77 Trashcan, Truman gave me a call and put me onto the HO. I have his Hard Times RA I bird he sold me.
The car is currently started down the road to preservation. In many ways it was in fantastic shape, in a few not as much. Truman has relayed a tremendous amount of background as have others that were involved in the project directly at Pontiac engineering. We have all the NOS stickers, Motor Wheel rims, and such to put it as it should be. The President of Motor Wheels has even gotten into the mix as he remembered the car well. And Dan Jensen has the motor, but we are both busy and have not gotten past tearing it down. I have the heads as of today ready to send to him. It will hopefully turn wheels in anger once more on a race track soon enough.
The car set SS/K records right off the trailer back in '72. Pontiac sent a role of 455 HO GTO stickers in the glove box. They would often take the Goat stickers off and run it as a Lemans as it had a 200 lb. weight brake in SS/I. Pontiac built the car very light and in SS/K they would have to add the 200 lbs. to make weight. There is a fair amount of hidden trickery from Pontiac to do so when the car was shipped. It had been successful enough that Mother Mopar set the Ramchargers, Sox and Martin...after them. They never got there and beat the HO. Ford was a pain in Pontiac's side at the time with the 428 CJ stick cars still being a dominate force in stock. With this in mind they switched to G/S for INDY in '72. The car promptly went out and set the G/S record and won class. The nearest 428 CJ car was running over 0.4 behind. They sold the Goat immediately after INDY. The car went on to reset the G/S records in '74 and twice in '75. It made runner up at INDY but never won INDY again. Truman got transferred by IBM and he also let the 455 HO E/SA Formula go at that time that Pontiac had provided.
Thanks for recalling a great HO GTO that many do not remember. The Bird is being painted as we speak and the resto is far along. It will ultimately be worked back into its '73 INDY winning guise. BTW, it ran 12.30's with a mild! motor in full Pure Stock form on the bias ply's. It has more in it as it was not a max effort PS motor. It still has factory rods and pistons! We will race the bird in PS at Dan's race a time or two and then it will go back to the Nostalgia piece it should be. The HO will be preserved along with the good patina saved. We are trying to save the basic nature of the car as much of it is original paint...
Mark