[Keith Seymore]

My story is kind of long, so I put it here:

http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...d.php?t=560524

[barrierblue66]

When I was 16, my uncle got into an accident with his '70 Tempest. 350, powerglide, manual steering and brakes BUT had AC...go figure, he was always kinda cheap So my dad says, hey you'll be needing a car soon, he'll sell it for $300. So we replaced the front fender and control arm damaged in the accident, and had it painted the original Verdoro green. I owned the car for 8 years, and made lots of mods; 3 more paint jobs including an Earl Sheibs $69.95 special - man did that paint wear like iron......also dropped in an Olds 403 motor, intake and Holley carb, shift kit, converter, and 12 bolt 4:11 rear. Had so much fun with that car, drag raced on the weekends, cruisin...then sold it for a '74 Vette, not sure why. Still loved Pontiacs, and wouldn't get my Goat till 2 years later (which is another story in itself)

Here's some pix of the different paint jobs...............

[drailed]

My father got me into cars from when I was a young kid. He had a 67 GTO that he sold when I was a baby but still was into cars and took me to shows alot. After I got my license he supported me with the hobby by cosigning a loan to buy a 64 Lemans when I was 16 after giving me his old 1980 Subaru with plywood floors for a daily beater. I think he more or less was reliving the years he missed out on raising and supporting a family and im thankful for it.

[GT182]

I remember my dad's Pontiacs in the 50s, especially the 57 StarChief mom wrecked with me in it.... I was 7 years old and hooked. He co-signed for my first 66 GTO in 1970, which I had for only a year and paid on for a total of 3 years to pay it off. Yep, no comprehensive insurance to cover me totaling it in April of 71. Man snowbanks are hard up in Northern NY in April. I had my second GTO in 73 I believe but could never get it started and sold it. 34 years later in July of 2007 I found the one in my sig and bought it. I have the right insurance now in case anything happens. LOL

[arob63]

I remember my father always had this real cool looking blue car that seemed like it did 100 miles per hour on the street. I think he bought it when I was 8. At the time I did not know that it was a 1979 Formula, with a 400 and a 4-speed. I loved going for rides with him in that car, especially since my mother and him were divorced, so I did not see him as much. We could always tell when he was coming because we heard him from down the street. After that car, my father owned a 1972 Grand Prix, with a 455. That car threw a rod and cracked the block. I thought he was going to cry when that happened. He also owned a 1970 Catalina, 400ci, another GP I believe, and currently he has a 1972 Lemans. I learned how to drive on the Catalina. Talk about a big car . I used to read his issues of HPP and I did not even know what most of the articles were about, I just liked the cars in them! But now I have my own 2nd gen and I am loving it!

[Axle07]

When I was a real little kid my dad used to take me, my brother and sister for rides in his 75 firebird. When he bought it, he pulled the engine out and put a bigger cam in it and that made him happy enough, us too. I remember him throwing us to the back of the seat when he would take off. When i finally was old enough to drive he got me an '87 Chevy Blazer with a little 2.8 liter V6. He had been sold his firebird. Over this past summer i was looking for a trans am. I had saved up all the money I made working and was determined I would buy one. I look at everything close to me from 1st gens to 4th gens and decided I'd either take a 2nd or 4th. Eventually I found a 1977 Trans Am for $1500 bucks. That got me that Trans Am, 1 extra hood, 2 extra front fenders, and 2 extra front bumpers. I've spent all summer and all my cash on this beautiful car and I wouldn't trade it for anything. So I'm just starting to become a Pontiac guy but I plan to buy a 4th gen Trans Am in the future and a GTO Judge would go in there nicely as well.

[Craig Hendrickson]

These are some great stories, guys!!!

I'll add another one to keep things going.

In early 1973, before H-O Racing got going, I had just purchased a 1970 GTO for cheap from somebody who knew virtually nothing mechanically about it. It's problem was that it had headers which were smashed in on the bottom, so it would not breathe out the exhaust side at all. I fixed that by putting in another set of headers.

On the Sunday following my purchase and fix of this GTO, my wife at the time drives me down to Kern's shop in this GTO to do some work on on our E/MP Tempest. About 1/2 hour after that the California Highway Patrol calls and states that my wife has been in an accident on the I-405!

