TBT…

Sigh… digging through pictures and found this. May of 68, according to the note on the back.

I miss that GTO, 389 tri-power, 4spd M-21 tranny, no power, no air. Gold with a black vinyl top and black vinyl interior. It would ROAST your butt in the summer. And  turning it was a ‘treat’ with no power steering and those thin steering wheels, but that car was just flat FUN!

And it would run! Grandpa and I had done a ‘little’ work on the engine…

Comments

TBT… — 29 Comments

  1. A buddy of mine had a goat in the seventies. I don’t recall the details but I do remember that overheating was a problems.
    It did have a bunch of get up and go!

  2. Mom had a ’67 Pontiac Tempest. To me, a bit more handsome in the grillework. 3 door, 326 c.i. Loved the way that baby drove.

  3. I had a ’66 Buick Skylark GS convertible. Red. Brakes were so-so (although excellent for the time) – but it could go. 401 nailhead, Carter mechanical four barrel, 3 on thhe floor (why not 4? The intermediate shaft of the GM 4 speed that year couldn’t take the torque, and the power band was wide enough you didn’t need 4), Detroit locker. As you say, no power anything (except the top). Sold it for three times what I bought it for in 1994, when my son got his license — he’d have killed himself with it. Still miss it!

  4. I expect that a lot of us old men wish we’d have kept those cars. Me included of course. I had a 69 Mustang…sigh…with a 390 under the hood. It was not efficient and it drank gasoline, but damn.

    • Of course, today I have a 2014 Ford Raptor with a 6.2L V8 (roughly a 378 cu in) engine and I make do with the pick up.

  5. My fastest car, a 1963 Galaxy 300 (the cheapest one) with a 427 cu V-8 and 4 speed transmission. It did have a heater and windshield wipers but nothing else. Per Colorado Courtesy Patrol (now Highway Patrol) it went through a speed trap at 150 mph. Not bad at 4,900 ASL. Sold it just before going into the Army. No regrets. I had transitioned to weird unreliable European cars (Fiat Abarth Zagato 750), a car I regret not keeping.

  6. Very nice GTO! I couldn’t afford such a machine back then but had friends with a ’67 GTO, ’69 Z28, ’69 Chevelle SS396 with the high HP motor in it, and a ’67 Chevy II with a 327 that had had ‘some’ work done to it. And I parted together a Chevy 302 with four bolt main, solid lifter cam, cross ram manifold and two Holley 650cfm carbs and stuck it in an old Anglia with an Oldsmobile 4.88 positrac rear end and drove it on the street. It was pretty quick!
    Good times, and or we had only been smart enough to buy three or four hemi Cudas and set them aside!

    • A friend owned a ’68 GTO (400? CI engine, quad carb) and came down to the Chicago ‘burbs for a visit. I drove back with him and managed to get a ticket for 88 in a 70 near Madison, WI. Mercifully they weren’t watching from the airplane when I floored it before the traffic stop. 120 in a 70 might have gotten a bit more than a few months grounding from my Dad.

      Horrible color green, but a fun car to drive.

  7. 1971 Challenger, stock 383 2-barrel carb, upgraded to 440 with Thermoquad. Glasspak mufflers and man did it sound good when you stomped on it. 7 mpg if I was hitting it hard and I’d trade my new car for it in a heartbeat. (I’d swap out the Thermoquad though if I got it back. It would stall if I took a corner too hard.)

  8. The first vehicle I drove with power steering was a 5 ton army truck, the old M52 with the fifth wheel. I had to drive one once that had the power steering pump go out. Talk about fun to steer.

  9. All- I’d LOVE to have 1/2 the cars that were in my high school parking lot today. I’d be rich! Cudas, Mustangs, GTOs, and Chevelles. And the pickups! C-10s, F-100s, sigh…

    Thanks for the comments, and yes they would ALL get up and go, but stopping…was sometimes an ‘adventure’…

  10. I had a ’68 Olds 442, similarly accessorized… which means nothing that didn’t make it GO. Loved it.
    I now own a 454 cubic inch ’70 Corvette that delivers 390hp at the crank. Our new Taurus SHO with 363hp measured at the (4)WHEELS would absolutely blow both cars into the weeds!
    But a buddy had a 421 Bonneville with Tri-Power, and the sound of air being sucked into those three carbs was worth the price of admission.
    Today’s cars, including our Taurus, are Borrrrrrrrrrring.

