GTO Judging Standards Question
 

I have been reading the GTOAA rules on judging standards, being an NCRS member and Corvette restorer I have begun my first ever GTO frame up resto, a nice 66 hardtop. Wanting to do a stock resto, the guidelines are confusing, stating that restoration should be done as with unlimited time and resources by the production line worker ! In Vette land stock is stock, if it was blacked out, we black it out, rough is left rough. Doing my chassis and restoring each component back to original finishes according to my assembly guide, it seems with the frame upside down they are sprayed with a blackout paint while assembled prior to shock installation, gas and brake lines included. Is this correct? I am not concerned with wet sanding and buffing my control arms, just want a true original and correct look and good result if I decide to have the car judged with it being as close to real stock as possible. To me to restore a car means to restore it to stock as delivered condition, not show car standards for an Autorama. Any and all help is appreciated, thanks Ed









I have

First of all, welcome!

Cars were sprayed with a chassis blackout (cheap paint) prior to body drop. "Sprayed" is kind of optimistic since it was very hit and miss as far as what components were covered (ie, no masking).

This one appears to have been sprayed from above:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...ps4238274e.jpg

Secondly, if I may be so bold as to make a few observations:

a) There is going to be a lot more variability in restoring a GTO to "as delivered" condition than you will find with a Corvette. Corvettes were built in one plant, probably one shift (maybe two during peak periods) and at a line rate of about 30 vehicles per hour (and the only product on that line).

GTOs were built across several plants (three, four or five), often three shifts of production, at more than twice that line rate, and always with multiple other products (and even divisional nameplates) going down the same line.

That's going to introduce a whole nother universe of variability in the way things were done, especially those areas where there are some plant latitude was available.

b) Having said that - I would be dissappointed to take all the time and effort to have a car restored to an "as delivered" condition.

My '65 is in original unrestored condition. That means: hairs in the paint, large "swiped" areas where there was some kind of solvent spilled and painted over, hand prints in the wet paint, screws shot through the main body wiring harness (causing an electrical short with the high beam headlamps), mismatched tire for a spare, gaps in the carpet and headliner. Those are just the things that come to mind as I sit here.

My humble opinion is that a more noble goal would be to restore the car to "design intent" - which is what I believe they are saying when they say an assembly worker with unlimited time to do the job right.

Again - welcome. Which assembly plant was your car built in?

K

As a retired GM worker from here in Defiance I do remember the early days in 66 as a new employee your training on a new job consisted of your boss taking you to the job site, watching somebody doing the job usually the relief man, then him watching you do the job till he felt you could do it then you where on your own, no wonder cars and parts where built a little different and sometimes wrong, times have changed quality is so much better. Buy American, Look for the Union Labbel. jd grim 66 gto

Still pretty much done that way, except now you have to have both guys on the job for 3 days....

;)

K

Having done a full frame off restoration of my show car '66 Gto, I can say that unless your aim is to trailer the car to GTOAA National Meets hoping for Concourse Gold & then store it in a sealed 0% humidity environment, there are things that you might want to do slightly differently than the factory did. On these cars many parts were bare metal & began rusting long B4 the cars were even purchased. Paper tags on springs & such looked bad after a few miles on wet roads. In other words if you restore a car to as delivered, it will not look great in the first place & it will rapidly go downhill from there especially if you drive it. We sometimes get accused of over-restoration but I have made some decisions to make the car look better than "factory" & to keep it looking good longer. The trick is to try to make the car look like it came off the production line on the best day they ever had & sneak in some ways of keeping parts from rusting while still looking close to how they should. Welcome to the forum & good luck with your restoration. Jerry.

thank you everyone for the quick and informative responses, the car was the 576th car off the line in 66, built in Framingham Mass. I really appreciate the picture of the original car to see the finishes as delivered, the parts that are bare or natural in nature I have been clearing with a matte clear thane, then had planned to black out over them leaving some of the bare color exposed, I guess I am a purist in this regard, runs and all, although only to a point as I will paint and finish the car to a high standard, and it will run and perform as well as it did in 66. Maybe its time to introduce a new class for judging, stock and not so perfect ! I may be the only entry !! again thank you very much, any more pics will be welcome,and the car will be bone stock and very well presented, right down to the wire wheel hubcaps. again, thanks for the welcome, and I should have bought one of these years ago, makes the vettes seem like little toy cars

I'm curious as to why you would say this?

Please post a pic of the cowl data tag, when convenient.

K

cowl tag and vin tag
 

Attachment 342081

Attachment 342082

Ok - a couple things you should be aware of:

a) Cars were not (quite) built in VIN order. There were separate VIN sequences based on division (Chevrolet, Buick, Olds, Pontiac - for those plants that had all those going down the same line). Additionally, there were separate VIN sequences based on engine options; for example V8 cars would start at 100001 and six cylinder cars starting with 600001. They were (roughly) in sequence within these distinctions but not exactly. All that other "fodder" would have pushed your car farther back. So - while your car would not be #576 down the line (exactly) that seems to be a fairly early VIN number.

b) Your body number is 156, which would be counted by body style (in this case A body two door Hard top). So your car would have been the 156th A body hard top through the body shop.

c) I'm a little puzzled by the build timeframe: looks like 01B (or 01D) which would be January of 1966. Not sure why we are seeing such a low body number (and VIN) for that late in the model year. I don't recall if Framingham got off to a late start that year, perhaps because of a strike, or not.

I must confess I'm a little more familiar the '65 model year (in Pontiac) that I am '66 at the satellite plants.

K

thank you for the education, my PHS report shows the build date for the car as jan 27th 1966, trim tag has a B, then if you look at the top right you will see an E, there were 5 weeks in jan 1966, seems the car was a bit late getting built for some reason. Ed

I remember when Pontiac restored the 64 GTO the original owner donated to them. They brought it to the GTOAA Nationals in Columbus and they restored it as built. Already the control arms were rusting where the ball joints are pressed in and other places where it was bare steel. Today you could do that and use a product like Gibbs on it to keep it from rusting. It really doesn't take too much to over restore one of these cars without even trying.

This photo is from Eric White's "Made in Pontiac" series. Note that the factory worker just basically shot black paint from one side to the other. There's overspray on the brake baking plates as well as the shocks. This is a great shot that shows how the factory did it.

http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums/...psad31bc3b.jpg

Great picture. Man,i would not sleep at night if I restored a frame like that!

There are differences... Having pulled a bunch of original spirals off '69-72 Pontiac A-bodys just haven't seen the chassis black on them. Arlington, Fremont, & Lakewood cars are mainly what I've been under. The super low mile '72 LLM (Pontiac plant) I have does not have that sloppy spray job either.

The pic of the rear axle shows the gummed r/e ID stickers used on Pontiac 10 bolt rear drums. Have ran across this up through '72 on Pontiac 10 bolts, but have not found them used on the drums on '70-72 Pontiac application 12 bolts, instead the ID code was spray painted with a stencil.

Good point. I believe the picture was taken in 1964. Procedures can change from year to year. When I get time I'll check my Survivor '72 GTO, the right rear shock was replaced under warranty but the left is still the factory original. I don't recall any black paint on it.