[Simple Man]

Wow, quite a few stories.

On an old 69 GTO I had, I put on some Fenton aluminum slotted mags. Took the car out cruising. Every once in a while, I heard a "ping" sound, kinda metallic in nature. Cruised for another hour or so, and then drove home.
Got home, and found I had snapped 3 studs on the right rear, and 2 on the left rear. And the remaining ones were loose.....

[PONTIAC LARRY]

My Brother In Law had put the shag carpet in my 4 speed 68 LeMans with roofing nails before I got it !

[71SportRagtop]

I used to beat the living snot out of my GTO street racing at Front St in Philadelphia.

One night I was racing a 71 Camaro and I had him by a good car length. All of a sudden a Philly cop coming the other way hits his lights and pulls across the road in front of us. The Camaro jams on the brakes and I kept going. Initially I thought the cop was gonna grab the guy in the Camaro but when I kept going, he decided to go after me. I had my foot on the floor hoping to get away.

About 200 yards after the end of the "marked" 1/4 mile was the entrance to I-95. So I turned onto 95 and turned off my lights. Once I cleared the on ramp I put the pedal down and that car took off. I could see his lights coming up onto the onramp but by that time my speedometer was almost at 100 mph. All I remember is at 120 mph, my front end started feeling really squirrely but I was afraid to let off the gas because the cop was still there....way back but there.

Luckily he gave up the chase but my speedometer was pegged at 120. I was 18 and thought I was king of the world in my GTO. Today I barely drive over 50 in my Bird.

[Geeto-Tiger]

I bought a 65 GTO hardtop w/o engine for $90. This was going to be my race car. I gutted & scrapped the interior. I cut out the radio hole bigger for aftermarket gauges. I bolted the hood and fenders together and hinged them to the core support for a tilt front end. Lastly, I put a 386/425 from a 65 vette into it. Fun street car, never took it to the strip.

[The Boss]

I bought my 77 Formula in the spring of 1984 the Saturday of Easter Weekend. I came home the following weekend to pick it up & bring it back to college for the last few weeks of school. After spending the day washing the outside and cleaning the inside I headed back.

Ended up blowing the motor on I-91 racing a Porsche 911. If memory serves, the speedo only went to 90 - I had it buried!

[JLHarper]

Watched as my buddy's 66 GTO Red 3x2 auto rolled out of driveway and down a steep hill on his street and slammed into a tree...messed it up ...bad

He had blown the 4:33 rear and messed the trans up, plus had a rod knock during one night of abuse few days after putting the new rear underneath, at 18 years old.

His Mom was a Saint for us teens at the time, and had it towed home with her grocery money trying to hide it from "Dad".

It was parked on a sloping driveway at top of a hill on their street with her Fury Wagon in front of it so his Dad wouldn't find out until we got a new rear/trans put under it.

His Dad was ranking DC Metro PD (Third District Commander, iirc) and was not a very happy person to be around when he got home at night. He came in front door and we went out side door....

Once in a blue moon he went into the garage, so this evening he decides it was time, as I was pulling up...I saw the whole thing happen...he moved the Fury Wagon and GTO started rolling then cut loose.....it rolled on down the hill passing four or five cars parked along the street.

Lucky it didn't mow some kid riding their bike, or T bone a car moving by at posted 25 mph.....car was never fixed...Red Black Black.

[Overkillphil]

Back in the early 80's when 70's Formulas weren't "valuable" I abused mine by favoring a particular local road where I could get quite a bit of "air". I soon got bored with that and figured out I could stop the headers from slamming on the ground each time it landed if I constructed extensions for my lower A-arm bump stops.

Worked great except it broke the subframe where the crossmember met the passenger side frame rail! I ended up restoring the car a few years later and replaced the subframe at that time.

Then there were all the gigs when I had to lug around my drum kit in it but that's another story all together.

Still have that car...34 years after I bought it off REEDMAN'S used car lot across from the old Langhorne Speedway.

[Deadhead]

Does getting air with a '66 Bonneville count as abuse? I have done that with 4 of us in the car. Feels wild when that much mass comes off the ground.

Friend drove a '69 GTO up a tree in his neighbor's yard in Fairfax, VA in the 70s. I KNOW that counts.

[The Champ]

Ongoing "abuse" at our local dirt track...







Mrs. Champ and I run a Kids Club at the local dirt track and about 10 times per summer one of our members gets to do the parade lap carrying the checkered flag around the speedway. They get their pictures taken in victory lane prior to doing the parade lap.

20 year old paint lets me do this right now. When I repaint it in the not too distant future - that will end.

[PONTIAC LARRY]

The same 70 TA I mention in OP, I street raced alot in early 90's in Dallas. Car had a rust blockage somewhere in body line clogging flow to rear brakes so car only ever had front disc the whole time and I was hitting 100+ mph in residential areas on 15x3.5: centerline front runners some of the time. That was damn unsafe but I didnt drink back then at least and never got in a wreck or a ticket but did burnt threw some red lights late at night luckily with no traffic (brakes had faded). Used to whip the hell out of this 87 Grand National over and over on Midway Rd and others around.

