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No Reserve: 1967 Pontiac GTO Hardtop 400 H.O. 4-Speed Project


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My problem with cars is I still think I'm that 16 year old kid trying to parlay my life's savings of 800 bucks into a cool HS ride.   Hence,  I LOVE something like this.   As a HO stick car in dark blue it really floats my boat.   Probably a bad idea, but most of our cars are.

 

The Video I attached at the bottom is pretty cool.

 

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1967-pontiac-gto-47/

 

This 1967 Pontiac GTO hardtop spent time in Ohio and Colorado before it was acquired by the current owner in 2020. The car is finished in blue over a matching vinyl interior, and power comes from a 400ci High Output V8 paired with a four-speed manual transmission and a 3.55:1 Safe-T-Track rear axle. Features include power-assisted steering, 14″ Rally II wheels, a remote-control mirror, a Rally gauge cluster, factory-optioned front seat headrests, and a center console. Service performed by the selling dealer reportedly included the installation of a replacement camshaft, lifters, valve springs, pushrods, and spark plugs as well as an oil change and service of the brakes, steering, and fuel systems. This GTO project is now offered at no reserve in Milford, Michigan, with removed parts, PHS documentation, a replacement headliner, and a clean Colorado title.

 

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4 hours ago, alsancle said:

I should buy it just to watch my dad become unglued when it comes off the trailer.

 

Supposedly I'm saving my bullets for a steam car.

Tough call...if you're looking for a GTO project, this would be very tempting!

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10 minutes ago, alsancle said:


I swore I would never buy another project but I see potential here with incremental fixes.

Yep, I agree.

I would get the brakes, fuel & electrical up to snuff, repair the backlight channel and drive the snot out of it!

I would probably make the switch back to steel wheels, redlines and small hubcaps, too.

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10 hours ago, GregLaR said:

Just in case anyone's on the fence, here's a little motivation.

 

1691262832_fathomblue.jpg.6b4b52e87345a0ab396f1b0600b1c25c.jpg

 

 

My favorite color.  I would never restore the subject car.  You would be in to it for 200k the way the bills go. 

 

Here is a another one on BAT that is a good comp.  It is a 66 tripower which should be more desirable and doesn't need anything.  The color is not as great in my book however.  Not a vinyl top fan either.

 

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1966-pontiac-gto-36/

 

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My '66 convert, tripower 4 speed, was that same Marina Turquoise, on white with a white top. It was a knockout.

Man, if there was one of my cars I could ever buy back it would be that one.

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4 minutes ago, GregLaR said:

My '66 convert, tripower 4 speed, was that same Marina Turquoise, on white with a white top. It was a knockout.

Man, if there was one of my cars I could ever buy back it would be that one.


Any pictures from back in the day?

 

btw, that WAS the car I wanted in HS.  Just couldn’t pull it off and settled for a 69.

Edited by alsancle (see edit history)
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The Met was actually a fun car. Mine was a convertible and was pretty rough when I got it. I had it for 4-5 years and had a lot of fun with it. It helped that my father was a very experienced sheet metal worker and he made me rocker panels etc. and showed me how to MIG weld them in. 
 

Oh, and the high school and college girls LOVED that car. 😀 Not saying it was better than a Shelby but…
 

 

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3 hours ago, alsancle said:


Any pictures from back in the day?

Oh my, probably somewhere.   This will require some urban archaeology.....

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Well after much digging I managed to locate a couple pictures of my '66 GTO convert. as well as a couple other GTO's I had back in the day.   A couple are Polaroids and I'm amazed they've held up as well as they did.  The others are snaps, I won't even bother to apologize for the quality.  Makes one realize how much we take our current phone cam quality for granted these days.

 

This is the Marina Turquoise '66.  White interior, 389 tripower 4 speed, full gauges, including hood tach, no console.  I'm sitting on the trunk in the blurry pic.  My pal Stevie standing behind the car at the local car wash.  And, like Steve_Mack said Cragar SS was the order of the day.   I put them on almost every car I had back then and, of course, you had to run the big fat 50 series on the rear!

 

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I sold the '66 and bought this '67 hard top with the wild paint and huge metal flake, spray on black roof, and a full fiberglass front end, 400 4 speed with a pristine white interior,console and full gauges.  It had this paint when I bought it so I don't know what the orig. color was but I often think back on this car and wish I'd checked the trim tag but that stuff just didn't matter back then.  It looks very washed out in these old photos but the basic theme was Gold/Silver with Blue accents.

Of course it also got the Cragars and rear 50's.

 

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Sold the '67 and bought another '66 hard top 389 4 barrel 4 speed.   Burgundy on Black, console, cannot remember if this one had the gauges or not but it did have the hood tach.  This was the day I bought it, just before a set of Cragars were installed on it as well  :lol:  Unfortunately I don't seem to have a pic with them on it.

