Some of my favorite things about returning to Flint, and to Michigan, in the summer for vacation are getting to experience many tastes that are specific to this state and region of the Midwest. Vernor’s ginger ale is not like any other soda you’ve ever had in that it’s extra gingery and packs a wallop. In undiluted form (meaning before a lot of the ice has melted in your drink cup from local favorite Halo Burger), Vernor’s can almost clear your sinuses. It’s one of only two pops (yes, we say “pop” in Michigan to refer to a soft drink) we occasionally had in the fridge when I was growing up, and it was often administered almost like medicine to treat a legitimately upset stomach. The other soda in the Dennis household when I was a kid was 7-Up, which was for my father.
Just because I wasn’t allowed to regularly have pop in the house as a kid doesn’t mean I never (carefully) sneaked any of my dad’s, or that I didn’t buy some with my own allowance or paper route money. Faygo is a Detroit-based soft drink company that is over a century old, with operations originally starting back in 1907. So many different flavors of Faygo – orange, grape, and Rock & Rye (think cream soda with some cherry bite to it) – remind me of carefree summer days, riding bikes or playing tag with my friends in our neighborhood, and pumping quarter after quarter into one of several video games (Shinobi, Paperboy) at the convenience store on my block. Rock & Rye seems to be the most popular Faygo flavor by a landslide whenever a social media thread pops up about the subject. I love Rock & Rye, but my current fave would have to be Redpop.
What does it taste like, you ask? Like red. It’s supposed to taste like strawberry, and I suppose it does to some extent. I say that Redpop tastes like “red” in the same way I mean that green beverages generally taste like citrus, or blue drinks taste like, well, blue. (I really am at a loss to come up with a description for the flavor of the blue drink that’s currently in my fridge.) Even if the berry growers at Smuckers jam might hesitate to put their name on it, Redpop is so good on a hot summer day that it is worth the risk of acquiring the dreaded “Kool-Aid mustache” on one’s upper lip if enjoyed out of a cup. Out of a chilled glass bottle is just fine with me. I’m not fancy.
It’s not all about the food and drinks when I return to the city that shaped me. Every summer, there’s a giant, annual car festival called “Back To The Bricks” that takes place in Flint and the surrounding areas during the second week of August. It brings hundreds of thousands of people to the festivities from both out of town and the immediate area to celebrate our love of the automobile. Those seven days or so are the happiest I am throughout the entire year. This year’s events are now officially cancelled out of precautions being taken against spread of the COVID-19 virus. I could see this coming from the middle of March. I want my fellow Michiganders and car fans to be healthy and safe more than I need to be back home for the car party, which I hope will return for 2021, bigger and better than ever.
I’ll get to the featured GTO in a minute, but I wanted to point out that at the time I had seen and photographed it in downtown Flint back in 2016, it was not during a car show or any automotive themed event. It was just sitting by itself at the curb downtown on Saginaw Street across from the former Lunch Studio sandwich shop (now the new location of Hoffman’s Deco Deli & Cafe), with all of its windows open, confident, secure, and just asking for a closer look. I’m often awestruck when I think about having grown up in a place where so many guys and gals still have the know-how to work on and restore cars like this, all concentrated in little, old Genesee County.
I had been in Flint this time for the 2016 edition of the annual Drop Fest electronic music festival (also cancelled for 2020) instead of for “B2B”, which I would not attend for the first time in six years. Seeing this GTO seemed to serve as the consolation prize for missing the latter. Standing alone outside of the goings on of a car show served to emphasize what a strong presence it had on its own. In its bright, summery PPG Solar Red finish (or one very close to that GM factory color), it popped even against the red bricks of Saginaw Street.
Pontiac’s intermediates were redesigned in 1968, with coupes given a more closely coupled, curvier, semi-fastback look which contrasted against the more traditionally styled, long-trunked ’67s. This generation would be the first on which the two-door models rode on a 112″ wheelbase that was four inches shorter than on the sedans and wagons. Nowadays, body colored bumper covers are standard practice. I find it hard to envision how revolutionary the ’68 GTO’s sculpted Endura front nose must have looked at the time, blending as seamlessly as it did with the frontal sheetmetal.
