Growing up in America, you hear all about various legendary cars. Well, legendary American cars, that is. You’ve got your Shelbys, your 442s, Charger Superbirds, Yenko Camaros and so on, blah blah blah. But the one that may arguably be the most legendary is the Pontiac GTO, often nicknamed the Goat. You’d think it was pretty rare. I know I did, but then was surprised and had to doublecheck that they really produced over 87,000 in the 1968 model year, the first year of the second generation and not even the best selling year at that. There are a lot of extremely mainstream cars that sell a lot fewer every year nowadays. Maybe everyone and their mother DID drive a GTO or SS or Shelby in the ’60s after all…
I rarely see them nowadays, then again 1968 is one model year older than I am. I know they’re out there, generally in garages, being waxed with a diaper, cautiously driven or being trailered to car shows on grassy fields or going for an even longer drive across the block at a Mecum or Barrett-Jackson auction near you. And we’ve even featured at least a dozen which surprised me as well when I started looking. But ones like this? With a few warts, maybe some creaky joints, perhaps an accidental rude noise every once in a while? Nope, they aren’t out there. Or not out here anyway. And this one seems to be advertising something that never really was. But actually was for those in the know…
The GTO was never officially offered with a 428. But Royal Pontiac, a dealer in Royal Oak, Michigan who sold racing and performance parts would also, in conjunction with Pontiac, offer the “Royal Bobcat” option to swap out the ’68 GTO’s stock 400 cu.in. engine for a 428. Cost prohibitive? Not really, unless $650 (about $5,500 today) or about 20% more than the base price ($3,101) of the car itself seems huge. Most people likely added at least that much in other options. So for $650 you’d up the power from 350hp and 400lb-ft of torque to appreciably more than 390hp and 465lb-ft of torque. And the bragging rights? Priceless.
In actually those stated numbers were supposedly low, as Royal Pontiac (pictured above on a magazine cover around the time the subject car was built installing one of the 428s) would fiddle with the engine to boost the power over the official ratings by increasing the compression ratio through skimming the heads and installing thinner gaskets along with various other changes to help the motor last through the owner taking advantage of the car’s newfound zest.
But does this car really have that? The unfortunate symbolism of the shadow falling across the hood seems to say no. This car also doesn’t seem to have a few other options that seem pretty ubiquitous for a GTO (but were in fact options). Such as the hood mounted tachometer. Or the hideaway headlights. Hmm. Maybe someone spent their wad on the only thing that really matters. And symbolism shouldn’t tamper with our deliberations.
The hood callouts seen earlier seem correct, or at least old and well positioned, could be from Royal or from any other parts department. Or a junkyard! The one back here on the trunk lid surely seems to have been added later, or at least doesn’t line up well. Of course many things on a 1968 car from Detroit didn’t line up well when they were new. Not all of my own bits and pieces line up that well anymore either. Well, the ones that matter do. But this bit is kinda like that too, no? You’d want it to line up. Still, many an owner has added extra badge credentials to whatever their ride is, sometimes to emphasize an actual fact and sometimes just…The jury is still out.
They did get the shape right for ’68. Everything seems there for a reason and sized more or less correctly. The vent windows would disappear for ’69 but the arguably most famous variant of the GTO would appear that year as well, usually in that resplendent overall orange color. That Endura bumper though, that seemed to endure. This one’s obviously had a nose job transplant from another car.
I’m kind of digging the wear on this one, no matter its provenance. It’s been used. And is still being used And shows no signs of not continuing to be used for a long time to come.
The interior is sending the right vibe too…Hurst T-handle shifter – check! Black vinyl buckets, nothing frilly – check! Extra gauges below the dash – check! Flame job seat cover for yet another 5hp – check! Wood rimmed and chrome spoked/holed steering wheel – check! Vanillaroma and what looks like an IV bag dangling from the rear view…just never mind that. This interior does one thing – kicks ass and takes names. Okay, that’s two things but still. Surely there’s a Gas, Grass, or (I forgot the last thing), nobody rides for free policy in place too.
Maybe it’s me, and while I can appreciate the hermetically sealed splendor of most surviving GTOs, this one’s just a lot more real. Back when I was in high school in the ’80s I think I remember this is what many late ’60s cars looked like. Now, many decades later, this one seems to have stayed that way. It’s also refreshingly not green, gold, brown, orange or white.