[Ducks Goat]

I used my '65 GTO to pull a stuck forklift at work once.

[PONTIAC LARRY]

Perhaps someone has beefed up their rear suspension removed decklid and mounted a 5th wheel trailer to there Pontiac ? Anyone out there ?

[GTO68FXSTC98]

In the 30 plus years I have own this car, only one winter it was outside on grass with a plastic tarp thrown over it in Buffalo NY. Buffalo sucks.

[PONTIAC LARRY]

Originally Posted by GTO68FXSTC98

Buffalo sucks.

The Wings are good though but no Lombardy trophies

[PONTIAC LARRY]

A buddy had a beater 74 Ventura with a pig of a 350 that had been knocking and that turned out to be gas in the oil thinning it out from a bad fuel pump internal leak. We had put Bosch Platinum plugs in it and he was down the road beating on trying to kill it an dit finally ble wup literally with a fire ball out the bottom and side of car becasue the gas ignited but went out. The side of the block was blown out but it was still running and he floored it and with a oil leak all the way that stained the road for months he made it home actually ! True Story . Car later became 400 and then 455 powered in time.

[PONTIAC LARRY]

That reminds me of how I killed my first engine I built after things went South after a few months. I had my 68 Lemans and had rebuilt a 428 for it and also had made a very poor choice in machine shops BTW as a newbie but wont get into that now. After racing and driving car with stock M20 muncie stuff and tired of trying to get my ET down due to multiple issues of using old stock stick stuff I converted to a TH350 and a 2800 converter. It dropped the 1/8 mile from 9.0 to 8.4 but also apparently the thing had something wrong with the governor as I was on Highway I-635 wanting to drop from 3rd to 2nd and hit it, should be no problem with 3.31 gears but accidently bumped all the way to first on shifter at full throttle and it went into 1st at 60+ mph ! YIKES so the engine RPM up to 7000 maybe IDK briefly as I went Oh Shoit and let off gs and hit higher gear and it was still running but dman I was like that aint good. My motor had cast rods with good bolts and forged pistons but bad machine work anyway. A few days late rit started to rattle and oil pressure went down and I didnt park it like I should have (dumb teenager) and ended up getting in a race with a fast C-10 PU that cruised around my neighborhood and although it was just a midrange race and we were close I was getting on it when it was laready knocking from a rod bearing and it blew up hard while I was next to truck. I didnt get to drive this home, It had blew rods and busted cam up and alot had a pushrod even hanging out the oil pan. Really bad.. Oh well and that was abuse !!! I ressurected #16 heads later on a another 428 with new valves few years alter and had it in a 68 Bird Vert and even the block got punched 090 to a 060 455 to clean up bore and a 455 crank and 6X heads but when I got it running it ran hot but I had a crappy stock radiator and I didnt know I had a slighly bad guide plate on one end of one 6x head and the rocker apparently started running away from valve stem and pushe dretainer and dropped the valve !!! Boom I blew up the same block twice !!!! HAHAHA These were the only two engine that were ever Effed up I ever did really..

[NBF823]

Welded a roll cage in my 78 w72. Doing right now

[R68GTO]

My 1st car was a 68 GTO with a 400 auto and a peg leg. My buddies and I were out raising hell on a rainy afternoon when I got the bright idea to pull a holeshot on a long straight country road. I got the rear tire spinning and the car slowly started moving forward. I kept mashing it down eventually until the speedo was pegged past 120 mph. Started running out of road so I let off the gas. When the tire grabbed, the car was doing 65 mph. Man I ran the hell out of that car, eventually going through 2 engines.

[Garry Sr]

Reminds me of the time we were out drinking in my buddies Catalina and he decided to see how many donuts it could do. It was all good until the engine caught on fire and the car burned to the ground. We all walked home with no shirts that night in the dead of winter from trying to put the fire out. Pontiac gods weren't on our side that time.

[PONTIAC LARRY]

Originally Posted by R68GTO

My 1st car was a 68 GTO with a 400 auto and a peg leg. My buddies and I were out raising hell on a rainy afternoon when I got the bright idea to pull a holeshot on a long straight country road. I got the rear tire spinning and the car slowly started moving forward. I kept mashing it down eventually until the speedo was pegged past 120 mph. Started running out of road so I let off the gas. When the tire grabbed, the car was doing 65 mph. Man I ran the hell out of that car, eventually going through 2 engines.

This reminds me when I was "test" driving my 68 GTO automatic w 2.93 Safe T Track, I had put in a torquey 455 and was punching it from a slow roll and lighting up the back tires in a drift on the Farm to Market roads by the house, I would go into second gear s with it screaming along carrying a smokey drift for hundreds of feet of twin stripes and eventually hooking up at the top of 2nd gear at 88 mph. Only my tires were abused but what fun a little sideways at 80+ mph !