1964 Pontiac GTO - The Gold Standard

Many hobbyists own classic musclecars to savor the visceral experience of driving a carbureted and glasspack'd creature of the past. These relics allow us to relive those days when it was up to us to make the noise in the neighborhood and lay the rubber on the clean pavement of yesteryear. For Craig Gibney of Orangeville, Pennsylvania, the return to hydraulic flat-tappet fun started with a quest for the black '64 Goat of his youth, but the Pontiac he would eventually find didn't take him to cruise-ins; it took him to Concours Gold.

Craig's first exposure to Pontiac's potent performer involved his friend Bill "Bo" Bogdanske, who drove an Alamo Beige Goat rolling on Keystone Klassic wheels. Hooked on the Pontiac styling cues, Craig was soon behind the wheel of his first GTO, but breaking parts and paying for new ones grew tiring. After five years of ownership, Craig sold the Goat and bought a '73 Grand Prix.

In the coming years, Craig would swap that Grand Prix for the '77 model he still owns today, 358,000 miles and all. The GTO bug, however, bit again in 1984 and he set out to look for that black '64 GTO of his past. Try as he might, Craig couldn't locate a suitable black GTO, let alone a '64 anywhere close to him.

It was mere coincidence that he drove down a side street and passed a building with a bunch of old Ponchos out front on his way home from work one summer day in 1985. The owner wasn't there, but the neighbor told Craig to stop by the following week, which he did. "He had a few newer Pontiacs he was looking to sell, but the GTO was a different story. It seemed like you kind of had to prove yourself to him before he would sell you that car," said Craig. The man about whom Gibney speaks is Gerald Reinard, who has quite a few desireable Ponchos stashed away in his collection.

Reinard had five GTOs at the time, one of which was the '64 you see here. "It dawned on me that I had never seen a two-tone GTO before, and I had also never seen one with an automatic, let alone a column-shift," noted Craig. After sitting for five years, the old Goat fired right up and Gibney took his project home, where he did what any good husband would do, evict his wife Janet's car from the garage.

Craig's friend Doug happened to own an original '69 Boss 429 Mustang and urged him to restore the car to original condition. At the time, Craig wasn't aware of the intense originality of his car, and his initial efforts to restore it did more harm than good. A heated power washer blasted the years of dust and dirt off, but it also removed some factory decals and tags. He managed to break the original remote-controlled rearview mirror as well, so he decided to switch to a slower gear and take his time. This would entail building another garage in the backyard and conducting extensive research on Pontiac's original musclecar.

Gibney had heard that many GTOs are fakes, so before he dumped a boatload of coin into the restoration, he wanted to make sure he had the real deal. He began documenting the parts and pieces of his GTO, making note of any codes, colors, or other markings that detailed each item. He also discovered the GTOAA and POCI. He joined both and began attending their annual events. Mike Guess was one of the club members who allowed Craig to crawl underneath his Marimba Red Goat and take as many notes as he needed. This education, along with help from the then newly-established Pontiac Historic Services (www.phs-online.com), verified his Pontiac to be an original Gran Turismo Omologato.

As the identity search went on, Craig realized that the majority of the parts (right down to the spark plug wires) on the Pontiac were indeed the original items and had never been changed. He had to go the original restoration route now. By 1990, Gibney knew exactly what he wanted and set out to accomplish his goal. His first order of business was to find a reputable body shop. "We live out here in rural Pennsylvania, and at the time, there weren't a lot of shops that would perform restorations," he said. Dave Hargraves Auto Body in Berwick, Pennsylvania, was recommended, and Craig had him paint his '77 Grand Prix in black lacquer to check out his handiwork. Happy with the result, Craig and Dave embarked on the GTO's renovation. While a restoration in and of itself is not usually that interesting, the way this one was guided is. Craig, who by this time was employed as a consultant, stopped by one of the companies he worked with and noted that they used a gloss meter for quality assurance in their finishing process. "They agreed to let me use one for my project and told me to be really careful with it." The gloss meters cost around $3,000 to replace, but Craig was careful and used the gloss meter to determine the degree of sheen on his GTO's various panels and surfaces. He also crosschecked his results by testing other low-mileage Goats. Talk about going the extra mile. In addition to this method, Gibney often found himself drawing parts of the car to note the various factory markings so that they could be duplicated after the body, frame, and drivetrain were reassembled.

Craig and Dave Hargraves worked together test-shooting panels until they got exactly the finish they were looking for. They also repainted the Pontiac's original Grenadier Red (Code V) and Cameo Ivory (Code C) hues using several coats of Dupont acrylic lacquer as it offered a more authentic shine. Hargraves restored the Parchment interior (Code 219) by dyeing the factory seat covers, door panels, and headliner. The factory dash pad and kick panels were merely cleaned and reinstalled.

Drivetrain-wise, the Poncho was left alone aside from a quality detailing and/or painting of the components. The Code 79J, 389ci motor features a four-barrel Carter 500-cfm carburetor (Code 3649S), a cast-iron intake (casting 9770274), and "716" D-port cylinder heads sporting 1.92-intake and 1.66-exhaust valves. The 68cc combustion chambers contribute to the high-octane-lead-fuel-friendly 10.75:1 compression ratio. Cam specs check in at 273/289 degrees duration with .410/.413 lift, the fire is lit by a Delco points distributor (Code 1111054), and standard iron exhaust manifolds (Codes 545467/9779442) dump into dual exhaust. All of these specs result in 325 gross horsepower.

Gear changes in the Super Turbine 300 (Code J), Pontiac's equivalent of the Powerglide, are conducted via column shift (a rarity for a GTO) and transmit torque to the Safe-T-Track-equipped and 3.23-geared 10-bolt rear. Craig removed the intake manifold to repaint the valley pan and had the valve covers rechromed, but other than fluid changes, the drivetrain is as it came off the assembly line with some external detailing.

Considering the extent to which Craig wanted to carry out this restoration, it is easy to understand why the whole process took so long. Toward the end, Dave and Craig hurried the operation in order to make the '99 GTOAA Nationals in McAfee, New Jersey. The rush to get the Goat there in time paid off, as Gibney came home with Concours Gold. He almost came home with a pile of Pontiac parts though, as this had been the first time he ever trailered something, and an improperly positioned Pontiac made the rig extremely unstable.

Unsure of his towing prowess and obviously not wanting to damage what took him so long to restore, Craig let the GTO sit for another four years until he got the nerve to hitch up and head to Columbus, Ohio, for the GTOAA Nationals in 2003. There, the two-tone '64 took Gold for the second time and took home Best Restored honors as well. Having the tongue weight properly set on the trailer made it a much more enjoyable expedition.

Where does one go from here, you might wonder? During this GTO's restoration, Craig never gave up looking for that black-on-black, four-speed Goat and one day he found it. Though not nearly as original as his Grenadier Red coupe, this one more closely resembles the car of his youth. However, Craig only knows one way to restore a car, and it must live up to the Gold Standard.

ABOUT THE RESTORATION
Factors that greatly contributed to the quality of this GTO's restoration included all of the details that were uncovered during teardown, which were faithfully replicated. Here are a few interesting ones in no particular order. --Thomas A. DeMauro