Perhaps even better, whether it sports a 428 from Royal or the stock 400 or if the owner him or herself dropped in a 428 at some time in the past, it’s here in the parking lot while the owner’s doing some Sunday grocery shopping. Just another car, doing the things cars help people do. So dig deep into your inner Judy or Wapner, whichever your pleasure, and deliver the verdict once you’re done deliberating with yourself. Go ahead and sequester yourself, this is important stuff. Someone’s doing life with this thing, no matter what it really is.
Related Reading:
1965 Pontiac GTO – How To Create A Legend And Build A Brand by PN
1967 Pontiac GTO – No Supplements Needed by Joseph Dennis
1966 Pontiac GTO – The Perfect Childhood? by JPC
1967 Pontiac GTO – Ta Daaaaah! by Tatra87
1966 Pontiac GTO – A Goat Or A Mule? by JPC
1969 Pontiac GTO Convertible – Hi-Ho Silver! by JPC
1969 Pontiac GTO Convertible – Fresh Air by Joseph Dennis
1976 Pontiac GTO – Insurer’s Special by Gerardo Solis
1968 Pontiac GTO – Redpop! by Joseph Dennis
1972 Pontiac GTO – The Last “Real” GTO by PN
“Maybe everyone and their mother DID drive a GTO”
My next door neighbor’s mother did. A Verdoro Green 68 with black vinyl roof and interior (and a 4 speed). It was funny that Mrs. Bordner (a lawyer’s wife, well into her 40s) was about the last mom on the block anyone would have picked for that ride.
I am not good enough on these GTOs to tell you if it is real or not. And I know everyone loves the 68, but I am a 66-67 guy, myself. And you are right, all late 60s cars looked like this once upon a time, really bent up. Nice find!
Had a college friend who was not a car guy at all and never mentioned his family vehicles. When I visited his home one weekend I was shocked to see his mother’s 1969 GTO. Automatic, as many were, but loaded with power windows and other goodies. His lawyer father had a late model Sedan de Ville.
This Pontiac is messier than a soup sandwich but is also undeniably great. Everything about it is awe inspiring.
That’s all I can say about it.
Splendid, I haven’t seen a GTO in that condition in 30 years or more.
I can’t add to Jason’s summary of this vehicle. He’s bang on.
Something’s missing. I can’t put my finger on it.
… …
Rust! I don’t see any rust. How is that possible?
Doesn’t Colorado use a type of salt on roads in the winter?
Maybe this is a garage/trailer queen; only driven on nice sunny days.
The difference between Colorado and the Midwest in the winter is a blizzard can be immediately followed by spring like days, it’s not that perpetually wet brine of grey coldness from November to April that provides time to incubate on body parts. I pulled a bunch of parts off off Tbirds and Cougars at a few Denver area junkyards and shipped them back home to Chicago in a big box, parts impossible to find rust free there
Maybe this is a garage/trailer queen; only driven on nice sunny days.
Most days in Colorado are sunny days as is the case in much of the desert Southwest. And it’s high desert: even if the car gets wet, the humidity is so low that it dries quickly.
Even the eastern foothills (Colorado Springs) offers rust free pickings in the salvage yards..
I picked a number of needed parts for a ’60 Comet project.Most important being the entire radiator support since someone long ago ripped the rust riddled lower portion in half towing it at some point..The drive from St.Louis wasn’t too bad..18 hr total trip including parts removal
Like Jim, I’m old enough to remember when all 1960’s cars looked like this. They were just used cars. If you needed parts, you went to the junkyard, where they were in ample supply.
I’ve written about this before, but cars from the 1960’s are the first cars to just be cars (not “old” cars). Detroit made such huge advances in reliability and capability during that decade that they can still be credibly driven as daily drivers even 50 years later (as amply evidenced by this site).
Unlike the Googie neon-sign cars of the 1950’s, the styling of most 1960’s cars is timeless enough that they still fit in even today.
It helps that 60’s cars are still regularly used as hero cars in movies and TV series, which keeps them relevant to people who weren’t even alive in the 1960s.
I’ve written about this before, but cars from the 1960’s are the first cars to just be cars (not “old” cars). Detroit made such huge advances in reliability and capability during that decade that they can still be credibly driven as daily drivers even 50 years later (as amply evidenced by this site).