 

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Years later I bought another '66 hard top, 389 4 barrel, automatic trans, console with working air conditioning.  I had matured somewhat and opted for the Rally II's on this one.  I cannot seem to locate any pics of that car, but it was Candlelight Cream on Black.  And unlike the name suggests it is a very nice pale Yellow color rather than Cream.   This pic is not of my car but it looked pretty much identical.  

 

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For my money I still think the 1966 GTO was GM's styling at it's absolute pinnacle.  This design stands the test of time and is as sharp and fresh looking today as it was 55 years ago.  I'm always on the lookout for another  '66 or even a '67, the differences were fairly minor, but I promise you I would pay dearly to have my Turquoise '66 convertible back again.

Greg

 

 

 

 

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Greg your series of GTOs remonds me of an older kid in our neighborhood who must have had 5 or 6 of these.  He could paint and I recall black, black w very 70s flip flop ribbons and pearl white.  

Like tri fives, these look good stock or, imo as old school street machines.

 

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Amazing how much these cars have increased in value in the last 20 yrs. Photos are of a GTO I had new in high school, I sold it to a friend in 2001, he still has it just like it is in the photos. This car is all original, paint, interior and drive train. Very highly optioned, red vinyl wheel liners, exceptionally rare option. AC, AM/FM, power antenna, disc brakes, power steering etc. It sold for 11,500  in 2001 and that was a very fair price. Imagine what it would bring on BAT today. 

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Edited by lhend50 (see edit history)
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8 hours ago, lhend50 said:

Amazing how much these cars have increased in value in the last 20 yrs.

 

 

 

 

Even more so when I think back to the 70's knowing I only paid $1,000 for that '66 convertible.

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You are right. They mostly ran between $1,800 and $2,500 at the time I bought this one.  It belonged to a friend's older brother who had simply lost interest in it. Sat in the garage for a year, hadn't run, so he gave me a pretty good deal.

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21 minutes ago, GregLaR said:

You are right. They mostly ran between $1,800 and $2,500 at the time I bought this one.  It belonged to a friend's older brother who had simply lost interest in it. Sat in the garage for a year, hadn't run, so he gave me a pretty good deal.

 

I paid $325.00 in 1981 for a 69 Convertible with no nose clip and the oil fillers on the valve covers missing while it sat out in the elements for 2 years after an accident.   That was a mistake, but 18 months later it looked great.  I wish I had held out a little longer for a 66/67.

GTO-1.jpg

Edited by alsancle (see edit history)
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On 10/2/2021 at 9:28 AM, md murray said:

I can't believe how clean that car is underneath. Great car

That's what makes the difference. I had a similar 67 GTO 20 years ago, BUT it was rusty underneath. A good original chassis makes the car!

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6 hours ago, GregLaR said:

That's a sweet looking '69 in a seldom seen color.  They all seem to be green or red/orange.

 

I've been looking for a Liberty Blue four speed convertible for 20 years.  They don't show up very often. 

 

This one was a RAIII for 90k and was very nice.  I hated the Judge stripes.   I guess if I was going to step up it this would have been it.

69RAIII-Vert-1.jpg

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My $225 clone '67 project from about 1979 or so. The 326 crapped out, so I thought, Hey, I'll make a GTO! What could go wrong!  I bought a running 400 from a junkyard and it only went downhill from there. My biggest regret was not redoing it as a LeMans, like it should've been. I sold it to a guy who totaled it a few weeks later...and maybe that was a good thing.

 

 

 

 

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The '67 has had a very nice restoration but I have to agree, the Fathom Blue of the GTO that began this thread lends itself much better to the body lines in my opinion.  The Tyrol Blue is a little too loud for this body style .  But no where near as loud as that eBay listing!

Good grief!  The endless color changes of the lettering, different sized fonts, detailed description of the most mundane stock items "includes chrome front bumper, and chrome door handles".

It all has the heavy handedness of a carnival barker!

$100K seems like a stretch for a coupe.  The whole look falls apart for me with the poverty caps.  It gives the car an unfinished, bargain basement look (again, just my personal opinion). Of course I could be could wrong...

 

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1981 I had a chance to buy a '67 RS/SS Camaro Convertible. It was in immaculate original condition (it was just a well kept clean used car at the time) Asking price was $2500, which was a bit high for a camaro but this one was a convertible.

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On 10/6/2021 at 9:03 AM, TAKerry said:

1981 I had a chance to buy a '67 RS/SS Camaro Convertible. It was in immaculate original condition (it was just a well kept clean used car at the time) Asking price was $2500, which was a bit high for a camaro but this one was a convertible.

 

 

Amazing! Yes, it's true that $2500 was a lot more then then it is now, but it wasn't too long after 1981 that I paid about $2500 for my boxy, uninspiring and problematic '78 Mercury Zephyr. To think that that same money could've bought a first year RS Camaro convertible is mind boggling. Then again, just a couple of years before that, my brother and I bought a (rough) '68 Charger for $175. That was $87.50 a piece! It ran and drove, too (barely.)

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