1967 Pontiac GTO - Second Time's A Charm

"This is amazing," I blurted when the initial shock wore off. I had just perused the photo album that had landed on the nearly unreachable top portion of my inbox. The thick brown book that accompanied this Goat's technical information contained over a hundred restoration pictures of a spotless 1967 GTO convertible--which in itself wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Tech sheets that include restoration documentation are the norm around our Saddle Brook office. But owners who powdercoat every mechanical component of their formerly show-winning Pontiacs, connect them with gold-plated bolts, then spring the rolling exclamation-maker on unsuspecting automotive journalists don't come along that often.

This story chronicles the rise of a truly amazing GTO. Perhaps the most comprehensive visual and emotional statement on four wheels that we've ever seen, no compromises were made to a Goat that was pretty damn nice when Rick Last bought it back in 1995. But as we found out, this 50-year-old owner of a construction company and a restoration shop would perform two restorations before it was up to his standards. Which begged the question, what exactly motivates a guy to go completely overboard on a Tin Indian?

"I owned Pontiacs when I was a kid," the Downers Grove, Ill. denizen explains. "I had a Catalina and a LeMans, but I could never afford a GTO. As time went by I got married and had kids, and I thought the days of playing with cars were over. I was a workaholic for the next 30 years. My wife got worried that I was going to keel over, so she told me to get a hobby to help me relax. So I bought a GTO."

And it wasn't your average auto trader purchase--Rick selected an unmolested, numbers-matching 1967 convertible, purchased from the Volo Auto Museum for $13,000. It was mildly optioned with an automatic trans, Rally gauges, a console, air conditioning, and whitewall tires. He quickly realized that the droptop, although nice, wouldn't keep up with the neighborhood's Goat-driving Joneses. And so Rick embarked on the first restoration mere months after the purchase.

"My wife Betty was shocked when I started to disassemble the car," he laughs. The two-year project wrapped up in 1997, and Rick's handiwork yielded several Best of Show awards and a time of 13.76 at the drag strip. His '67's first restoration was body-on, since at that time Last wasn't really aware of what a frame-off restoration was. But that was about to change.

"During the first restoration of my GTO, I discovered a real need for a shop that was dependable, reliable, honest and qualified to professionally paint and restore musclecars," Rick reveals. "I have been taken by restoration shops in the past. That was one of the reasons why I became half owner of "Best of Show, Inc." in 1997. And because I had opened the shop, I was going to restore my Goat to the absolute highest standards possible."

Spurred on by that motivation, the GTO's body and frame parted ways in 1999. Rick quickly stripped both to the nuts and bolts, then had the frame completely molded and galvanized. Stiffeners like the transmission crossmember and the rear crossmember reinforcement brackets were cleaned up and powdercoated. The differential was smoothed and filled. Upper shock brackets were ceramic coated and loaded with stock replacement shocks. The 455's 1.75-inch headers got ceramic coating as well, as did the driveshaft loop and the gas tank straps. A custom 3-inch stainless exhaust, which utilizes Hooker mufflers, was Jet-Hot coated. Boxed upper and lower control arms were installed, along with upper and lower A-arms, springs, and upgraded 1.25-inch front and 1.125-inch rear stabilizer bars, all of which were powdercoated. The remainder of the stock front suspension was coated and reinstalled as well, and polyurethane bushings all the way around ensure crisp suspension travel.

Stainless steel brake lines snake down from the master cylinder to factory drum assemblies that feature powdercoated front and rear backing plates, coated rear drums and aluminum front drums. A hidden .50-inch fuel line in the frame is stainless as well, and it shuttles the good stuff from a powdercoated gas tank to the motor. The fuel system utilizes a mechanical Holley pump up front and a Carter electric unit mounted above the differential, and a bypass valve allows mechanical-only operation until Last flips a switch hidden under the dash.

With underpinnings this decked out, you can only imagine what the '67's body was going through. Regardless of its condition before the second restoration, each panel was unbolted until nothing but the shell was left. Whatever lingering imperfections were immediately taken care of, and all of the body panels were polyester coated. Typical of a concours-type vehicle, not many modifications were made to the arrow-straight body. But Last did smooth and fill the front inner fender wells, and he hand-cut the louvers in the hood scoop. Once things were to his liking, Rick painted the body with four coats of PPG's K-38 primer. Apparently not one to skimp on the colored stuff, he followed with seven coats of burgundy PPG polyurethane and then PPG clear. Both the paint and the clearcoat were wet-sanded with textures from 800- to 3500-grit to create a mirror-smooth reflection.

Along with nothing less than perfect underpinnings and bodywork, Rick had a very specific performance level in mind for his project--tripping the traps in 11 seconds with the two-ton Goat. Even more challenging, this motor would have to meet those goals while still looking completely stock on the outside. For this task, he enlisted Ken Crocie of H-O Racing.

A service replacement (for a big car) 428 block with high nickel content was a substantial starting point for the buildup. Originally supplied to owners who had blown a motor, this beefy 1967 casting had no engine code stamped into it. Rick stamped it with the code from his original mill, and the new block accompanied a nodular-iron 455 crank to the machine shop.