Hundreds of thousands of Tri-Five Chevys would like to disagree with you. I would too.
I maintain that the differences in reliability and driving pleasure between an immediate post WWII 1946 Chevy and a Tri-Five Chevy are immense and numerous.
I would hesitate to drive the 1946 Chevy as a daily driver or a road trip car.
I would have no issues doing the same with a 1956 Chevy, optioned with the comfortable and attractive Bel-Air interior, 265 V8 engine and in dash factory air conditioning.
Immediate post war cars were conceived in the mid-late 1930s. There was a huge jump from them to something like a ’55 Chevy.
Agree!
Well I would agree with you purely on grounds of not being able to maintain highway speeds without any modification but things would greatly depend where you reside. I could quite happily live with a mid to late 40s Desoto fitted with the 3sp+od if I were out in the country and my daily trip to work would have been, say, up to 60 miles on secondary roads – and I’m in the EU! In the US there would be many more opportunities to use such a car on a daily basis. And if you were prepared to spend some time and effort on period modifying the Chrysler six there’s about 180 hp in there which would mean being able to cruise at 70-80 MPH all day.
Charger Superbird?
Good catch! I was wondering if anyone would see that! My brother had a super Bird, a 440-6 with a 4 speed. They were similar to the charger Daytona, but the Daytona came first, and was the first car to do 200 mph in a nascar race. Not the fastest car around, but after we custom tuned our ‘bird, you could put it sideways nailing third.
Unlike the Daytona, the 440-6v was optional in the Superbird. The Hemi was optional in both, with the base engine being the 440-4v.
While the Daytonas sold quickly, the Superbirds languished on dealer lots for a long time, sometimes years. Burton Bouwkamp, Chrysler Product Planner who had significant involvement with their musclecars at the time, once stated that “Chrysler quickly found out that there was a market for the aero cars, and they had all bought Daytonas”.
And while similar, no parts interchange between the Daytona and Superbird. For example, the rear wing stanchions are located more forward on the quarter panel with more of an angle on the Superbird, while the Daytona’s are further back and more upright. I don’t know if this was the reason, but the difference facilitated the ‘bumble bee’ stripe around the rear wing on the Dodge, when it wouldn’t work on the Plymouth.
More than one new GTO owner was disappointed to find out that “his” new GTO wasn’t nearly as quick as the ones tested in the car magazines of the time period.
Most of us had no idea that Royal Pontiac often substituted internally modified Royal Bobcat “ringers” for car magazine testing.
The looks on their faces when a stock 383 Road Runner sucked their headlights out was awesome for this (at the time) teenager to see.
Don’t think so. Motor Trend obtained a 0-60 time of 7.3 seconds for a 1969 383 Road Runner, with a GTO with the base 400 coming in a tick faster at 7.2. The performance of these cars with the base engines was for all intent the same.
Now what would really “suck the headlights” out of both of these is basically any modern Camry or Accord, which also gets three times the mileage. Yep, they don’t build them like they used to.
“Motor Trend” magazine was a favorite of Jim Wagners and Royal Pontiac, based out of Royal Oak, MI (a Detroit suburb).
I doubt any test car “MT” drove was an assembly line stock version.
Well, other sources at the time listed similar 0-60 times. My point is that the GTO 400 was the stronger standard engine. Some stats:
1969 RR – 383 c.i., 335 h.p. @ 425 ft. lbs of torque.
1969 GTO – 400 c.i., 350 h.p. @ 445 ft. lbs. of torque.
Manufacturers played fast and loose with their horsepower ratings, almost always just creating figures for whatever purpose they thought best, whether it be for sales or NHRA competition. Of the Big 3, Chrysler was probably the most honest. Chevrolet usually seemed to be relatively accurate, as well (although the most potent versions of the SS454 appear underrated, too).
But Pontiac and Ford? Not so much. Who could forget Ford’s 335 horsepower rating of the 428CJ, exactly the same of the Mopar 383, when the Ford was likely closer to 365. The 428CJ was even 10 less than the 428 in the Thunderbird!
Ironically, thanks to the lackluster performance of previously higher-rated (but low performing) Ford engines, the lower-than-actual rating of the 428CJ almost certainly hurt early sales, until the subterfuge was revealed in actual driving.
By comparison, the Mopar 440-4v was rated at 375 with the 440-6v at 390. The Chrysler figures seem a lot more realistic.
