1966 Pontiac GTO - Apt Pupil

While looking at photos of an absolutely straight, mirror-like early A-body like this 1966 GTO, it's hard to believe that a '60's-era, mass-produced vehicle can be made into such an impressive thing of beauty. As hobbyists, we have all seen restorations that run the gamut from very good to iffy at best. We know of this black art by name, but few of us know the difficult processes involved with one. Even fewer have the skills to accomplish the car hobby's Divine Resurrection. Up until a couple of years ago, Richard Walker didn't have those skills. Walker is a 45-year-old boiler operator from Twin Falls, Idaho who always yearned for an early GTO. In the late 1980s, he began searching for a suitable '65-66 as a project. After a near miss with the hesitant seller of a '65 Goat, fate smiled upon him.

"In August of 1989, I happened to be in a nearby town when I saw the '66 in front of an apartment complex, covered in dirt and leaves," Walker starts. "I left a note asking its owner to call me if he was interested in selling it, and the guy called me the next day. Jim Mott, a friend who owns a restoration shop, went with me so he could inspect it, and he seemed to think it was a good deal. So I bought it for $1,500."

When Richard got his Goat, the rear clip was pretty nice--but the rest of the Poncho was rough from the beatings that it had taken over the years. Initially, his multiple-owner GTO had been cared for, but it was when it fell into the devious hands of local hot-rodding teens that the damage was done. The original steering wheel had been pulled for an aftermarket unit, the Rally Is were gone, and the 4-speed's shifter had been replaced. But that was only the beginning to this headache--the motor that presently filled the engine bay was a '67 2-barrel example. At that time, there was no way to document a Pontiac through PHS, so Jim traced its history through five previous owners to a used-car lot in 1968. The GTO had a Tri-Power setup and Rally Is then, so they assumed that it came that way from the factory. And although they found out later from PHS that the '66 originally had a 4-barrel, they didn't mind building it with a Tri-Power setup that Richard found in New York State.

Walker's original plan was to make a driver out of his new purchase, so he bought a correct WS-code motor and sent it to nearby Dekker Machine in Jerome, Idaho in November of 1990 for machining.

Dekker disassembled the mill, bored the block .030-over, and line-bored it. The original crank was turned .010/.010, and they chamfered the oil holes in the journals. Once everything was cleaned up and balanced, all of the parts made their way over to Jim Mott Restorations, where Jim started the assembly. Mott got the crank installed, and forged TRW pistons were pressed to the stock rods. A full complement of TRW replacement parts made do where used-up stockers used to be, but Mott made every effort to keep the 389 as factory correct as possible. Comp Cams' reproduction 068 cam was purchased and installed, and replacement TRW pushrods were used to send marching orders to poly locked 1.5-ratio stamped-steel rockers located on 093 heads. The unported cylinder heads were treated to a three-angle valve job and loaded with TRW valves and Fel-Pro head gaskets keep the heads and the WS block separated. Walker's much-sought-after Tri-Power unit was the crowning touch.

The rest of the '66 was placed in the competent hands of Jim and his crew at JMR. Since the body was rough in spots, Richard found used doors, fenders, and a decklid at salvage yards to match the '66's original quarters, tail panel, roof, hood and bumpers. Mott painted the chassis, cleaned up the original brake and fuel lines, and plated and installed new suspension components. Once those areas were finished, Richard let an area shop go through the 3.55-geared Safe-T-Track rear end, and then Walker took his project to another local guy for the finishing bodywork and paint. After a few major body imperfections were taken care of, PPG's DBU basecoat and DAU clearcoat were applied, the latter lavishly. A '67 interior color was purchased since the correct 1966 metallic red kit wasn't available back then. Walker was in the process of buying many of the correct pieces for his Pontiac until Cupid came calling in 1995, and the near-finished GTO sat in storage as Richard met his future wife and was married.

Fast forward to 2000--Walker hadn't been working on his own Pontiac in years, but he had been spending quite a bit of time at Jim Mott Restorations since '95. As he watched restoration after immaculate restoration roll out of the shop, he realized the work that had been done on his Goat, while definitely good, wasn't up to his standards anymore. And Richard became dead serious about restoring his GTO to the best possible condition--something he would see to himself. Since he and Mott were friends, Jim allowed him to do as much of the work that he could do himself at the shop. Richard didn't know much about bodywork, but it didn't take long for him to learn how to sand, remove defects, and prime, and he soon got to work on the A-body's chassis. Mott, Mike Goudy and Luke Riegel disassembled the painted chassis and then primed it, and then Richard methodically wet-sanded out the entire frame, removing any dings or pits.