Kern and I jump into his truck and rocket up the I-405. My wife is OK since she saw the rear end-er coming. The 1970 GTO had a high back seat and my wife was only 5'2" and traffic had stopped ahead of her, she saw the guys coming at her from the rear, so she braced herself before the impact. No one was seriously hurt, although the GTO was smashed like collapsed accordian (totaled).

BUT... the first thing my wife said to me was: "Honey, I'm sorry I wrecked your new GTO!!!". I could have cared less about the GTO (it was not new since this was 1973), so I told her that I was only glad that she in particular and the other people were OK.

My wife was a "car person." She completely supported my leaving the USAF and starting H-O Racing. Without her support, H-O would not have happened.

Craig

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by Keith Seymore

My story is kind of long, so I put it here:

http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...d.php?t=560524

I'm feeling sort of left out, so I'm going to post a super short version:

Basically, my dad raced for Royal Pontiac from 1963 through around 1969. The first Pontiac he purchased, from Dick Jesse at Royal, was our '63 Super Duty Catalina: Aluminum front end and bumpers, aluminum wheels and was the first of only three or so (that I'm aware of) to receive a Bobcat appearance package from the direction of Jim Wangers.

After our Catalina was taken back from us, we were given a '64 GTO to race. At the end of the season Royal asked if they could display our car at the Michigan State Fair; it seemed like a good idea at the time so we said "yes". Unfortunately they sold it directly from the Fairground and we never saw it, or all of the hot rodded accessories on it, again.

The good news is that it was replaced with a '65 GTO, which is the car we still have. An early September build, it was built specifically for dad to race, and already had the hood cut for ram air and the battery mounted in the trunk when we picked it up on Friday September 11th of 1964. He ran the car late in the 1964 calendar year and, other than the '66 season, right on up until 1974. As a result of it's "race car" only status it is currently in unrestored original condition with only 4800 miles and, although caught in the rain a couple times, it has never been in the snow.

We continued to receive cars from Pontiac up until 1968. I'm not sure what caused it but by then things started to wind down. We sold the '68 in 1973 and the '65 was our only 'collector car' until we started building the fleet back up in the mid 90's.

It recently occured to me that, at one point, we had so many GTOs around that we would refer to them by model year rather than by name (ie, "..are we going to take the '65? Or the '68?").



For the unabridged version, see the link in my quote above -

[JC61]

My neighbor had a 1959 Bonneville Convertible 348 tri power, red with tri tone silver, with and red interior.
That's what got me hooked.

[Colin]

Well, I have always been into cars. My father always had some sort of hot rod. His brother also had several different ones over the years. They were mostly into Mopars. Dad and my Uncle were into dirt track racing a had a few different cars over the years. They were racing dirt track way back when Dale E. Sr. was still racing on dirt. We lived in Charlotte when I was a kid. Dad used to call Junior Johnson and get tips and stuff from him about setting up the cars when he was building them. The old Holman-Moody shop was only about a mile and a half from our house along with Darrel Waltrips home and shop. All that stuff is gone now I think. The old Holman-Moody shop I think still partially exists but of course its no longer Holman-Moody.
My father and grandfather shared a large shop (for business) in Charlotte and that is where Dad would build and tune the dirt trackers and his muscle cars and drag cars. When I was a kid I would hang around in the shop as much as possible when I was out of school for the summer. Often times Dad would be working on the dirt car and would actually drive it down the street to test it out.....imagine that...a dirt track car driving down the street in Charlotte....LOL. Of course it would be late in the evening and it was all businesses there and at those times there wasnt much traffic if any at all. I remember being small enough that I could stand where the back seat would be in a street car and hold on to the roll cage while Dad drove it up and down the street or sometimes a slow lap around the track. I can remember the sound and the fumes like it was yesterday......good times.
So, I always liked cars and the Trans Ams of the'70's were always among my favorites.
Anyway........later in life when I was about 26 or 27 I had a '84 Z28. A friend of mine had a '78 Trans Am. He had gotten so many tickets in that car that he was about to loose his license. He liked the Z28 and needed something a little less bold so we traded straight up.
The '78 TA had the 403 Olds in it, T400 trans and 3.73 rear. The engine had been bored and had a decent cam in it, headers, Edelbrock intake. Ran pretty good and was one my favorite cars that I have owned.....wish I still had it. So, that got me hooked on Pontiacs. Now I have 4 Pontiacs and only one of them has a non-Pontiac engine in it.