Some 69 GTOs had 400 cu. in. 366 & 370 hp. Read up boys! Chilton has the answers. Somre 68s had 400s w/360 hp too.
Maybe so, but if a Chilton book says spilled apple juice falls down and not up; the sun’s out during the day and the moon at night, and water is wet…you’re best to double-check with a reliable source.
Yep, the sixties’ musclecar was, as they say, a marketing man’s wet dream, and it was nowhere more true than with the GTO. Jim Wangers did an astounding job of getting every kid old enough to have a driver’s license believing that a Goat was ‘the’ musclecar to have (helped a lot by those ringers he got into magazine articles) when, in actuality, a typical 389/400-4v GTO was ‘way’ down in the performance car hierarchy, right down there with a 390 Ford.
But it didn’t matter. For five years, from ’64-’68, the GTO was the top selling musclecar. All young adolescent males (including those who were young at heart) wanted a GTO. I personally knew a guy who, when he got out of the service, immediately bought a brand-new 1968 GTO. He quickly discovered that it wasn’t ‘all that’, getting routinely beaten in street races, and when the area underneath the rear window started rusting prematurely, he traded it after a year for a much faster 1969 442 W-30.
He wasn’t alone. By 1969, the street scene was finally clueing into the fact that Mopars and other GM intermediates were faster cars. The Road Runner was now the top selling musclecar, followed by the Chevelle SS396, with the GTO dropping all the way down to third.
Excellent post, Rudiger!
I do agree with all you say here.
The RR and SS396 were not insignificantly cheaper. Young guys weren’t exactly flush with cash.
Yeah I believe that’s the key, muscle cars at their root were prepackaged hot rods appealing to the same demographic who otherwise would have just souped up a deuce coupe or tri-five(and others) on the cheap, the Roadrunner and SS396 we’re the path of least resistance to speed when they came out.
The GTO still had a great name great styling and great image but it was the aspirational choice, something a RR or SS buyer of the time probably really wanted, but simply couldn’t afford.
Which of course also explains why the Duster 340 ate the muscle cars’ lunch, in more than one way. That applies to a lesser extent to the Nova SS.
It’s all about the price/performance equation. Except for those looking for the current hot status symbol, which never lasts long.
When a kid at high school showed up with a new ’68 GTO with the 265 hp 2-barrel under the hood, I knew it was all over for the GTO. Its best years were behind it, and the Judge was a desperate move to make it more relevant.
One of the interesting aspects of the Duster is that the 340 engine had already been available for two years in the A-body Barracuda and much more mundane Dart GTS and Swinger, the latter being a direct response to the giant-killer 1966 Nova SS with the L79 327 (Corvette) engine.
The problem was, no one noticed, thanks primarily to the 1968 Road Runner and big-block mania. But, by 1970, when insurance surcharges put a serious crimp in that market, suddenly, the swoopy new, cheap Duster with a 340 sold like ice on a hot day.
Yeah I think that equation is where Pontiac missed the boat(and/or the point) with The Judge package, which in intent was meant to dip the GTO into Roadrunner territory as a cheaper whimsical package but in execution was an extra cost trim package on top of a normal GTO. If the Judge were a low buck performance car it could have been the right shot in the arm at the exact right time the GTO needed, but instead it came off like the “How do you do, fellow kids” meme.
Besides the price portion of the equation(though they went hand in hand) it stands to reason the size/weight of the lighter compacts and ponycars and the growing prevalence and street cred of “giant killer” small blocks made big displacement intermediates like the GTO begin to look like dinosaurs to new buyers. The same effect the GTO originally had on the full size performance packages in the mid 60s.
As a 1969 GTO owner , I’d agree. Ordinary GTOs, with a 400 4bbl and auto were fast for ordinary driving but otherwise nothing special. Getting a truly fast GTO required proper option selection, tuning and set up, including a set of headers as GTO exhaust manifolds weren’t very good. Some other brands had stronger engines, better heads and a stronger bottom end, with which Pontiac could not compete.
But life isn’t lived a quarter mile at a time. The GTO had a terrific package, attractive styling , interior , great handling for the era, decent performance, nice option list, widely available, and affordable. At the time, a winning combination.
Indeed, setting aside all the hype and marketing, the GTO still wasn’t all that bad, even if it wasn’t the fastest musclecar. The vast majority of them were used for daily-driving, and trying to live with a tempermental engine and poor driving dynamics would get real old, real quick. The big drop in quality for 1968 didn’t help matters, either.
