The First Car He Bought at 17 Was a 1967 GTO With Super-Rare Features; He Still Drives It
Photo: YouTube/The Story Behind The Car
Tom Gallaher’s The Story Behind the Car YouTube venture brings us some truly outstanding machines, each with a fabulous story, but very few – if any – could compete with this GTO. The owner bought it in high school, but it wasn’t his first car. That honor goes to a 1967 Le Mans, which he inherited a year before.
However, how many gearheads can place their right hand on the air cleaner lid of their beloved automobile and swear that it was the first one they bought many years ago? Not so many, I’m sure, but John Grissom is one of them. And not only does he still have the automobile, but he also treats it with the respect and care it deserves. In return, he gets to drive it every weekend and whenever a car show is at hand.
A few days ago, the St. Louis Car Museum held its sixth annual car show, and John was there to showcase his Tiger GOAT. No, it’s not a monstrous crossbreed, but two of the nicknames the Pontiac GTO received – one from the Pontiac Motor Division and the latter from its fans. The name most associated with the muscle car movement of the sixties, the GTO, is long gone, and so is Pontiac, unfortunately.
Photo: YouTube/The Story Behind The Car
However, the examples still among us will keep the banner waving until no one is left on Planet Piston to salute it. Given its options, John Grissom’s example is not only a stunner to gaze at but also a rare one. Right off the bat, the Plum Mist livery – a new color introduced for the 1967 model year – is a one-in-forty-seven.
Out of the 81,772 GTOs assembled for the second year of the nameplate’s production as a separate model, the vast majority (67,176) were hardtops, just like this one here. Nearly half of the Pontiac muscle cars of that year had an automatic transmission (almost 42,600). Still, only 13,827 came with the mean 360-hp High-Output V8.
The 400 cubic inches (6.6 liters) of Pontiac mono-block power came from the four-barrel carburetor and the 10.75:1 compression. It was the absolute top of the game in the mid-size line of Pontiacs and the second-best overall, after the famous 376-hp, 428-cube (7.0-liter) in the Grand Prix. Pontiac translated cubic inches into liters as ‘6.5-litre,’ probably because of the 4.12 x 3.75-inch cylinder size.
Photo: YouTube/The Story Behind The Car
The big engine measures exactly 399.95 cubic inches or 6,553.98 cubic centimeters in absolute numbers. John’s V8, on the other hand, got a thirty-over bore job, so now it measures 405.8 cubes (6,649.8446 CCs, to be dead accurate). The owner also installed a hotter cam, so the 360 hp and 438 lb-ft (365 PS, 594 Nm) that the factory quoted aren’t valid anymore.
The story of the car is heart-melting – John shared many hours with his father working on the car before he passed away. His grandmother (his father’s mother) helped him get through the pain and grief, overcoming her own sorrow after losing not only a son but also a brother in half a year. However, the woman found the resources to see that her grandson would take care of the car and made him a deal: she’d help with the money, but he’d have to get the car restored.
John tells the story best, so play the video and hear him remember all the downs and ups of the frame-off renovation. He got an offer from a restorer to do the car, but at 35 bucks an hour and about one thousand hours of work, it was well out of John’s budget at the time. Nonetheless, he soldiered on and finished the job.
Photo: YouTube/The Story Behind The Car
He still takes the car out to its most natural environment from time to time—namely, the speedway, where he scored a 14.34-second quarter-mile sprint (with his son in the car as a passenger), trapping 95 miles per hour (153 kph). Because it is an automatic—with a dual-gate shifter, either for full manual control or smooth automatic gear meshing—and also has air conditioning, the rear-end gearing is 3.55.
I noted that this car is rare, but the color isn’t the only scare feature: the cruise control is not something commonly found in 1967 Pontiac GTOs, and the Wire Wheel Discs are also cool and seldom seen. The former are original to the car, by the way; that’s how John bought it from the original buyer. The interior is redone—the entire restoration project required 15 months (it was a one-man operation, working 30 hours every week).
Currently, the odometer reads 28,654 miles (46,114 km). Still, you need to add the 100k miles (161k kilometers) that the milometer doesn’t show after it rolled over. Nonetheless, it is a super-good-looking GTO with a fantastic story, and it’s worth every dollar, dime, and nickel John spent on it so far.
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