The ’68 GTO was Motor Trend’s Car Of The Year, with its performance, handling, styling, and engineering cited as some of the reasons why. I can immediately think of two other designs that were new for ’68 that get my motor revving: the Corvette and the AMC Javelin. I say this only to reinforce my impression that there were a lot of desirable, new machines coming out of Detroit in the late ’60s. Equipped with the standard 6.6 Liter / 400 cubic inch V8 rated at 350 horsepower, the 3,600-pound GTO hardtop did 0-60 miles per hour in 7.3 seconds equipped with the three-speed automatic, according to MT’s period test. With the Hurst four-speed manual and the optional, 360-hp Ram Air V8, it was capable of 0-60 mph in the mid-six second range.
Curiously, the front fender badges read “6.5 Litre”, when 400 cubic inches translates to 6.55 liters, which would more accurately be rounded up to 6.6 liters to the nearest tenth. Overall GTO production was up in 1968 by about 6,000 units over ’67 (87,700 vs. 81,700), which represented an increase of about 7.3% over the prior year. This hardtop was one of about 77,700 produced for the model year, with the other 10,000 being convertibles. The pillared coupe, of which only about 7,000 were made in ’67, was discontinued for ’68. Convertible sales were up by about 500 units, so based on the droptop’s static numbers year-over-year, the overall 7.3% increase in sales could reasonably be attributed to the new car’s popularity.
I had purchased a vintage 1968 new car buyer’s guide at a show at a local Flint mall when it was about twenty years old, and I remember it having much copy about the then-new GTO. Sadly, I couldn’t keep from leafing through it a lot, and even though I kept it in its cellophane package I bought it in and tried to preserve it as best I could, it did eventually end up with Cheetos dust, a torn cover, and other such maladies things often suffer at the hands of adolescents. I probably still have it in a box somewhere in storage. I remember getting a sense that the ’68 GTO really was a big deal, and advanced in many ways compared to many cars of its time.
I may have to wait until the future (2021, very hopefully) before I can get back to the red bricks of Saginaw Street in downtown Flint, but in the meantime, I just might hunt down some strawberry soda on my next grocery shopping trip here in Chicago. It may not compare with my beloved Faygo Redpop, but as with the next Back To The Bricks car show, getting to experience the real thing at a future date will be well worth the wait and something to really look forward to.
Downtown Flint, Michigan.
Saturday, August 6, 2016.
The badge. I wonder if it was a response to the Ford “7 Litre” of ’66 & ’67? I feel like in the mid- to late-60s, few Americans had any idea what a “litre” was, certainly in terms of engine displacement. I imagine the few who did know were fans of European cars. I don’t know if a European car fan would have much interest in a GTO or F/S Ford.
Can someone enlighten me?
Probably not, as even the ‘65 GTO had that badge…
The “6.5 Liter” badge was also on the 1964 GTO. It had Pontiac’s 389 engine.
I’m sure the badge was there to give it a European flair.
THAT is a gorgeous car – red on red; my favorite combination. I’m old enough to remember this when it was brand new; and yes, the body color bumpers were a sensation. These and the Mopar fuselage Challengers and Satellites were the high-water mark of muscle cars, IMHO.
So much here! My next door neighbor’s mother got a new 68 GTO, only in Verdoro Green with a black vinyl top and interior. We had trouble reconciling conservative Mrs. Bordner with her 4 speed GTO.
And I remember Redpop, alright. When my grandma would offer us an “ice cream soda” she meant vanilla ice cream scooped into a glass with Faygo Redpop poured over it. As an adult Rock & Rye has become my fave, though.
I remember those Faygo commercials with Harold Peary, who had been The Great Gildersleeve on the radio. I loved watching him get frustrated at how everyone wanted a rundown of the flavors, then always ordered the Redpop.
JP, that is a great commercial. And surprisingly, I have never had vanilla ice cream with Redpop. I’m putting that on my list of things to try this summer.
I am almost certain that I’ve heard that variety store clerk’s voice before, maybe in the Flintstones cartoon, as a voice over character. That deep voice is unmistakable.
Great commercial!
Merry Christmas to all.
Great Article, Joseph. I agree with you 100% about Vernor’s Ginger Ale. It will definitely open your sinuses.
