After owning over 100 Pontiacs, how can any one of them be so special to Andre Rayman that he's kept it for nearly three decades? He says that his isn't just any Pontiac: It's a special-order Tiger Gold, Tri-Power, four-speed, 3.55 Safe-T-Track, '66 GTO that still has its numbers-matching drivetrain. Following over 20 years of stockpiling NOS and good used parts, and a year of restoration and subtle modification, his golden Goat is on the road and out at the shows. But this story begins when Second-GenT/As could be had with turbos, a can of Coke was 50 cents, and playing Space Invaders on your Atari 2600 capped a perfect Saturday night.
Owner Andre Rayman thought,...
Owner Andre Rayman thought, What better way to set off Tiger Gold than with a set of vintage 14x6 Hurst wheels? Diamondback applied the red lines to a set of 225/70R14 Firestone Firehawks, providing a vintage look with modern performance.
In the summer of 1980, Andre just dodged disaster when he flipped his '67 Camaro on its roof. Escaping unscathed, he began looking for a replacement for his fallen F-body. As a high school student with an obsession for performance, power, and style, a GTO fit the bill. The search began, but in the '80s car searches were limited to classified ads in newspapers and specialty mags, or passing by a car lot that had an eclectic selection. In a stroke of luck, a Tiger Gold '66 GTO popped up for sale in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. "It was rusty-well, very rusty-but it ran and it drove," Andre jests. Recognizing the rarity of the limited-production color originally sprayed on the three-duece, 389-powered Goat, he took it home for $750.
After a year of serving as daily transportation to and from college, the engine and transmission were tired. The original 389 was bored 0.060 over and a low-budget rebuild was performed. "The compression was a little too steep, and I had to run high-octane fuel," Andre recalls. "It would still have some detonation even when I did that." This was a problem he addressed on the next build, but it wasn't to occur for another couple of decades. With the engine and trans back in working order, he had the body-rust repaired and painted over the factory gold with red.
By 1985 the well-worn Pontiac was retired from road duty. "After that, I just took it wherever I moved; at one point, I even had it on my back porch," Andre recalls. He began to accumulate parts to one day restore it in the way he had always dreamed. As the years progressed, Andre harvested good parts from a stable of Pontiacs he had collected. While most of these Ponchos were never-to-drive-again rust buckets, they contributed to his various other project cars, and some parts were sold to finance those projects.
Tiger Gold was born of the...
Tiger Gold was born of the relationship between Hurst and Pontiac, and it was first seen on a '65 GTO giveaway car. It was a special-order color for late-'65 through '67.
The '66 lay dormant as he forged ahead with a handful of other cars, including GTOs, a Bonneville, a Catalina, and a LeMans. In 2000, Steve Dietz got in touch with him about a pair of seatbelts Andre was harboring in his parts stash. The conversation led to Steve restoring Andre's '69 GTO. Impressed by the quality of his work, he felt comfortable giving him his '64 convertible that was in need of an extensive restoration. "Once the '64 was completed, Steve opened his shop, Florida Pontiac, in Stuart. We began kicking around the idea of restoring my '66; we started it in October 2005."
Looks
After all the years of collecting, the number of parts that Andre had sitting around for his '66 was simply astounding. It was finally time to begin the long-overdue restoration and install them. The body was in very rough shape, and although sitting for so long had taken its toll on the engine, bodywork was first on the list. When Steve assessed the Goat's condition, it became apparent that the hood, the fenders, the radiator support, both doors, and the trunk floor needed to be replaced. Fresh peproduction metal was sourced, while Steve resurrected the remaining panels with crafty bodywork.
Once everything was smoothed out, Steve manned the spray gun to apply PPG DP50 Epoxy Primer and K38 High Build Primer Surfacer. The GTO was block-sanded three times before K93 Tintable Primer Surfacer/Sealer was sprayed. Five coats of Standox base and four coats of PPG clear followed.