  11. Hey Old NFO;

    The older car have characters but as far as safety stuff went was “lacking’, on the flipside, the new cars will keep you much safer and are more efficient, but have no soul.

  12. I had a 67 Plymouth Fury III it had a 383 with a Holley four pumper.
    It had the police interceptor auto transmission. I had it up to 110 mph.

  13. Notice how all of the comments say ‘had’ – that means none of those cars exist anymore – at least not in our hands. If we knew then what we do now we’d all be multimillionaires driving Rolls Royces or Ferraris.
    I’ll just have to make do with my current auto and ‘moped’.

  14. All- Yep, we were stupid and let them get away… of course we didn’t know any better back then either! And yes, today’s cars blow them away with ease, but as Bob said, today they don’t have any soul!

    Posted from my iPhone.

  15. What work did you and Grandpa do? Cam? Headers?

    I’ve been a dyed-in-the-wool Pontiac guy since the 1970 Trans Am came out.

    Had a fully blueprinted, Carillo Rod equipped, Ram Air IV that I built in my 1973 T/A.

    Ran 13 flat at 118MPH on the strip, but was set up for road racing.

  16. Had a friend in HS that bought a ’65 GTO about 1970, that he was told was a boxstock NHRA record holder. Tri-power 4spd. The only obvious mod was the sliding linkage to the secondary carbs was filled in, so the carbs opened early. Supposedly smashed the record by a full second. Memory is fuzzy, but something like a 12.28/quarter mile. That car, on the street, would just stomp all over the typical 4bbl GTO.

    A year or so later, he traded it in on a new Chevy Nova 350. Offered it to me for ~$1100, IIRC. Very clean, straight car.

  17. ’68 Cutlass SS
    350cid small-block V8
    DRUM brakes
    BIAS PLY tires
    Yeah, you learned a lot about physics with that combination.

  18. My factory hotrod was a ’71 Mustang 429 SCJ (Super Cobra Jet). Ram Air, 4.11 Detroit Locker, Fairbanks modified C6 AUTOMATIC from the factory. (special order due to the buyer only having one arm)
    Utube videos of that engine package in various Fords dyno at a bit over 500 hp.
    Getting that thing launched was a study in frustration, unless it was running a set of slicks. With slicks at Atco drags in NJ, it ran flat 11’s. Street tires at Fremont Drag in CA, mid 14’s at 107mph. Spun the tires to the lights on the primaries, where it finally hooked up, and instantly spun them when I opened the secondaries. 10-12mpg on the highway, 5mpg around town.
    Next owner hit a guardrail when he spun the tires shifting into high gear. He parted it out. I could put my fist into the intake ports of the heads. The heads were worth more than the car was, in the early 80’s when I saw the remains. Last I saw, the auto version was worth ~$80k.

  19. Grew up around the epitome of muscle/Trans Am cars.
    Kinda lost my desire for solid rear axles, drum brakes and such. Working on a carburetor is almost as bad as drum brakes.
    Still…

  20. Paid $2400 for the ’62 Vett in ’66. Last time I saw one for sale, they wanted $40,000.

  21. I took my 1970 Camaro on the Tail of the Dragon two weekends ago..what a hoot! My son behind me in his G35. Both of us want to go back.

  22. drjim- Decked the heads, cam, Headman headers, high flow exhaust. 80/20 front shocks. Ran mid/low 13s on M&H cheaters.

    Will- I only did that for the track, because the mileage went to about 6MPG…sigh Ouch on the SCJ, but not surprising. They WOULD get out from under you in a hurry!

    Stretch-LOL Yep!

    Boat- Point, but I ‘learned’ how to do Holly carbs!

    Skip- Yep, those were the days!

    Differ- That is a NICE little car you’ve got there! Glad to hear from you!