There are 3 things I remember vividly about the ’68 GM 2 door hardtop A bodies. The first year of the side marker lights, the last year of vent windows and the last year of no locking steering and transmission. With the locking steering column, the automatic had to be in Park to remove the key, while the 3 and 4 speed manuals had to be in Reverse. The 2 door sedans, 4 doors and wagons all kept their vent windows on the 1969 models.
It looks like the owner has upgraded the standard front drum brakes to Wilwood discs. I can’t really tell about the rears but it looks as if the standard 9″ X 2.5″ drums have been retained.
Thanks, Glenn. It’s funny you mention the Wilwood disc brakes – I had never heard of that brand before, so when I was editing the pictures for this piece, I looked it up. Functionality aside, I think it was pretty great that the red discs more or less matched the paint.
In the last interior shot, is the large hole above the rear window where the shoulder belt mounted?
Well, now you’ve gone and done it Joe… Next time I go to Mission BBQ, I’m going to have to look for Redpop. This place has a cowboy cooler adjacent to where you stand in line to place your order full of interesting classic sodas, many of which I’d never heard of before.
As for “tasting red”, they’ve got one called Cheerwine that I was curious about for about a year before trying it. Yeah, it tasted about as red as this beautiful GTO.
And everyone has heard of Frostie Root Beer (well, at least this one could be had in Baltimore when I was a kid), but they have several flavors beyond their Root Beer. My favorite is their Vanilla Root Beer, but they also have a Blue Cream Soda. But the latter just tastes like a Cream Soda that happens to be blue. It doesn’t “taste blue” to me, anyway.
No High Fructose Corn Syrup in these vintage sodas, no sir… only REAL Sugar! Even the basic Pepsi in Mission BBQ’s cooler s made with real sugar.
I still have a ‘65 that I need to write up that’s been in my phone for almost 3 years, spotted at a Target, still getting the groceries!
Frostie Root Beer was available significantly west of Baltimore when I grew up as that was my favorite root beer, bar none. I was not aware of either the vanilla variety (which sounds good) or the blue cream (which does not).
Good for them in avoiding high fructose corn syrup – that stuff is nasty and has been proven to work as a laxative in many people. Real sugar is the way to go – I am able to get 12 packs of canned Pepsi with real sugar locally. It’s the same price as the other stuff and you don’t feel like you’ve licked the styrofoam cooler after tasting it.
I grew up in Dearborn, a mile from the Rouge. We used to take the Warren avenue bus to Woodward Avenue where Vernor’s had a bottling plant. The glass windows along the front let you witness the product being bottled and you could get a sampling of ginger ale in the lobby. My favorite was a Vernors float- a tall glass of ale with vanilla ice cream and/or chocolate syrup. And as an added treat, just down the block was the New Era (now Lays) potato chip factory. Heaven! How I wish I coulda drove down there in my 65 Goat!
Elles, in Flint, we called the Vernor’s float (with vanilla ice cream) a “Boston Cooler”! I still love them. And that is a great picture.
RetroStang Rick, I then had to look up Cheerwine. I spent many years in Florida and don’t ever remember seen it, but it appears to be most widely available in the Carolinas and Virginia (according to Wikipedia). Another pop for me to try! I’m not a big pop drinker, but I like trying regional specialties.
Stewart’s Root Beer is a personal favorite around these parts. It may be more widespread than just around here though.
Back when there was a Stewart’s Root Beer Stand on US-40 in Rosedale Maryland where I grew up, there was a Classic Car gathering every Saturday!
Sadly, they’re closed now as I think the owners retired years ago.
You can get the bottles in stores, but it was much better on draft.
I first encountered Cheerwine when I spent two summers in Maine as a teenager in the late ’70s, and saw it again only sporadically until a few years ago when it appears on the grocery shelves here in Maryland, just outside DC. The other local fizzy drink I first tasted in Maine was Moxie, which I love but unfortunately remains hard to find where I live, despite its distribution recently being picked up by Coca-Cola. I occasionally see Faygo here, though less often than our homegrown multiflavor soft drink line, Rock Creek.
I may be recalling this incorrectly, but isn’t “Cheerwine” what Anne of Green Gables gets “drunk” off of with her friend Rachel in that novel?
