Car Porn

Love me some Mopar but this looks Photoshopped

 

The back right tire is not that wide, if you look close enough you can see the left front tire in that angle.

 

1970

 

1969

 

1968

 

1968

 

1969

 

1970

 

I prefer the 1968, but like the front end of the '69 better. The front of the '70 doesn't work for me.

 

Definitely like 68 and 69 more than 70 too.

 

I like the 68 because of the round taillights. I might have a picture of my friends he sold back in the day and I kick myself every time I see one.

 

I stand corrected on the 69 model taillights. I’m still torn between the two designs from round in 68 to the 69-70 taillights. I do lean more towards the round but the other design is pretty sweet.

I don’t think I’ve posted this one. I ran into this guy local to me this past summer. He scored two real barn find Chargers from the same owner. Both 383 cars and this one was in better shape. So he sold the other which paid for the purchase of both. Essentially he got this Charger for free.

They sat in a barn for 30 some years. This one all he did was clean it up, buff the original paint, add wheels and tires and the rear stripe. A true survivor car.

 

This makes me even more tired of all the blacked out cars out there. Muscle cars were colorful! I know so many guys who changed their interiors to black and pulled any colored vinyl tops they had. And why change the original paint to black, or worse, resale red? Blasphemy!!! Mine stays green...

 

PaulK, I agree, nothing better than going with the original color on current restorations of muscle cars. Back in the day when I had my 1969 Ram Air GTO a buddy of mine talked me into going the custom route with black with blue pearl and Centerline wheels. Back then this color combo turned heads big time. If I were to do it again I’d go with the original factory color the car was born with. As you know the Ram Air IV motor option was super rare with only 759 built in 1969 GTO’s . Come to find out the original color of mine was super rare as well. Espresso Brown. Super rare in the GTO line up but even more rare optioned with the Ram Air IV motor. Back when I had the car this color wasn’t my favorite but today I love it. Gives the GTO a bit more sophistication dressed in Espresso.

Heres the Espresso Brown color mine came as. By the way this is what a stock Ram Air IV motor sounds like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=AJVitcnZoKc

 

Pontiacs all have that similar sound. Mine's about the same, but it's going to get louder soon because I'm going from 2.5" to 3" exhaust. It also idles at 1000 rpm because the low manifold vacuum makes the EFI computer unhappy. It still sounds about like yours at 1k, but I can also drop it down to 800 using the app on my phone when I roll into cruise-ins for that extra racy sound if I want.

Very nice car, by the way. I have a friend with a '71 espresso GTO. It's in pieces at the moment, but I drove it once back in the early 90's. It has a 428, turbo 400, 12-bolt combination.

 

Yeah, I agree Pontiac’s have a distinct sound. The RAM Air IV motor had a radical high lift cam from the factory with round port high flowing heads. That’s why it was such a fast revving high output motor. The one in the video is not mine, I was just showing the Espresso Brown color mine originally was and the sound a Ram Air IV motor makes straight from the factory. I never even put aftermarket headers or after market exhaust and it sounded like that. It had factory headers, factory aluminum intake. All the race goodies straight from the factory. I used to get a kick out of beating some one in a race and having them peek under the hood afterwards. Obviously looking for nitrous which wasn’t there. But what was funny is their reaction at not seeing aftermarket headers was priceless. You had to really know what you weee looking at to realize they were factory cast tuned headers.

 

My Firebird is (was) a documented Ram Air 1 car that came with the close ratio Muncie and 3:90 gears...and not much else. Someone ordered it for racing, and I have the build sheet. It did have a console and a radio, so it was probably for street racing, but no power steering or brakes, no extra trim, standard interior...pretty bare bones. I don't have any of the original RA1 stuff. The car was stolen and stripped long before I got it, and we were already in the process of putting in the 428 and Tremec when I found out what I had. That changed my plans from cutting and welding to bolt-ons only, and we returned it to a somewhat factory appearance. During this most recent restoration we added a set of Ram Air Restorations long branch manifolds. The car would have come with them originally, so it's legit to put them on now. The restorations flow better than stock but look the same except for the larger 2.5" collectors. I had mine extrude honed, ported to match the exhaust ports on my heads (which are also heavily ported), and then ceramic coated inside and out. I'm sure that they still restrict flow a little as compared to the big tube headers I used to run, but it's not really noticeable and they look cool.

I am now looking into the possibility of adding back the Ram Air intake parts. On a '68 that's basically a pan around the air cleaner, a plate for it to meet up to on the underside of the hood, and a seal. I have always run open hood scoops for heat management. I now have an Edelbrock ProFlo4 port EFI system sitting on a ported Torker2 manifold. It's higher than the factory manifold, so the RA pan would need to be modified to fit. I would like to do it for the look and as a tribute to what the car used to be, but it would actually restrict flow. I know a guy with another real RA1 car that's all original, and he removed the rubber seal from his pan because the motor needed more air. He's an aeronautical engineer and actually measured the pressure drop inside the air cleaner pan at speed to prove what he suspected. They look cool, but the scoops are too small and the center of the hood is a low pressure area. cowl induction or bigger scoops at the front (like on the second gen Formula cars) would have been better.

 

One of the nicest Pontiac radiator caps I’ve ever seen

 

I am looking for a genuine or reproduction Knafel Pontiac Dealership Badge. Even a picture that is better than this one could help if I try to recreate one via 3D printing. Any help would be appreciated.