Foresight is a greatly underestimated quality. Back in the closing years of the '60s and the early years of the '70s, who would have known what would become valued automotive treasures over the next two decades? Kurt Goetting, a 63-year-old from El Paso, Texas, was one of the few with such a vision of the future, correctly realizing that high-performance Ponchos would one day be highly prized collectibles in the musclecar market
Kurt's interest in fast cars began primarily as a result of his hometown's proximity to Mexico. Just over the border in Juarez, Kurt remembers the days of the early '50s when an event known as La Carrera Panamerica attracted fast cars and drivers from the world over. "I drove down 80 miles below Juarez and got up on a hill. The highway was a little, dinky two-lane road. You could hear the Ferraris in the front, then came the Chryslers, Caddys, and so forth. In those days, they'd run all out, and that was a rough road ... I was in college, and we'd skip school to go see that race."
Despite the intense heat and...
Despite the intense heat and dry air on the U.S.-Mexico border, owner Kurt Goetting has saved this interior from "burning up like a tostado" by storing it out of the sun at all times.
But his love affair with cars actually stretches back before those days. As Kurt relates, "I liked cars back in the '40s. My dad had a '40 Pontiac before the war. The first thing after the war was a Buick, then he got Cadillacs. I grew up on a farm, and always had a pickup, but, of course, nobody paid any attention to those."
To attract some attention, Kurt built himself a pretty mean '53 Ford, but duty soon called, and he joined the Army. The love affair with Pontiac started after he returned to civilian life in the early '60s. "Pontiacs were always kind of a sleeper car, which got me interested in them. Probably the first real one I had that ran was a GTO. But what really got me into them was the Firebirds and Trans Ams."
Not only is it original, it's...
Not only is it original, it's powered by the legendary Ram Air IV 400. Replete with 67cc combustion chamber round port heads (cast 722), the Ram Air IV features a 308°/320° .520-inch lift cam, a 4-barrel Rochester carb, aluminum intake manifold with separate cast-iron heat crossover, free-flow exhaust manifolds and 4-bolt mains, and pumps out 345 hp and 430 lbs.-ft. of torque. All of that resides under the tattered Ram Air foam seal.
Well, Kurt began collecting Super Duty Trans Ams and Formulas, enough that we could go on for half the pages in this magazine, but those aren't the focus of this feature. Instead, one of Kurt's favorite cars caught our eye pretty quickly. It was a nearly all-original 1969 Ram Air IV GTO. Not just any Ram Air IV (as if you can really make such a statement), but one that had been given a touch of fine tuning by those famous folks from Royal Oak, Mich., the Royal Pontiac crew.
"When I found the car, I learned that the original owner had taken it to Royal Pontiac so it would be set up to really run. He used to race it, and told me that he turned a best of 12.83 at 112 mph. It has 4.30 gears in it, a 4-speed, power brakes and no power steering," Kurt recalls. From what Kurt was told by the original owner, Royal Pontiac gave it the basic "Bobcat" carburetor tune and distributor recurve. Although you could get more power through an all-out tuning package, the original owner apparently didn't shell out the bucks for Royal's full treatment on the GTO.
Kurt himself hasn't raced it, noting that he prefers the ease of automatics to the rigors of manual shifting. "That GTO is one of my favorite cars, but it's a handful with its Ram Air IV, tweaked carb and ignition, HD 4-speed and the stiff rear gears. With only one belt on the engine, it's strictly a hot rod."
Looks like a pretty well-restored...
Looks like a pretty well-restored example of a '69 GTO, doesn't it? It's not! Despite an early life on the drag strip, this 37,000-mile GTO is all-original and in great condition. Note the optional rear spoiler.
Probably the most amazing thing about this car, however, is its condition. You wouldn't associate the hot southern sun with nice paint and interiors, but Kurt is adamant about the way he cares for his cars, and his collection resides in a 10,000-square-foot garage. Rust isn't even a factor to be considered, especially given the dry air at the 4,000-foot elevation where Kurt lives. With only 37,000 miles on the odometer, this GTO still wears its original Claret Red paint, and Kurt's insistence that none of his cars be left out in the sun for extended periods has ensured that the Morrokide interior is immaculate.
"I drive 50 to 100 miles every month or so, and I also drop the oil every year on all my Pontiacs," he explains. He also says that when he has some of his collection out, the reaction he gets is usually one of disbelief. "People are very surprised a lot of times and can't believe how clean these cars are. They aren't perfect, though; there's no such thing as a perfect car." Unless perfect to you means perfectly maintained originality, which in this case is as close to perfection as you'd want a driven car to be.