This one brings back college memories. I lived in Youngstown, OH during the 50’s and 60’s. Heady times as there wasn’t a person around that wasn’t into cars. I was good friends with a guy whose family were “Pontiac people”. Mom. Dad. The three brothers. And the sister. All Pontiac people. Had been since ’55.
My dad was a “Ford” guy. Always the performance versions. But I liked what Pontiacs had to offer. The OHC 6 was my favorite. Seemed at the time Pontiac could do no wrong.
Anyway, my buddies’ mom bought a new red on red Goat hardtop in the spring of ’68. WOW!. A mom buying a GTO. We can now fast forward to 2020. Mom will celebrate her 100th birthday this year. And guess what’s in her garage beside her 2018 Camaro? The ’68 Goat with very low miles and all original. Lovingly maintained by her third-eldest son, it is a true time capsule.
Al, that’s inspiring – for your friend’s mom to be 100 years young and have such awesome taste in cars. I’ve also read a lot about Youngstown and its history. There seem to have been a few parallels between Youngstown and and Flint, being industrial cities that had relied on one industry for a long time. I’m also an amusement park fan, and I think it would have been great to go to Idora Park before the fire and its subsequent closure in ’84.
Joseph Dennis I share your love of the Back To The Bricks show. I’ve been there once in 2012 & I have to say that I meet a lot of very nice people. I think Flint has more car crazy people than any other city I know. Here’s a rare sight from 2012.
Excellent! I remember 2012’s show being a great one. Wow – a row of three Century Turbo Coupe Aerobacks! I photographed one at the Sloan Auto Fair in Flint back in 2016, but it might have been the white one on the right (not your blue one).
The 1968 GTO looked quite radical (especially by comparison to the ’67) when I first saw it in a newspaper ad, which showed just the front end with the optional headlamp doors. Later, because those doors weren’t flush with the rest of the grille (as they were for ’69), I grew to appreciate the standard front end more.
I like everything about this ’68 (it even has factory a/c) except for the color and the wheels. Subtlety agrees with me more.
The ’68 GTO has some aspects of the ’67 – for example, the standard steering wheel is the same, as seen on this car – and the dashboard has not yet been rendered soulless as it was for ’69. The vent windows gained cranking mechanisms for ’68; they’d been manual before.
As for the badge: 1968 was the final year of the stretched-pentagon “GTO / 6.5 litre” badge. Up through 1966, the motor was a 389, so when all the 389s became 400s for 1967, Pontiac left the badge as it was. However, 389 cu. in. works out to 6.375 liters, so 6.5 was an exaggeration and became more accurate when the 400 was introduced. For 1969, the badges disappeared from the interior, to be replaced by plain rectangular “GTO” badges on the doors, and their old shape was retained for the rear side marker lights; this change may have been in anticipation of the introduction of the optional 455 for 1970.
The Old US-27 Tour hasn’t been cancelled at this point, but I don’t see doing that either. The driving would be fine, but just too many people at the downtown stops.
Rock & Rye is definitely my favorite but Redpop & Grape are close behind. The only downside to Faygo is that it absolutely has to be cold. Room temp is barely ok & warm is just awful.
Dan, I am glad to hear that at least some of the festivities took place. I think there was also an in-car rolling cruise last month.
Whoa, hello CC Effect! I was on the Kennedy last Saturday and an orangey-red GTO was in my rearview mirror, Endura nose and all. By today’s standards when in traffic they look ridiculously low and wide.
Great work Joseph finding so many eclectic topics and tying them in so well to your love for cars. These are nice pics of a beautiful Pontiac. Your third pic of the GTO would make an excellent print ad with the dynamic image of the Pontiac in the foreground and the anonymous cookie cutter silver/grey cars lined up in the background like a production line.
The many various local brands of pop, candy and potato chips used to capture my curiosity as a kid, when my parents would take us on vacations to the US and other parts of Canada. I never saw the Faygo brand in Canada until about 20 years ago, when I noticed it started to appear in Ontario communities on the US border. We had the The Pop Shoppe which started in London, Ontario in the early 70s, and later expanded to the US. I remember how very unique and popular Pringles chips were when they became popular in the mid 70s. We’d only find Baby Ruth bars in the US. And many candies we had in Canada like Smarties, Wunderbars, and Crunchie bars we couldn’t find in the US. Cool topic!
