I purchased my GTO in April 1997, from it's 18th owner! I got it as a dismantled, non numbers matching, basket case, with the idea of restifying it. For those of you who aren't familiar with the term "restify", I'll explain.......There is a difference between restoring, and restifying. Some folks in the car hobby cringe when you refer to an even mildly modified car as "restored". To restore something is to make it as new, which means that if that particular car didn't leave the factory a particular option or color, or has an incorrect engine, trans etc., then it's not restored. So even though I am spending countless hours trying to make my car as nice as possible, in the end it will STILL not be considered a "restored" GTO, due to the many mods that I have done/will do to it! The correct term to describe my car is "restified", meaning it's a modified restoration! I am not knocking the "purists".......If you want a car that spends most of it's life going from an air conditioned garage to a climate controlled trailer and never driving it then have at it! I love the feel of mashing the loud pedal on a 35 year old musclecar that a lot of these purists will never feel!
Unfortunately not my car! This one belongs to Andrew Roshberg.
My main goal with this car is to make a user friendly and safer musclecar for cruising and the occasional 1/4 mile romp at the track. The car will appear to be stock, but will have many mods to improve handling and braking, without sacrificing the legendary acceleration the GTO is renowned for!
My car was born on December 10th, 1965, at Pontiac's Baltimore assembly plant. According to my PHS documentation, the car was originally Montero Red, with a black interior and a white convertible top. It was originally equipped with the base, 335 hp, 4 barrel 389 engine, M-20 wide ratio 4 speed, 3:55 Safe T Track rear. Other options include: Pushbutton AM radio, Rally rims w/ redlines, door edge guards and little else!
Still not my car!
When I purchased this car, it came with a nice 1972 YS 400, from a GTO. It had a set of #48 heads ('69 RA III MT). It had been rebuilt at some point, but was standard bore with lots of hone marks still evident! I have decided to put this engine in storage until another project comes along!
The body is not too bad considering that the car spent all of it's life in Central NJ! The paint (about 12 HEAVY coats of cracked, midnight blue lacquer!) is shot, so it will be stripped to bare metal and completely refinished. The only bad rust spots are the driver's side floor, trunk floor and the passenger door. I just recently realized how bad the trunk was while trying to patch the pinholes as well as a few larger rusted areas. The quarters have a few spots of rust that will be fixed. It will be repainted Montero Red. It will get all new upholstery and top. I am going to use Parchment for the interior instead of black. I prefer the way it looks and it will be MUCH easier on the legs in the FL sun than the black!
What I want mine to look like!
The original 389 was a potent performer, IF you used high octane fuel. The 1966 389 (and subsequent 400's until 1970) had an advertised compression ratio of 10.75:1 (which was actually closer to 10:1), which requires at least 96 octane fuel, or else detonation rears it's ugly (and destructive!) head! Common belief is that by retarding the total timing and playing with the curve, detonation can be eliminated on these high compression motors while running pump gas. This also reduces power output quite a bit or maybe not, depending on who you ask! For my purposes, I felt that I could avoid all of this alchemy with lower compression and more cubic inches. You can't get many more factory cubes than a Pontiac 455, so I decided that a lower compression 455 would power my Goat. This combo should equal or exceed factory power levels and performance, on available pump gas.
Dual master cylinder and front discs among other things help stop the pig, and several handling mods help keep her going where I point her. I am also considering some type of aftermarket air conditioning. All in all, I think she should be a nice balance of power and handling, not to mention awesome looks!