1965 Pontiac GTO - Subtle Yet Savage

While it sounds as if Chris had all his ducks in a row, it was quite the contrary. After receiving the body from Vice's Collision, he plunged into a burnout phase and moved on to other projects. For five years the '65 sat, waiting for the day Chris would begin again, renewed. In the interim, he was constantly pestered by his friends about his half-baked Poncho. "I didn't want to rush it," he says. "This GTO was going to be my keeper. I was building it to be the car I would never sell." As such, he decided to go with the philosophy of "all good things come to those who wait," and so it was in 2004 that this good thing was jumpstarted!

With the chassis work previously completed and the body straight, the motor was the next cog in the wheel to grease. A healthy 455 was cherry picked out of a '72 Grand Prix SJ and deemed a good starting point upon which Smedding Performance in Rancho Cordova, California, would base a buildup. Up top you'll find an 850-cfm Holley carb, with a Performer RPM manifold underneath. Gasket-matched GTO No. 16 heads are bolted on either side, the internals replaced with stainless 2.11/1.77 valves, hardened seats, and bronze guides after a pocket porting was completed. A Crower cam with 296/305 degrees of duration and 0.510/0.525 lift (108 degrees LSA) bumps steel pushrods from the same manufacturer, along with Comp 1.5 rockers and springs.

The 455 grew to 462 cubes with a 0.030 overbore to clean up the cylinder walls. Its nodular iron crankshaft was fitted with Crower forged steel rods and custom Ross dished pistons to drop compression to 9.5:1.

Keeping everything well lubricated--even in the turns due to the suspension mods--a baffled oil pan is secured to the bottom of the engine. Working in its confines is a Milodon high-volume oil pump and larger pickup.

To keep the fires lit, a Joe Hunt magneto look-alike electronic distributor with an internal coil sends pulses down MSD wires to Autolite plugs. After the explosion, the spent fumes rush through Ram Air exhaust manifolds, down 21/2-inch mandrel-bent galvanized steel tubes to Flowmaster three-chamber mufflers, and out of 2.5-inch tails. The entire system was custom bent by Si Standridge of American muffler in Roseville, California.

Transferring the twist to the 12-bolt is a '70 Muncie M20 with aid from a Centerforce Dual-Disc clutch and a Hays billet flywheel wrapped in a blow-proof bellhousing, all assembled by Rich Grob. Thanks to a stock '65 GTO Hurst shifter poking from the center console, mixing gears is made easy.

With the engine work completed, the next pairs of hands to touch the car belonged to Phil Nemanic and John Caveza at Greater Sierra Upholstery in Rocklin, California. While an Ames carpet and interior kit was employed to replace worn stock items, for a one-of-a-kind look, Chris picked up a set of swap-meet-special Toyota Celica GT buckets and had Phil and John recover them in black vinyl. Utilizing new cloth inserts found in the Z-24 Cavalier, the rear and front seats were matched to the paint through the maroon zigzags dotting the landscape of the material.