Thanks, Daniel. With Michigan being adjacent to Ontario, I remember being able to use Canadian coins in Michigan interchangeably with U.S. currency in the ’80s. I don’t remember when vending machines stopped accepting them.
I think a bunch of us tried Faygo during lunch at the HenryFord Museum when we met you at the Detroit MeetUp a few years back, in the meantime it’s available out here in Colorado as well in a few places.
It’s too bad they can’t do the Bricks show this year, of all possible events a car show would seem to be one that *could* be done if people are sensible. People are already good about not touching stuff, just mask up and keep some distance. But I suppose it’s better this way as people can’t be trusted.
But hey, that’ll make next year’s show twice as good! And perhaps you’ll even see the GTO again when in Flint.
Jim, I remember so much about that meetup, especially all of us sitting down at lunch with the cafeteria trays. It was great to put so many faces with names and handles, both from other CC writers and commenters. Was that already three years ago?
“Curiously, the front fender badges read “6.5 Litre”, when 400 cubic inches translates to 6.55 liters, which would more accurately be rounded up to 6.6 liters to the nearest tenth.”
Ford did the opposite with the 302 which was 4,942.2 cubic centimeters but they called it 5.0 liters, maybe to differentiate it from the 300 six which was also 4.9 liters.
Joe, it’s amazing how you can squeeze so many things into an essay. That’s only one of the reasons I love reading your stuff.
If it helps any, you aren’t alone in the disappointment of long anticipated car events where we grew up being cancelled due to the virus. Hemmings was holding their annual Great Race in June, then postponed it until August. This year’s route took them for lunch in Rolla, a town of 20,000 about an hour south of me and then overnight in Cape Girardeau, just across town from my parents. My plan had been to drive my old worn out ’63 Ford parts car down there for both a visit and to see the cars. This event, also, has been postponed until 2021.
Thanks, Jason. After I started reading through the comments here before I ate dinner, I did a quick internet search. It was confirmed that many street festivals that would normally be a big deal here in Chicago have been cancelled this year.
I don’t know how, but it’s somehow comforting to me to know that it’s not just me who won’t be able to go. If many of these events were being held this summer, I probably wouldn’t do them. Come on, 2021. No whammies.
There are other red/strawberry sodas, but none of them can touch Redpop.
I grew up in South Bend, in other words extreme southern Michigan. Little known fact: in 1805 the Michigan line was moved 10 miles north, from just south of South Bend, so that Indiana would have a little lakefront property. Anyway, a fair amount of Michigan stuff reached us in SB, including Vernors and Faygo. Other little known fact: for most of its history Vernors was sweetened with stevia, and that’s the formula I remember from my childhood. It switched to HFCS in 1991, and about the same time Diet Vernors was introduced. Maybe my adult palate isn’t as sensitive, maybe it’s the change in sweetener, but modern Vernors just doesn’t taste as sharp to me now.
Jim, I think I remember someone else mentioning the change in Vernor’s. It might have been my sister-in-law. It’s still pretty potent to me!
The photography here is excellent, as is the description of the car being “confident, secure and just asking for a closer look”. That is the perfect characterization of the GTO and Pontiac during its peak years in the 1960s. I’d like to make another trip to Michigan in the summer and maybe hit the Back to the Bricks festival in order to see more of these beauties.
I spent my elementary school years in northern Indiana and can remember being treated to a Vernor’s ginger ale several times as a kid, with the pungent ginger taste and the way it would clear my sinuses being especially sharp memories.
This may not surprise you, Joe, but yesterday I had a Redpop AND a Vernors. I attacked the heater core on my T-Bird and that’s a thankless job on a summer day.
Aww, man, Aaron! And for the trifecta, you should have had Koegel’s for dinner! Awesome. Hopefully you’ll be able to write about more Thunderbird adventures soon.
One of the students at Loyola High showed up with a brand new red GTO just like this in 1968. It took us a while before we could goad him to give us a full throttle ride in his goat up Chestnut Avenue. It was quite a disappointing ride, and we found out later why: it had the 265 hp 2 barrel credit delete option engine. His dad obviously specified that.
