Could you imagine stumbling upon this GTO at a giant swap meet? Well, it happened to Marc Komorsky of Poughkeepsie, New York, and his friend/restorer Dean Mastrangelo at the Englishtown Car Show and Swap Meet at Raceway Park in 2006.
Marc recalls, "We were walking up one of the aisles hunting for a carburetor for my '68 H.O. GTO when I saw a white '67 GTO parked in front of the Ames booth with 'For Sale' signs in the windows. The owner was trying to stuff huge quarter-skin boxes into the interior, so I walked up and jokingly said, 'Get those boxes out of my car, you're ruining my interior.' Strangely enough, he did." The GTO's owner, Bob Schweitzer, was looking to sell the Pontiac to make room for his other myriad Goat projects.
"I wasn't in the market for a car at all," Marc says. "I just wanted a Q-jet. Regardless, I took Bob's number, but I had to leave on a business trip shortly thereafter so I didn't act on it. Dean, however, had checked out the GTO while I was speaking with Bob."
The Pontiac GTO was an automobile built by Pontiac from 1964 to 1974, and by General Motors Holden in Australia from 2004 to 2006. It is often considered the first true muscle car. From 1964 until midway through 1973, it was closely related to the Pontiac Tempest, but for its final year it was based on the Pontiac Ventura. The 21st century GTO is essentially a left hand drive Holden Monaro, itself a coupe variant of the Holden Commodore.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the Pontiac GTO is that it was never supposed to exist. A mandate came down from the highest levels of General Motors: No high performance cars. Nothing that implies racing or going fast was to be in the GM lineup.
In the '50s Pontiac had a old fashioned image as a manufacturer of conservative basic transportation and sales were suffering because of it. There were even plans to kill the division off entirely.
Marc Komorsky at highperformancepontiac.comMarc Komorsky at naymz.comMarc Komorsky at linkedin.com Marc Komorsky at ziggs.comMarc Komorsky at squidoo.com Marc Komorsky at claimid.com
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