Classic GTO Convertible

GM produced 72 287 Pontiac GTO cars for the1969 modell year. Among them were 7 436 Convertibles, and only 2 415 got 400 cui engine, and 4 speed manual transmission.

This particular car was ordered in 12/19/68 at a Colorado Pontiac dealer.

The restoration took around 2 500 hours to make it look like it is today. One of my earlier collegue helped me to restore it. We are both engineers specialised on restoring classic vehicles.

We wanted it to look, and run like it was rolling off the production line. The car has all the accessories that the first owner ordered for it. This we know from the dealer's order sheet, that we got from Pontiac Historic Service.

But there are some minor changes on the car. These are the following: It has 15" wheels, and a hood tach. These both were options in 69, but originally was not installed on this particular car. The carburettor is also a 4 barrel Quadrajet, as the original, but this one is from 1971. It was installed when I bought the car, so we rebuilt it, and put it back on. The headers are from a Ram Air engine. I decided to keep them, because they were the best factory applications those days. I also installed a HEI (High Energy Induction) ignition for safe and reliable running. So these three parts were not on the option list in '69 as far as I know.

All the other parts are rebuilt, or new, but same as original. We wanted to keep as many original parts (of course after restoration) as possible.

Originally this GTO was green (Midnight green), and the interior was also green, but the previous owner started to turn it all black. I thought a legendary sports car like this should be red. The color we used is the original '69 Matador Red color.

I took the car for FIVA certification in 2017. FIVA (Fédération Internationale des Véhicules Anciens - the headquarter is in France) is an international organization that is very well acknowledged in Europe. They certify cars according to very strict viewpoints. They examine how original the car is, and what is the state of restoration. I get all the max points, and many gratulations. :)

The car won 1st prize in it’s category at the Central European Oldtimer Show in Budapest, in April 2018.