So, even though a 440-4v (or even a good-running 383) Mopar, SS396, or CobraJet Ford might eat a Goat’s lunch, for an all-around ride (and expectations weren’t that high), the Poncho was still okay. I dare say that the fact that so many more of them seem to have survived (versus the others) might be a testament to that.
Have you all watched the videos on YouTube of Pole Barn Garage’s “Holey Goat”?
They feature a quirky and clever mad scientist mechanic who buys an absolutely beyond totaled GTO of similar vintage to this post. It had been wrecked, submerged underwater, and shot hundreds of times on the ranch where its carcass lay for decades. In the video series, Dalton, the mechanic, goes about making it driveable while giving it a street-machine, mullet-tastic mojo. He does this spending as little money as possible and with a lot of flair as he MacGuyvers some very clever repairs. His GTO is unsightly, unsafe, and uncouth, but totally awesome.
I have a feeling that there would be a lot of folks here at CC who would appreciate the spirit and talents that went into the project. For those curious, look up “Pole Barn Garage” on YouTube.
I sure have! That is a very enjoyable channel. I have been watching it for a while now and always enjoy it. The guy is so funny, too. One nice thing to watch is that he has his young son involved in the project. The funniest one I saw was when he took the Goat to a car show and then got caught in the rain.
It is just amazing that he got this thing driveable.
It’s kind of in your face to the trailered car boys who take things too seriously without really trying to be.
Sure, watch his channel regularly. Don’t know about unsafe though – note that beneath that exterior there’s a solid mechanical basis, he reconditioned the brakes and the suspension and the car is driving straight as any “good” GTO would.
Great find Jim, and amazing to see one in this condition. I too remember when these were simply used beaters during the gas crisis’s in the 70’s and 80’s. The bigger the number on the hood, the lower the resale value. Today I see a big $$ project that would sell for even bigger $$$ in this hyper inflated collector market. Regardless of its authenticity, props to this non trailer queen survivor.
This well worn into the saddle Pontiac is about in the same condition as many were when found in the college dorm parking lot in the early 1980’s.
The vinyl top/rear window area of my brother’s 7 year old GTO allowed SO much water into the trunk we could hear it sloshing around when cornering or stopping!
We tried various temporary butyl rubber caulking fixes; but it always came back a few months later.
Finally, I drilled several drain holes in the lowest points of the trunk and we just let it drain out.
“… Finally, I drilled several drain holes in the lowest points of the trunk and we just let it drain out…”.
Me too. I had this same issue with my ’72 Impala and, based on casual observations of bad caulking jobs, so did most other full size Chevrolets.
Apparently, this issue was endemic to most, if not all, GM cars.
One would think that after a few years of observation GM might endeavor to fix this proble… oh, never mind.
I thought that water in the trunk was a standard “feature” not a bug for GM cars in the late 60’s & early 70’s. My Camaro and Vega certainly sported this – and all with no extra charge!
I guess that was also a big problem with the late ’50’s Mopars especially the lower price models. Same solution:sharp awl in the glovebox!
I would assume it’s not a 428. But is it even a GTO, or just a LeMans with some extra badging?
Almost certainly not. Back in the 70s or early 80s, aged GTOs were very common and could be picked up cheap (almost 100k sold). This is obviously a survivor from that era. Also, the hood (with its GTO scoops) looks to have the original paint.
If a guy wanted to “build” a GTO in more recent years, then yes, starting with a clean LeMans makes some sense. But then it would be perfectly restored, not a beater like this.
No way to know, but I suspect the odds of it having a 428 are better than even. Engines wear out, and 428s were cheap from the junkyard, having been used in gobs of Bonnevilles and GPs.
Thanks, I’d forgotten about that hood, and agree it certainly looks original. My perspective as a kid in those times was that the first few years of GTO’s were truly distinctive performance cars, but by this time had gotten a little pudgy, not to mention competition from Roadrunners and GTXes, SS396 etc. But then I fell for the CD article hook, line, and sinker. Not to mention Ronnie and the Daytonas.
Stellar find! Yes, this is what the majority of GTOs and other muscle cars looked like by the mid-late 70s. There was a guy in Iowa City who had a ’68 in the early 70s, and it was quite a lot like this one. I used to watch him warm it up for 20 minutes in order to drive maybe a mile or two. Used more gas warming up than driving. And it was fun to watch him in the snow.
