1967 Pontiac GTO XXX Movie Car - XXX-Rated

Once all of the Pontiacs had been purchased, they found their way into Paul's 10,000-square-foot shop, which features hydraulic lifts, a wood shop for custom fabrication, and 'every kind of tool you can imagine.' His normal staff, usually around ten people, was bolstered to 20 to make sure that the project was finished in a timely manner. The ethereal A-bodies were days away from stardom, but they soon learned that sacrifice is the only way to make it in L.A.

"Initially, someone mentioned that they wanted to put Chevy engines in all of the GTOs because in Prague, where "XXX" takes place, you can't get Pontiac engines. Two motors were then pulled to make room for ZZ4 Chevy 350s, but due to cost requirements, pure Pontiac mills stayed in the rest of the cars. Initially, we thought that the stunt vehicles had the Chevy motors, but those examples didn't show any damage to the frames after filming, so we think they were the main picture cars that were used for the close-up shots. The Pontiac motors may have been in the stunt cars!

"It took us a month to finish the five to seven cars, which is more than enough time, so we took the time to make sure that they would be right. We drained the fuel tanks, cleaned the bodies and frames up, and checked the suspensions, brakes, nuts, bolts, and lines. We put line-locks on all of the cars and converted them to 4-wheel discs. We put electric doors on, did all of the bodywork, installed triple shocks, and welded a steel bar across the engines with 4-inch tubing. The stick cars were converted to automatics, since stuntmen don't like sticks. All of the GTOs were in good shape when we bought them, but for some reason every one of them was an electrical nightmare. I think we spent more time chasing those problems than we did building the vehicles! We finally just put in cutoff switches.

"The movie's director, Rob Cohen, picked a DuPont color that they wanted for the cars, and they sent down a sample chip for us to order. Problem was, it was a sample--DuPont had no intention of producing that color for at least another year."

Paul quickly contacted the folks at House of Kolor, who matched his sample to an in-house hue called Dazzleberry. The paint was then overnighted to Paul. Crisis averted and paint purchased, a gallon of color was used on each Pontiac, followed by a gallon of clear. E.P. Industries finished well ahead of schedule, and five to seven beautiful Pontiacs rolled out of Paul's production facility and were shipped to Prague for filming.

Of course, if you've seen the stunts that these Goats pulled off in "XXX," you know that this can't be a happy ending. Special effects crews "modified" the movie cars with hood scoops and 'side exhaust straight out of the 1970s before sending them out to create the kind of action that makes hormonally crazed teens squeal--think General Lee here, folks. And don't think about it too hard--some of these had to be numbers-matching examples, and the others, even if they did have Chevy engines, were still classics. Oh, the humanity.

"They were really abused, I heard that the crew went through 200 sets of tires," Paul reveals. "After filming, some of the cars that had been badly damaged were just left in Prague. As for the rest, one sold on eBay, I'll bet Revolution Studios has some, and we built a few clones."

As our summer draws to a close, we still aren't sure about the whereabouts of all of the XXX A-bodies. Paul's partner George Barris added a little "show biz" to three of the GTOs-rockets, flames, weapons and sidepipes-and these became display cars. A couple built by another company are touring the shows this summer, the gaudy add-ons still present and the hoods still down. The most attention has been paid to what has been verified to be a LeMans that was for sale on eBay. This Chevy-motored example was put up for sale by Rainmakers, an L.A. company that sells movie props through popular channels like the Internet site. Kurt Brenlinger of Rainmakers claims that this example was one of the stunt vehicles for the film, and it recently sold for $38,300, ZZ4 and all. As for the others, they seem to be hiding under the radar for now. Perhaps some will return for the obligatory sequel, which may be released as early as the fall of 2004.

There is no doubt that the rubber-burning Goats bumped the excitement level of this flick up a notch--which means there is no reason not to include them in the sequel. Is it possible that the new GTO could be sharing screen time with another action hero for part deux? Keep dreaming and hope for more summer hype.