But I loved looking at it. This was quite the stylistic breakthrough in 1968, with that fabulous Endura bumper.
Paul, the credit delete engine option threw me for a loop when I was doing a little research for this piece. I had to recheck my source when I saw that one of the optional engines had less horsepower than the standard powerplant. Now I know why.
Late 60’s American is my BEST school of automotive design, and that chrome and red colour scheme inside and out.. awesome!!
The 6.5 Liter fender badge was used on all GTOs from 1964 to 1968.
Great looking car and a nice tribute to what is clearly a great show in somewhere you will always have fond memories of.
That red is stunning, and the style is pretty timeless too. Not quite sure about that red bumper, but maybe a chrome one would be too, well, Buick, for a GTO.
I vastly prefer it with chrome, and in 68 you can order the Endura delete to get it
I’m sure the body color was stunning back then but body color bumpers are just boring now.
I grew up in the Midwest in the 1950’s and in our house “pop” was allowed for special occasions only as it was considered a frivolous waste of money. 7-Up in the tiny bottles was in the fridge only for medicinal purposes as it was thought to settle the stomach.
However, my paternal grandparents loved pop and the new snack food items coming out then; I savor the memory of my first barbecue potato chips at their house. When my cousin and I (their only grandsons) stayed with them on week-ends the first thing my grandmother did was load up the kitchen with pop and our favorite snacks. She loved the original Vernor’s ginger ale and I remember the almost sinful pleasure of having it with dinner. Your description of it matches my memories. Grandma warned us not to gulp this pop and that it would “bite” us. I wasn’t that crazy about Redpop except over ice cream on hot summer days. My cousin loved Choc-Ola, a chocolate soda pop.
A best friend during my second year of college had a new 69 GTO in Verdero Green with a black vinyl top. Like this red 68 it was an automatic and had factory air conditioning. Beautiful cars that attracted favorable attention from everyone.
Joseph, as the West Coast shuts down again this week a lot of us out here are trying to think of better times and this piece really did the trick – thank you!
CA Guy, thank you for this. Regarding your last sentence, I suppose I then did my job. 🙂
The funny thing about my parents being so strict about pop was that my grandparents (loved reading your description of yours) would let us have root beer at the house sometimes, and if I recall correctly, my grandfather liked Royal Crown Cola.
I saw a GTO convertible of about that vintage in a very similar colour at a car show in Kissimmee, Florida about 5 years ago. The only difference was that The Judge was in town, as advertised in bright yellow letters. No matter. A classic GTO is always great to see, and I think Pontiac definitely beat out the other GM divisions for best looking mid-size. Always interesting to hear about things unique to a particular area, and talking about Vernor’s and Faygo brought back a few memories. I grew up not far from Detroit on the Canadian side, and I remember the Faygo commercials from the Seventies. I’ve had Faygo a few times – good stuff, and I remember one commercial with a whole chorus of people singing about Faygo Redpop on one of the Bob-Lo boats. The main theme was”Faygo Remembers”. And my late mother (born and raised in Windsor) loved Vernor’s. She said that her and my uncle would take the tunnel bus to Detroit sometimes just to get Vernor’s at a local fountain. She always had a stash of it at home (some of the local grocery stores carried it) and it definitely has its own unique flavour. Like revenge, best served cold. Anyway, thanks for another great story and pictures.
Wow. Such great stuff here. Your mention of Bob-Lo (I love amusement parks) just triggered something else. I’m going to save it for a later post. 🙂
Thanks, everyone. Writing this one was somewhat therapeutic for me. Hearing about your experiences with GTOs, regional sodas / pops, family members, and summer stuff was also like salve in the midst of one of the most (ahem) unique summers of my adult life. May we all come out of this okay on the other side.
I’m in love with this car! But then, to me the 1968 GM intermediates (2 door models) were beautiful and sporty. I liked most of this generation of intermediates (can’t remember if called G-bodies?) from 1968 – 1972. and this red GTO with or without covered headlights looks good to me.
The GM intermediates were called A-bodies. I believe that the G-body designation was applied to the 1969-72 Pontiac Grand Prix, which was obviously a derivative of the basic intermediate design, but had an extra stretched wheelbase.
