Car Porn

Look like a TT-LS, that would move along nicely.

 

Or at least roast tires in a huge haze of smoke on it's way to 60...

 

I miss those days. I haven't seen a decent burnout in decades.

We'd scavenge some pretty decent tires from behind the gas station where friends worked and roast them off in a couple of weeks. There were very few cars we drove that wouldn't bury the car in a cloud.

 

Here ya go.
Little grainy, but it's mine during the "Black Phase".

 

And I can imagine the roar of the engine, the screech of shredding tires, and the smell of roasting asphalt. Thank you...

 

The "black phase" comment got me thinking about how my Pontiac has changed over the years. I bought the car in 1998 shortly after meeting the girl that would become my wife. We have so many memories of going places and doing things together in that car, that I could never sell it. I know it's a cliché, but I literally bought it from a guy in rural SE Ohio who had it parked in his barn for 25 years. It had a Georgia plate on it and the title came up as stolen. The seller had to sign a lot of paperwork to establish that he really owned the car before I could get a title in my name. Anyway, we winched it directly from the barn onto my buddy's trailer and it went to his shop to get it roadworthy.

The car had a seized Pontiac 350, a TH350 trans, and an open 3.08:1 rear end out of a Camaro. The only thing the indicated that the car was special was the 400 grills. Otherwise, it looked like just a basic 350 car with a bad resale red respray. We rebuilt the trans and dropped in a (heavily) used 455 that he had lying around. We also replaced the factory shocks, did a brake job, and changed lots of other little parts (belts, hoses, lines, etc.). I drove it like that for a few years. The 455 was tired and smoked a little during highway cruising, but I was out of cash so we just had fun going to neighborhood cruise-ins and driving it locally.

Here's a picture form '98 after this first round of work and a lot of cleaning:



Between 1998 and 2003 I did lots of little upgrades to the car. It had tons of body issues, but hardly any of these were due to rust. During the whole title debacle, we learned that a few years after the car was purchased new, it was stolen by some guys who went joy riding and ended up damaging nearly every body panel before crashing hard into a drainage ditch. They then stripped the car of it's entire drivetrain and dumped it in a field. The owner had already received payment from his insurance company before the car was recovered, but he bought the wreck back from them and this is the most likely cause for the title confusion (all paper records in 1973). Rather than spending money to fix the car the right way, he cobbled it together with junkyard parts, added tons of body filler, and painted it red in his driveway before selling it to the barn guy. It stopped running almost immediately, and sat there waiting for me for 25 years. I started buying sheet metal and other parts for a "restoration", and improved some mechanical stuff during this period. Here's a picture in 2002 after I upgraded the suspension and ditched the 14" wheels in favor of some 15" Cragers to fit with the aftermarket front disk brakes:



At this point my wife and I had been married for couple of years, and both careers were doing well enough that I decided it was time to spend some money to get the car ready for longer road trips. The plan was to fix the body issues, redo the paint, and swap in a fresh motor. I wanted to do lots of other stuff. but the budget was finite. During the restoration I also got PHS documentation on the car, and found out what it really was. It's a Ram Air car that came with a close ratio Muncie and 390:1 gears - one of 376. The only other option ordered was a console. Somebody wanted to go fast. The original color was verdoro green with a standard black interior, and the vinyl top must have been one of those undocumented assembly line things because it wasn't on the build sheet.

The new paint and body work weren't great - I was traveling a lot for work, and the body shop was left unsupervised and kind of ripped me off a little. We ended up with a mechanically solid 20-footer that I wasn't afraid to drive anywhere. I returned the car to it's original color, but chose to leave to top as-is for budget reasons. I also decided to change the car back to a manual transmission, so we installed a Tremec TKO. I couldn't afford, and probably couldn't have found a correct Ram Air motor and air intake parts, so I went with a built 428 and a reproduction 400 hood. Everyone goes with 455s, but I like to be different. There are also a some advantages to the shorter stroke for a road trip car. I used lots of reproduction sheet metal because that's what I could afford at the time, and I also redid the interior with decent repop stuff.

