[Mrp613]

My first ride was a '77 1/2 with a 250 auto. The trans was bad and finished off the junk 250 on the way home. I was 15. Dad traded labor and some Chevy parts to a guy for a 220hp 79 400 out of a TA. We put that and a th400 in the truck with its 3.50 gear. I started looking at the firebirds because of the engine I had. Then I'd look through the Chiltons manuals looking at all the engine specs. I decided I wanted a '66 GTO. Wound up picking up a '71 Catalina 2 door for $150 and put my 400 in it with a Saginaw 4 speed. I then picked up a '70 GTO roller for $500 and built my first engine with the original 400 from the Catalina. Being 18 I made a few dumb parts choices and wound up with a .030 400 with 96 heads,a magnum 292 cam, 3 tube headers, performer rpm intake and a 750 Carter running through a 2500 stall and 2.79 gears in the GTO. I had fun but it liked to bend valves. I kept the drivetrain and traded the GTO for a '71 formula, and added a 3.73 posi. My engine did better in the formula, but I sold it to cover closing costs on our first house. And somewhere in there I bought my '66 Catalina from a car crusher for $400 when I was 18, replaced a lifter and drove it. It had a mid 70's 400 with 4x heads, auto, and craptastic 2.56 gears. I traded it, then spent 10 years looking for it. Found it again, gave $300 for it this time with no drivetrain, and have been putting it back together on a tiny budget. The fun part was delivering pizza in high school and college in all those pontiacs.

[gtokid1968]

My love started at like 14 years old. All the kids in my neighborhood were older than me most by 2 years.
I had been working on everything I could get my hands on! Bicycles, lawn mowers, mini bikes, anything.
So it didn't take long before they started coming to me to help them with FM converters, headers, brake job's hell everything.

1 of the kids had a 69 GTO bench seat, auto, green with white interior nothing fancy. It was all stock it was still registered in his older brothers name which worked out good for us because he was a captain in the police dept. of your town, Hammond IN. Plus it had an official FOP large sticker in the middle of the back window.
Anyway he almost NEVER got beat, new Mustangs, Corvettes we would drive around every night looking to street race someone new and most of the time drinking beer(1980)

I cant even count how many friends that I helped trying to make their car faster to beat Tony's GTO but it just couldn't be done!!!!!
Once I learned how easy it was to make more power with a Pontiac I Have been in love with them ever since.

It took me 20 years to get a nice GTO had to pay a small fortune, but back in the day I never had the money even when they were cheap, had a son early and did my best to raise him right. In fact his first 3 cars were all Pontiac's! He still has the first new car the wife and I ever bought 1999 GP GT 4 door. At one point both of our boys were driving Pontiacs.