. I had the centerforce dual friction clutch in it usually.

i don't know how to enlarge the darn pictures.

this car had never been wrecked. super straight. a friend steered me towards a fella that had a body shop that was struggling. he did a incredible job on it. did it as a side job in his shop to pay his employees. charged me around $6,000 is all. printed a receipt that it would have been $10,500 but he needed the cash. the place went under just a few months later. this was around 2002 or so.

[vertigto]

Very nice work. Will be interested in seeing the TA project.

[JUDGE3]

both clones. the firebird was a base 326 car. cloned to a hood tach firebird 400 but with of course, a 455. no substitute for cubic inches!

Dad gave me the 67 ventura he bought new. grew up in that car. but he didnt take care of it, most rusted car iv'e owned, plus hail damage. sadly i couldnt do anything with it and couldnt bare to watch it rot so I sold it. I begged him to give it to me years before it got that bad. he just let it sit outside. had the old rubber trunk mat he wouldnt take out. the entire trunk was gone. really bugged me!

the grand prix (cant remember if its a 85 or 87?) it fell victim to high school driving. my son totaled it. he was fine all that mattered.

[cnc]

Dam nice work my friend....

[OCMDGTO]

Really nice!

[61-63]

Good job and nothing wrong with clones and restamped blocks!

[JUDGE3]

Agree, maybe not re-stamped blocks.

In these days of the supply of reasonable originals dried up, clones are a great route and has been for quite some time. even my originals I had in the 1980's I did not alter much out of not wanting to splice up a piece of history.

If a clone is done cleanly and mostly detailed, to me the only difference is I built it instead of GM. also I very much enjoy the build. heck many changes are big improvements over an original.

I would never sell a clone as something it is not. notice that well done clones sell for pretty nice $ now-a-days. but that's the least of my reasoning. I just enjoy the build and can drive it guilt free and not be nervous.

[grandam1979]

Just call it tribute and all is good mines a 68 Firebird r/a II

[ZeGermanHam]

While I'm not the biggest fan of clones or tributes or whatever one wants to call them these days, I have learned over the years to give people a pass to make whatever car brings them happiness. That is the ultimate goal of this hobby - to make something cool and enjoy it. I'm certainly not going to throw any shade here, the quality of the work looks wonderful. Great cars!

That said, with so many GTOs, Judges, and T/As (authentic and cloned alike) at car shows, I actually find myself being more interested in the more basic models, which tend to be more rare since most have gone to the big crusher in the sky. Color me weird, but I really appreciate a well preserved or restored base model Tempest or 6-cylinder Firebird, etc. It takes a special kind of owner to invest in those cars, and you just don't see them very often because of it.

[dataway]

Same way I feel ... I'm looking forward to finishing my GTO, selling it and getting a Lemans that I can buy parts for at Napa and not worry about it being correct. Could be that eventually original Tempest/Lemans will be harder to find than a GTO.

Also possible that clones drive up the price of real GTOs/etc because it will make them seem even more rare.

[JUDGE3]

This was my first time out. 11.99 what's the odds? the wagon had a blower and such. gave him a good run though. but it was a test and tune nite not a race nite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U_oxnAZaoE

Interior was original and perfect. I even put the ram air pull cable/bracket below the steering wheel. I changed out that steering wheel to the not available till 1970 Gto Trans am style formula steering wheel.

[69 RA GTO]

Great Job !!!! Looks great.


Do you happen to have any info on your old judge's by chance? I run a 69 Judge Registry and would love to get your old cars in there. I am wondering if your old Crystal car is the one I have been chasing for info on the past 20 years. Let me know if you do not mind.


Thanks,
Tim

Originally Posted by JUDGE3

so here's a few pics of my 2 most recent cars prior to my 72 Trans Am clone project.

Iv'e had 3 (Judge3) 69 Gto Judges. first 2 were originals. a carousel red ram air 3, and a turquoise ram air 4. sold those in the 1980's sigh. anyway the 3rd one I cloned as i'm doing now with the Trans Am. originals are to expensive and I would feel guilty altering an original the way I prefer to do.

the 67 Firebird I had a 455 in, m22 supercase rock crusher, 3.73 moser. loved that car, wish I still had it but I just can't feed but one car at a time. sell one to build another. owned em breifly together for a bit.

Painted the Lemans/Judge clone myself, did all the work. first and only time iv'e done it. project clone Trans Am will be my second. painted the Judge in my attached garage. no shop at the time.

so the Judge clone started as a 69 LeMans...........gold/black. I didnt even know about PY back then. 2005 or so.

[JUDGE3]

I only mind in the sense your gonna wanna beat me up with the revealed info. I beat myself up now ha. I have pics of both cars i'll try and find them. this was from around 1982 to 1985 owning both these Judge's. might get a bit long but heres the info:

first one was the carousel red one. ram air 3 wide ratio Muncie. it had a 12 bolt 4.10 in it. no emblem on the glove box door, I read the first 1,500 judges did not have the glove box emblem, is that accurate? it had just the front speaker and am radio in it. I left it that way as I didn't want to cut the radio opening for modern stereo. I raced it, no headers etc original ra exhaust manifolds. ran real easy 13.80s I didn't want to be to hard on the Muncie. so no big deals with this one. paid $1,500 for it, sold it to a muscle car dealer for $3,000 who took it to Colorado, he had a lot there. never forget he came to get it driving a 1967 corvette with the bigblock and tripower. he had me drive the vette and follow him! I wanted to hammer the vette bad but I didn't. I was in awe he had me drive it.

the crystal turquoise one had the ram air 4 heads and intake still when I bought it. it had the 10 bolt 3.55 in it. (neither car had ac, both were original no ac cars) heres the deal; my brother had a white 68 Gto 4 speed. I loved it. the turquoise car needed painted so I had it painted -white- it was beautiful but boy did the Pontiac guys beat me up for painting an original turquoise car white. I didn't know it was a rare color then! I raced it also, with headers and a nice converter, ran 12.70's 12.80s. I sold this one to a good friend. I had bought it for $3,000 and sold it to him for $5,000 he drove it for several years. he moved to Florida and drove it there from Kansas. he blew a head gasket. then he moved to Kentucky and had it delivered to him there. when he decided to sell it, he called me first and I wanted it bad but at the time of my life with a family I couldn't afford to do it. I was sad. he sold it in Kentucky so no idea after that. I wish I had the VIN to both recorded but I don't. loved em both but the carousel red one I had the most fun in my life with a car.

the carousel judge was a hood tach car, the turquoise one was an in dash tach car. turquoise was an th400 automatic car. the carousel red did not have hidden headlights, the turquoise car did. and they worked. the turquoise car did have the glove box emblem and all the ram air cable etc functioning. the carousel one had some air cleaner parts missing.

I'll try and find some pics. great memories and I do regret painting it white.

[JUDGE3]

I have one or 2 decent pictures of the turquoise Judge but so far can't find em.

one pic of it after it was painted white beside my brothers white 1968 Gto. his had been sitting awhile with a blown engine. he was a family man no $ for cars, I was yet single!

pic of my carousel red one there from behind.

2 pics of the turquoise one being worked on for white paint. fella in the picture did this on the side in his garage. i believe he charged me 900 bucks to do it. welded patch panels and all.

somewhere from 1982-1986

[69 RA GTO]

Awesome Pictures, thank you for posting them. I really enjoy these old pics of the cars when they were "just everyday cars"


If you do happen to find the other pics of the Crystal Judge let me know as I would love to see them, and especially see what color judge stripes were on the car before the paint job



Thanks,
Tim