Next, Richard wielded sandpaper against the upper and lower front control arms, the rear control arms, and the differential. The suspension was rebuilt, and then new fuel and brake lines were installed. While Walker was busy making the Goat's underbelly more aesthetically pleasing, Jim pulled and disassembled the motor to re-detail it. A coat of catalyzed paint, which wouldn't burn off during those intense trips to redline, was applied. He then took the carbs off of the intake and disassembled them, replated the linkages and screws correctly, then shipped the carbs out to be recolored. The reassembly began, and Jim added as many correct pulleys and accessories as possible without going crazy with new-old stock parts. Once the freshened mill was back together, the original 4-barrel 1111078 distributor and date-coded wires were installed to fire Delco 45S plugs. And then came the hard part...

"Here was a car that had been painted 10 years before--it was nice, but it wasn't up to Richard's standards anymore," Mott explains. "And there was rust and oil all over the bottom of the body shell. The chassis was coming together, the body had been painted shiny black, but the bottom had never been touched. We had to figure out a way to get the bottom clean without hurting the paint."

So Jim and his crew wrapped the whole car into two or three baggies, rolled it out of the shop, and gave Richard a small sandblaster to strip the bottom of the car. It took him about two days to complete the job, then it was cleaned with compressed air, rolled back into the shop, and placed onto its side in the paint booth. A PPG DP-90 bare-metal sealer was sprayed on, then three coats of PPG K-36 primer was shot, after which Richard wet-sanded it and the primed firewall to perfection with 320- and 500-grit paper.

"I can't even estimate the amount of hours that he spent on just sanding," Jim exclaims. "People must think we're nuts!" As a finishing touch, JMR sprayed the bottom of the car with DP-90, as the black epoxy appears dull like the factory coating.

At this point, Richard had a gorgeous chassis and underside, but the paint just wasn't there. Walker had a budget to maintain, and Jim didn't want to undo the good work that was done before. They decided to improve upon the original paint job, so Jim started by searching out a few gallons of the out-of-production PPG DBU base and DAU clear. Richard's original bodyman had put a lot of clear onto the car, and with restorer Scott Tiemann's advice, Jim, Mike and Luke blocked the clear and base out with a longboard without using primer.

The basecoat was touched up in certain places, and then it was covered with 6 coats of clear. After it set up for a week, the crew wet-sanded it out with 600-grit paper and a 4-inch hard board that helped to cut and flatten the paint. From there, they stepped it up to 800-grit with rubber blocks, then 1000-, 1200-, 1500-, 2000-, and the hood and decklid got 2500-grit. Finally, a buffer was used with 3M's Perfect-It compound to polish the paint to a brilliant shine.

It was now time for the '66 to come together. In one day, JMR set the motor and 4-speed trans in the chassis, installed the driveshaft and Gardener exhaust, and set the body shell onto the frame, bolting it down with cleaned and zinc-plated bolts and washers.

With the Goat nearing completion, all of the glass and stainless trim was installed, the firewall was completed, and the under-dash wiring was connected. Since the correct orangish interior was now available from Ames Performance, Jim got a kit--but not before he received some reassurance that it was indeed the right color.

"Steve Ames owns a '66 Goat that is an original black car with a red interior," Mott reveals. "He took a kit and matched it to his original car for me to make sure that the metallic vinyl was correct and matched his car exactly." It did, and the metallic red that was unique to '65-66 Goats was fit into Walker's Pontiac. And so it went. JMR continued to assemble Walker's Pontiac from the firewall back. Jim went and confiscated the rest of the sheetmetal from the previous body shop, then did all of the bodywork and painting on the front clip. It was then that Richard started seriously thinking about showing the car, and he and Jim decided that a set of red fender liners would look great around the wheels. And speaking of the rollers, Jim and Richard also thought that Hurst wheels would really be killer on the Goat, and so in a week and a half the '66 went from a very nice GTO to a true masterpiece on timeless Hurst wheels.

The restoration was finished the night before the 2002 Tiger Run in Bend, Oregon, and after the ebony eye-catcher was loaded back onto the trailer, Walker drove away with the best in class, best engine, Jim Wanger's choice, and best of show awards for his troubles.

Richard has only been able to rack up a paltry 11 miles since his baby was completed in May, but he is looking forward to spending hours behind the wheel. His friend Jim is as impressed with the underside of the big A-body as anything else, a fact that he attributes to Richard's extraordinary patience and attention to detail.

"I was amazed at the patience Richard showed in making every bit of his car perfect," Mott says. "He did a lot of what it took to make this GTO look good, and he deserves a lot of credit for it." We think so too. That's why this '66 earned HPP's Editor's Choice award at the GTOAA Nationals in Denver.