Could it be a Bobcat 428? Yes it could. More likely when the original 400 wore out sometime in the mid 70s, a low mileage junkyard 428 was swapped in from a GP or such, and its 428 badges came as part of a package deal. Or in his pockets.
But of course it might have just been the badges. Only one way to find out. You should have popped the hood! 🙂
“You should have popped the hood!”
Why stop there? Most likely there was a magnetic Hide-A-Key under the left rear bumper like on every other old car with metal bumpers back in the day… A quick “in-motion-video” would have added a little more spice to this post.
True that.
And popping the hood wouldn’t have likely done much to solve the mystery anyway, as it can be mighty hard to distinguish a 428 from a 400. Only the length of a black rubber streak on the pavement can do that.
You are correct, Paul.
Poncho V8 engines all looked alike in this era when you raised the hood.
While I love old GTO’s, some casual car fans put it too high on a pedestal. Said fans think it was a “unique body shell/sports car” akin to Corvette. And post online comments like “Pontiac sold all muscle cars in the 60’s”, elsewhere than BAT. Another inane comment was “Ford’s ‘64.5 Mustang was their answer to the GTO”. Gag.
“I read it on the internet so it MUST be true!”
#LaudLaud
The quote that gets me is “Delorean broke all the rules put the biggest engine available in a small car”, which is arguably the biggest part of the GTOs lore, but to take that seriously you kind of need to ignore the existence of the 421 or 428, and that there was a corporate edict in place NOT to use those engines that Delorean clearly obeyed through his tenure.
I suppose he could have just as well put in the 421, as the rule then was for intermediates to not exceed 330 cubic inches. But he didn’t for a good reason: it would have undercut the prestige of the 2+2 and especially the GP, which was a critical image and profit maker for Pontiac.
He didn’t need a 421 in 1964; he just needed something bigger than anyone else had. That was plenty good enough.
And of course he had no idea that the GTO would blow up into such a cultural sensation.
The Royal Bobcat 428 was a engine replacement plus other upgrades. The Factory 421 was out of production and the factory 400 RAM Air IV was a more powerful engine than the Factory 428.
I agree this may be a 428 goat, but I doubt it’s a true Bobcat.
Royal Pontiac was interested in promoting their dealership, not engine displacement. Most
modified cars included a Bobcat nameplate on the door, not a bunch of 428 badges slathered on the exterior.
You should have taken a picture of the VIN plate through the windshield. Would have told a lot about the origin.
Unless front fenders were replaced it is a GTO. LeMans front fenders were different and use a different radiator support. Many performance GTOs had rally gauges which include a Tach in the dash in place of the clock.
It may be a Royal Bobcat 428. Pontiac Historical services (www.phs-online.com) could probably tell from the VIN. The red is probably the original paint, at least on the hood. The charcoal is probably a repaint after some body work and rust removal. Endura front bumpers didn’t survive very well and the replacement probable came from a 69 Judge per the color.
I purchased a 69 RA IV Judge in Jan of 70, Close Ratio 4 speed w/4:10s It ran in the 12s with no mods except G60x15 Polyglas GT tires on the rear. I also now have a 70 Lemans Sport Convertible that I drive on a regular basis.
The GTOs production ubiquity is kind of surprising from today’s vantage, I watch the Mecum and Barrett Jackson auctions pretty regularly and I don’t know if there’s a conscious decision based on what cars attract ratings or what but GTOs seem very underrepresented given how many more were made than something like E body Mopars that just dominate the screen. Even at local cruise nights, since my youth, I don’t remember seeing all that many, perhaps the ubiquity created a false sense of supply and many an owner wrapped them around trees, junked, or parted out nearly perfectly good(easily restorable) ones like this one in the 70s and 80s.
The GTO may not have necessarily been the fastest muscle car, living up to its marketing created legend, but that they did all come with the big engine/intermediate car formula, which by contrast cars like the Dodge Charger and Ford Mustang today enjoy a sort of reputation that they were all Hemis and Cobra Jets back in the day, while the majority of them were fairly docile, they had truly unique sheetmetal from the cars they were based on unlike the GTO but the GTO was authentic to its nameplate, even if it started resting on its laurels
The E Body phenomena is pretty unique. I think it’s the combination of their relative scarcity at the time as clearly being the last new muscle/pony car before it all died.