In 1982, when GM introduced a new FWD intermediate design that was intended to replace (most of) the existing RWD lineup, but kept some of the older RWD models in production, the new FWDs took over the A-body designation, and the G-body designation was revived and applied to what was left of the RWDers. Some people seem to refer to any 1978-88 GM RWD intermediate as a G-body, especially the personal luxury coupes, but the designation technically only applied from 1982 on, and it applied to all RWD intermediates from those years (e.g., sedans, 1982-83 wagons), not just the PLCs.
Had a 68 burgandy 4 speed . High compression pistons ram air 3 cam,aluminum intake w/ 800 holley and headers. 355 posi hood tach black buckets consol hurst shifter w /t handel loved it sold when got drafted in 72.
Growing up in Toronto in the ‘60’s, we used to have a truck come down the street once a week and deliver pop door to door to his regular customers. You would give him your empties at the door and place your order. He would go out to his truck and fill your order. These were family size bottles and we would get a dozen at a time. He carried ginger ale, orange, Mio and Brio. We also had a fellow come down the street in a truck ringing a bell every block. When you heard the bell you would go out and get your knives sharpened by him. He had a big grinding wheel in the back of the truck. My American friends crack up laughing when they hear about the knife sharpening truck. I moved west of Toronto and to this very day we still have a knife sharpening truck come through the subdivision a few times a month. I don’t know how the poor guy makes a profit. I never see him with any customers.
My guess is that the knife sharpening guy may still drive the truck to keep active and to see folks, even if he doesn’t make many sales. That may be me some day, though I don’t know how that would translate to my current insurance/financial industry job.
And brio (I had to look it up) sounds great. From the description, it sounds like it tastes a little like an N/A, carbonated version of Aperol. This could be right up my alley if I can hunt some down.
There must be some good Italian pizza restaurants or grocery stores in your city. That is where you could find some Brio. I always thought that it tasted better out of a bottle then a can, but still delicious either way.
Great article! Most everyone loves red GTO’s and soda! I know what you mean, some particular brands of soft drink, err sodapop I mean, just taste different and better. We don’t have a local red soda here, I just drink Fanta Strawberry sometimes. Boring!
Gorgeous car and photos. GM really hit a home run with their 4 A-body coupes in 68, and all had their unique looks.
A Daniel Stern-type observation. I see this car has no shoulder belts, so was it built in late 1967 before the belts were mandated on 1/1/68, OR were they removed at some point if built later?
I can’t tell from the photo of the headliner whether there had once been a shoulder strap on the featured car. However, the 1967 Pontiacs (intermediate as well as full-size) had mounting points beneath the headliner for optional front-seat shoulder belts. Not sure whether this was true for other 1967 GM cars.
It was true for other 1967 GM cars — we had a 67 Chevy Bel Air and it was mentioned in the owner’s manual.
The late 60’s GTO, Chevelle, 442, and the Buick Regals were, IMHO, the top of the heap of GM muscle cars. I liked the Chevelle SS cars the best all around, but the plastic nosed GTO was a close second. But if I could go back in time to 1968 and get a new car, it wouldn’t be any of the GM cars, it would be a ’68 Charger R/T, red, no vinyl top, with black interior.
We weren’t much of a Faygo house back in those days. We got Red Pop once in a while, but our standard pops were Pepsi (me), Vernor’s(my sister), 7Up/Sprite/Teem (Dad, he couldn’t tell them apart), and Hires Root Beer for mom. If my sister couldn’t get Vernor’s, she usually wound up with Cream Soda of one brand or another. I wanted Pepsi all the time, and still do. Just one a week now, but if I found out I was going to go soon anyway, I would literally be drinking it every single meal, and in between. I love it that much. No Coke for me, Pepsi please! Strangely enough, when I lived in Vegas, and got free drinks while playing, I never got anything but “7Ip with a lot of ice!”. I guess it was because the “Pepsi” was Coke, or some off-brand stuff that didn’t taste right. Any lemon-lime pop tasted pretty much the same.
The 1968 Goat was a high point in Detroit history. The feature car is interesting, too. Besides the missing shoulder belts, A/C, and exposed headlights, it might have power windows, too. If all original, definitely an oddly optioned GTO.