Rather than doing a big shakedown with my wife, a good friend and I took it on the 2003 Power Tour. This turned out to be the correct decision because we fragged the Camaro rear end almost immediately and had to scramble to get it fixed in Memphis before completing the Long Haul. We made some life-long friends there. I had planned to replace the gears anyway, so after the Power Tour I swapped in a 12-bolt with 3:23s and a limited slip. Here's a picture in front of our previous house the day before leaving for the Power Tour:



We drove the car basically like this for 14 years. It got lots of upgrades and repairs over that period, but it was a solid and reliable performer and we drove it everywhere. It went on three more Power Tour Long Hauls, to countless shows and cruise-ins, and on many day-trips all over Ohio. I drove it to work when the weather was good, and it went back and forth to Pittsburgh many times to visit family and friends. Unfortunately, the crappy paint and body work from 2003 didn't hold up well. The imperfections had always bothered me, and now the paint was starting to bubble in places. It cost so much to restore a car at that point that I couldn't justify the expense. My wile and I talked it over, and we decided to let the car go. The plan was to drive up to the Pontiac Nationals in Norwalk, and put a "for sale" sign on it. I was getting ready to pull out of the driveway that morning when my wife came running out of the house crying and telling me "please don't sell our car". Okay...challenge accepted.

In 2017 I took the car back to the same shop that had always worked on it when I couldn't. They had moved to a bigger facility, and now did full restoration work. We went all in on the body. It was structurally solid and didn't need a rotisserie, but the the drivetrain and interior were removed and the body was stripped to bare metal. The damage form the 1973 joyride was worse than we knew. Other that a little rust in the floor and under the vinyl top, the issues were all abuse related. Other than the drivers-side fender, there wasn't an original panel on the car that hadn't been dented and mudded, or incorrectly replaced with reproduction stuff in 2003. I got replacement metal from a donor car, and bought a factory 400 hood from a guy that worked at the shop. In addition to the hood, the car got one fender, the front and rear valances, both rockers, both quarters, and the entire roof from the donor. It also got reproduction door skins and the original deck lid that was removed in 2003 and replaced with a cheap repop because it had a Camaro spoiler crudely bolted to it to hide a dent. I went with a 2-stage version of verdoro green, and this time we left the vinyl top off. It may have come off the line that way, but now the body matches the build sheet.

After finding out the car's pedigree, I have always tried to make it look close to factory and period correct, while only adding upgrades and changes that could easily be removed if a numbers matching restoration ever happens. It's won't be me that does it, but it just makes me feel better to not cut it up. The drivetrain is one of those bolt-on things, so I kept it the way I like it: 428/TKO/12-bolt. Since the motor was out and had over 50k on it since the 2003 rebuild, it was time for a refresh. This evolved into a full rebuild with a bunch of performance upgrades. It still has the factory crank - one of the reasons for a 428 - but has Eagle H-beam rods, forged pistons, and a custom ground roller cam. The block also got the full Pontiac-specific prep, with oiling upgrades and deburring. I never saw the need for aluminum heads, and I like the period correct look, so it's running heavily ported 6X iron units with every upgrade you can think of. We added port fuel injection, and the Edelbrock manifold is also heavily ported to match the heads. I also wanted manifolds instead of headers because of the way we use the car, so I went with a ported and extrude-honed set of reproduction Ram Air manifolds - like the car would have had when new. It's a pretty rowdy setup for hooning around, but will also purr down the highway all day at any speed you like. Here's a picture taken early this November before the weather changed:



The car is totally dialed in now. The only problem is that the new paint and body make me afraid to park it anywhere. I used to go grocery shopping in it, and we never hesitated to stay at a hotel with it parked outside. Nice paint causes stress, and has changed the way we use the car. We're getting ready to move back to PA in the spring, and I have plans to build a shop with room for a couple more cars. I think I may have to build something else for Power Tour and other overnight road trips that isn't so nice or important to us, and keep the Bird for day trips and cruise-ins. It's a good problem to have. For now, the car is buttoned up for the winter, and the next time I drive it will likely be a one-way trip to the new house.

 

I sympathize with the comment about new paint and body. The only car I've built to show quality was hard to enjoy after sinking all the effort and money into it. I'll never do that to a car again.

 

Very cool story and congrats for staying the course.

Mine was originally Code 75 Cranberry Red when I became the 2nd owner in the late 70s.
In the mid-80s the body was done and on went '86 GM Black Metallic.
Great color and it lasted almost 40 years till the old acrylic lacquer problems started up about 5 years ago.

I retired last year after a 40 year career and it was a good excuse to gift myself painting the Nova.
Lined up my paint guy a year in advance and it was completed early Spring this year. Stripes went on a few months later after curing.
Back to the original Cranberry Red.

Had some wicked flashbacks first couple times out.

First wife threw her engagement ring at me after a fight, and while sitting in the car, I wanted to see if diamonds really scratch glass.
Still have the scratches top of windshield drivers side.

 

Feels like Rutger Hauer should be chasing you on a deserted highway in this car.

 

My bud has a 71 Mach 1 with 351 and 4speed. He gets sideways all the time and all the EVs have idea what just happened...