Sizing Up The Project
Though he is someone who can make the impossible look easy, Imran is not one to blindly jump into a project. With this new direction in mind, he sought every bit of information he could find on the '73 GTO prototypes. He got on eBay and started buying up every magazine that even mentioned the '73 455 Super-Duty GTO, including the legendary April '73 issue of Hi-Performance Cars magazine that boldly proclaimed the 455 SD GTO its "Car of the Year." He also located and purchased factory literature and a service manual. He pored over the grainy black-and-white photos and diagrams to learn every detail possible on the prototype and put together a plan for the restoration's new direction.
Several people also provided information for the project. The late John Sawruk came through with a variety of details and specifications; and the writings of Tom Nell and Tom Goad also came in very handy. HPP's own Rocky Rotella and yours truly provided intake manifold research, Ram Air information, and other tidbits.
Imran also enlisted the help of many members of the A-Body Site (www.abodysite.com), a clearing house of information on '73-'77 LeMans, GTO, Grand Am, and Can Am models, with a few Buicks and Oldsmobiles thrown in for good measure. Pretty soon, the game plan emerged.
The car would become a replica of the long-since destroyed prototype, down to the four-speed transmission, specific decals, and baby-moon hubcaps. It would not necessarily represent a possible production version as it is unknown what changes would have been made, but there is a pretty good record of how the pre-production version was configured.
Coincidentally, and unknown to Imran at the time he purchased it, the Hi-Performance Cars magazine test car was also Ascot Silver, lending a sort of cosmic permission to the project.
As one might expect, finding parts was a big challenge. This is perhaps one of the toughest Pontiacs to get parts for. The GTO was itself a one-year-only option package on this generation body, not many were made, and most potential parts cars-LeMans or otherwise-have long since rusted out and were scrapped. Not only that, the prices of 455 Super-Duty parts have skyrocketed in the last few years, so finding NOS parts for this particular car was very difficult.
The block was actually a local find, a '74 casting coded for a four-speed. With that handled, it was off to locate the rest-a correct set of early '73 No. 16 heads and the correct No. 485225 forged rods in Maryland, an intake manifold and a set of exhaust manifolds in Pennsylvania, and a carb not far from his home.
Imran's searches on eBay also turned up some other hard-to-find items necessary for the restoration, including myriad NOS parts, weatherstripping, taillamps and side-marker lamps, bumper strips, wheel-opening moldings, and hubcaps, as well as windshield-washer-fluid and radiator-overflow tanks. He even managed to locate a set of NOS stripes, but unsure that they would adhere to the paint, he had them duplicated locally. Imran estimates that he has over $60,000 invested in NOS materials for this restoration. Whether it's Canadian dollars or American greenbacks, that's a lot of scratch.
The stock body was in remarkably good original condition, especially considering it had always been a northeastern car. The body panels were massaged and painted by Paul & Jason Gallant of Welland, Ontario, using a Sikkens basecoat/clearcoat system. Per 2010 Canadian regulations, the basecoat is actually a water-based paint, while the clearcoat thins with solvent. The results are spectacular-the body-fit and straightness are absolute perfection.