The hard parts were machined by Bishop-Buehl Engineering in West Covina, Calif. They bored the block .035 inches to 4.155, and the 455 crankshaft's rod journals were ground to 2.20 inches to accept forged Eagle rods originally destined for a (Gasp!) Chevy. 4-bolt caps were called upon to keep the crank in place when the pedal goes down, and Ross' number XL412-2 Chevy pistons and pins get the distinction of hanging on through 4.21 inches of stroke travel. Encircling them are Speed-Pro plasma-moly top and ductile-iron second rings, which contain the fury of the 11.11:1 compression ratio in the 78cc combustion chambers.

An XE294H-10 flat tappet cam from Comp Cams was chosen for this application, and it possesses some pretty serious numbers: .519-/.524-inch intake and exhaust lift, and 250o/256o duration at .050. Strangely enough, however, this isn't the cam that was installed.

The truth is, Ken Crocie feels that we can't handle the truth regarding the cam's specs. And don't ask Rick what they are, because he doesn't know, either!

"The cam specs, as stated, are not true," Last reveals. "And the rocker arms do have a 1.50:1 ratio, but Ken has higher lift numbers in the lobe of the cam. He felt a higher rocker ratio would put more stress on the rocker arms and studs, so he made up for it in the lobes. Ken won't tell me what's really in there."

We can only guess how cantankerous this puppy gets when it bangs out the bumps (and the vacuum canister behind the driver's side headlights makes it an educated one), but since the folks at H-O are the only ones who know, they took no chances with an inferior valvetrain. R/A-IV pushrods pass the orders on to Crane roller rockers, which had to be modified to work with the Comp Cams valve springs. The 2.11/1.77-inch Ferrea valves live and work in a set of fully prepped #670 castings that feature extensive porting and a five-angle valve job. No further information was provided for the heads either, except for the fact that an ex-NASCAR machinist with a few tricks up his sleeve did the grinding and externally they still look like they just came from the factory.

Sculpting was done on the stock 1967 intake manifold as well, and it features a plenum divider that was shaved .875-inch. Sitting atop the intake, the original 750-cfm Rochester Quadrajet was enhanced by, among other things, a Power Kit by H-O. Rods, springs, a ton of work and about $700 later, Rick had a 'factory' 820-cfm carb capable of feeding the beast.

A Pontiac distributor with an MSD cap and coil lights all of that fuel and air. But you would have to tear the body apart to find the MSD box hidden somewhere behind the smoothed and filled firewall. The added spark isn't lost with 34o of timing at 2200 rpm, and it gets routed to each cylinder by way of silicone wires and Bosch plugs. An oversized radiator core keeps the 455 cool, every conceivable bracket and pulley is powdercoated, and all of the vacuum lines are stainless steel. And that, folks, is just the motor!

A T.R.S.-built Turbo-400 backs up this dynamic doppelganger. Credit for getting the big Poncho going with maximum force goes to its hardened gears, a shift kit and a 3200-stall converter from Midwest. The finned aluminum pan keeps the red stuff cool, and for consistency's sake, the trans case was powdercoated as well. A carbon-fiber driveshaft keeps the party going back to a differential sporting 3.90 gears and an Auburn posi, and things get hazy after the power hits 315mm BFG drag radial rubber wrapped in 17x9-inch Cragar rims with 7 inches of backspacing.

Rick wasted no time dropping that heavenly body onto the spotless chassis. Once that was finished he tore into the interior, rewiring the Rally gauges and clock. Black replacement carpet provides eye-popping contrast to the parchment buckets, which sport retractable front belts. A hand-fit, custom convertible top boot was made and installed, and this lightning-fast six-month project was finished in May of 2000.

Of course, it didn't take the '67 long to pull in some pretty serious awards. The GTO rarely placed lower than first after its initial restoration (it won Best of Show in ISCA's Competition and Antique Restored classes in 1998), so you can imagine how it did after the second. Last took home a slew of first-place trophies from GTOAA, POCI, Woodward, and ISCA shows. And one of his most impressive achievements was netting a 2000 Gold Award in POCI's Modified Class by accumulating 398 points out of a total of 400!

That elusive 11-second timeslip came after he dropped the Goat's front stabilizer bar one day at the track. The extra weight transfer achieved during launch helped him break his old record of 12.02 with an 11.98 ET at 110!

And while we're on the subject of racing, it's about time we got an explanation of why a guy would want to build a completely stock-looking, high-horsepower 455.

Simple, Rick says, he wanted to fool a friend.

"I have this buddy who I race with, and we were both running the same times at the track. Sometimes he would win, sometimes I would take it. When the motor was built, there were times when he would come over and we wouldn't go into the garage on purpose. So I get it installed, get the car done, and head to the track. I let him win the first time, and I act like I'm tuning it between rounds. I pull out a low 13 the next time up, and he runs a high 13. He comes over and congratulates me, and I say that the track must really be hooking. And the best part is, he is the head technical inspector of a Pontiac club, and he couldn't tell that I had changed anything! So we line them up again, and I pull mid-12s--he goes high 13 again. Back in the pits he's incredulous, and I'm still playing it cool, talking about good traction. The last time up, I went low 12s, and his exact words were 'What the hell have you done to your car?'"

Besides create a new standard to which all classic Pontiacs can now be measured, not a thing.

Photography by the owner and Larry DeLay; Restoration photos courtesy of the owner