Its cartoonish styling made it emblematic of a trend that suddenly stopped dead in its track. The new 1971 Camaro and Firebird showed the way forward with much more understated international style, but they sold rather modestly in their early years.
The E Bode represents the peak moment before that whole trend collapsed, and as such, it’s become iconic. Being available in pink and purple and with a hemi under the hood didn’t exactly hurt either.
I’m old enough to vaguely remember the 60s, although imports imprinted on me early enough that I thought everyone drove a BMW 2002 (just kidding). Realistically my parents and the people they hung out with drove mostly solid citizen cars, although a few dads showed some flair. By the early 70s when I was old enough to know stuff we had a BMW 2000 and various friends had a Corvair Monza convertible, an early Datsun 240Z, a rusty Datsun 2000 roadster and a Rover 3500 sedan. The only Detroit iron of note was my cousin’s 6 cylinder Firebird and a friend’s father’s basic Camaro which was probably a 305. Everyone else had station wagons and sedans or Volkswagens.
I have mixed feelings about the GTO, on the one hand it was a significant vehicle and with the right options genuinely fast, on the other hand it’s one of the most faked vehicles of all time with “tributes” and replicas seemingly outnumbering genuine survivors and consuming every half decent empest and LeMans to the point where a a basic Tempest is rarer than Judge convertible.
A timepiece from 1982! I can hear Joan Jett and the Blackhearts coming from the cassette deck. Remarkable, that it’s in this state.
I was hearing Billy Squier myself but Joan will be for sure be on the other side of that TDK 90… 🙂
lol Or anything from the Heavy Metal soundtrack. It’s almost like a movie prop. A genuine early 80s stoner car. Or the owner wants to relive their delinquent youth?
Oh, the memories! Can’t help with the ID of a Royal Oak “Bobcat.” From my recollection, most all the 60’s muscle cars that I saw were still in very presentable shape in the 1970’s. Well into the 80’s they started looking more like the featured GTO. Also used in countless convenience store hold ups.
In 1975, immediately after discharge from 4 years of military service, I bought a 1968 GTO. Quite nice condition. The negotiated price at a reputable used lot was $1150 plus the $125 trade in of my tired 138k mile ’65 Chrysler. Muscle cars had hit a short lived severe plummet in value at the time. The GTO had about 40k miles. Endura front bumper, hideaway headlights. 4 speed. Gauges. No power steering, nor power brakes or anything else. Of course, no A/C. A previous owner had installed a very well running 428, At least that’s what the block code claimed. I believe mine was the lesser 360 HP Catalina engine, although it was a high compression engine. That was my year-round daily driver, including blizzards. Recapped snow grips and limited slip helped there. After 2.5 years of $.48/gal. 98 PO, I nodded off one night and clipped a telephone pole.
I also liked the older Tempests that were somewhat mundane. Like a 1963 with 326. I haven’t seen anything like that in decades.
1980s high school parking lot stuff, it wasn’t uncommon to see a GTO which was far more beat to shit than even this one. There was some theoretical “it would be worth a lot of money” if it wasn’t completely rusting into a storm drain. “It has the XYZ engine but they put a 2 bbl on it in the 70s and idk head are leakin” and so on while it smoked out. Aside from car shows, my only experience with these are the last driver ones.
The sharper guys bought 3rd gen “Secretary Mustangs” or Monte Carlos for cheep and dropped a referb v8 into it, which they could tune. Instant muscle … for those days.
My first car was a 1968 GTG I HAD TO take it back to the Bank we cause I could not afford the gas
I’m not sure if it’s the one with the bobcat engine, but that being said not many people going to put all those badges on a non legit car or at least I wouldn’t. That being said she is still a badass car to have survived all this time. Just imagine driving with that wood wheel in your hands and that killer Hurst 4 in the floor!! Their lucky regardless of the 428 or the 400 to still have living and driving nostalgia!!
Interesting article on a not-well-known GTO ‘derivation’.
Technical point in your leading paragraph, though–the “Superbird” was not a Charger; it was the Plymouth iteration of the Mopar ‘high tail’. Dodge’s version was the Charger Daytona.
Google
1962 Pontiac bobcat
For the beginning of the BOBCAT