My Girlfriend is from Jackson Michigan and makes me drink Verner’s whenever I’m sick. Best Ginger Ale you can buy. Beautiful pictures btw I think these and the 65’s were the best looking GTO’s especially without the hidden headlights. It’s great to see someone give Flint some love, it’s a town that’s been through a lot.
The lower left corner of the first interior photo shows a bit of the left rear window crank. As already noted, the shoulder belts may be missing simply because this car may have been built before 1 January 1968 when they became required as standard equipment.
Our family had a ’67 GTO – Linden Green hardtop with black vinyl roof, factory a/c, positraction, drum brakes all around, and automatic column shift – when these came out. Suddenly it seemed antiquated and crude (the visible parts, anyway; the drivetrain was pretty much unchanged). The ’68 offered crank vent windows, “hiding” wipers, fully vinyl-covered door interiors, a windshield that was no longer almost flat… what a shame that Radial Tuned Suspension was still 5 years away.
Don’t forget the big news for the 1968 GTO – the Endura front bumper. As someone else mentioned, ‘everything’ has a plastic front and rear bumper fascia today, but back in ’68, it was a first, and chrome bumpers would stay around for a while, at least through the seventies. It wouldn’t be until the eighties when plastic bumper covers would become the norm rather than the exception.
I still remember going to look at all the new cars in the fall each year with my Dad back in the day. The new Pontiac Endura front bumper I greatly liked at the time, and still do. I may have liked the all-new 1968 Charger better, but the GTO was my favorite GM car.
A family friend finally got married, and when we met his the fiancee, she was driving a red ’68 GTO. I swear it must have been the one and only “wild” thing she ever did in her entire life. In NW Ohio, it didn’t take long to rust up and by ’72, it was gone, replaced by a ’72 Cutlass, also red, but decidedly a weak sister to the GTO. She had their first kid just before the GTO went goodbye, and to continue her “non wild” ways, her kids got no soda, no candy, no cake, no ice cream, and basically no fun at all, they basically did school and sports and little else. They desperately wanted a dog, but mom was scared of them, to an almost insane degree.
But when they went to their aunt’s or uncle’s for holiday meals, they went totally crazy on anything with sugar in it. They chugged any pop they could get, even the ones nobody else liked, and would eat themselves sick on cake, ice cream, etc. We all warned their parents that when it came time for college, watch out, they would both “blow up” due to their fainally being able to eat anything and everything they wanted. We were right. The older kid, “Melissa”, went off to Ohio State and gained 20 pounds by Thanksgiving. When she showed up a little pudgy, mom and dad went ballistic. By the time she had graduated, she was back to her normal weight, but totally chugged Diet Coke like it actually tasted good!
And then it was time for her little brother, “Eric”, who at one time was highly sought after by colleges tennis player. He really went crazy, and his favorite pop was good old Faygo Red Pop. Another favorite was ice cream, from Baskin-Robbin’s preferably. Chocolate Chip, and Pink Bubble Gum. Lots of ice cream. He went up 50 pounds by the end of the school year and had hurt himself in a fall playing tennis that ended any hopes of a tennis career. His parents were beside themselves, whining about how they had paid for trainers, and driven him all over the place for matches, and “he ate it all away”. Mom nagged him and he eventually lost weight, to the point he appears to a cancer patient these days, sporting the “Skeletor Look” as we used to call it. Once the kids were gone, and her husband passed away, mom underwent a kind of transformation. First thing, she sold the house and bought a huge one, on the river, then came the first dog, a Beagle mix, then another one, a St. Bernard! And finally, at about 73 years old, a couple of years ago, she bought a Lexus RC-F, which she drives about as aggressively as someone pissed about something. And she has a new husband, 20 years younger than her who is a Red Pop addict. We always wondered how she tolerates his Red Pop habit, as she seemed to think pop was like….Satan in a bottle. Myself, not a Red Pop fan at all, in fact I would pass on any Faygo. If I want red pop, I go for Cheerwine, but 99% of the time, it’s plain old Pepsi for me, drinking it as I type this.
I neglected to address the regional soda/pop issue. I grew up with the many flavors of A-Treat (Allentown, PA), and more than once I drove a wooden case of one-quart glass bottles of their lemon soda all the way to my (then) home in Minnesota.