1965 Pontiac GTO

My name is Tom, and I live in Antwerp, Belgium (Europe).

I Have a 1965 Pontiac GTO Coupe. Has a 1967 400ci YS engine, 670 heads, TH 400 Automatic His & Hers Shifter.

It came to Europe from California, imported to the Netherlands in 2011 and was sold a year later to someone I knew in Belgium.

This guy had the car a few years before he wrecked it, and it was stored into a storage box. He always said he would fix it, but unfortunately nothing happened, due to parts that were hard to find in Europe.

Back then I had a 1968 Mustang Coupe, but was looking for a project car to work on as a hobby and sell it for profit. After about 2 years the owner put it on sale, because he needed the money to start a business.

I saw his advertisement on Facebook Market place, and I knew it was something special. Pontiac GTO’s are hard to find in Europe, especially a 1965 model. Mostly, if you come across GTO’s at USA Car meetings, they are 1966 and up.

So, I jumped on it, we agreed over the price and it was mine that was in 2018.

Once it was mine, I stripped the car completely and brought it over to a body shop. It was not drivable, so had to tow it. Hardest part for this project was finding replacement parts.

Body was solid, and there was no rust to it.

Back then I only knew OPGI for parts for a 1965 model. But even they did not have everything I needed. So, I contacted a salvage company in USA over Facebook, who could provide me the parts that I needed.

About one year later the body work was done, and the car was put back in its original factory color which I love, Silver Blue Irid.

Back in the USA someone put a two-tone black / orange color on the vehicle.

Once I got the car back, I started to assemble the car again. Chromework was send off to Poland to restore the chrome. It had some dents, scratches and pitting ..

Now that the car was drivable again, I stumbled that the engine was not running like I wanted. I knew there was some racing history so it was not really comfortable driving the car on the streets.

I took out the engine, and completely rebuild it but swapped out the racing cam for a 068 flat tapped cam. So it became more drivable.

The engine was rebuilt in the past bored over 0.030 and had been glyptol threated. Most of the internal component were renewed with parts from Rockauto (did not know about butler performance).

New oil pump, piston rings, bearings, gaskets, waterpump,…

Now the car is a good driver, and has a lot of power.

In the future I would like to upgrade some performance components, like a roller cam, ported heads from butler.

I have the car now 8 years, and it is a real eye catcher here when I arrive at car meetings.
The question that I get a lot, do I sell the car. Now it first became a project to earn some money on it. But instead, I had sold my 1968 Mustang. As soon as the restoration got along, I got a bond with it. And loved it more and more.

So, I kept it ! Will I ever sell this car ? You never know what life brings. But at this moment its not a priority. I’m a car guy since i was a litte boy, I also own a 1972 Corvette Convertible with a 350ci. And a 2022 Audi TTRS.

I love riding with my fellow car friends to car shows, which all have exclusive USA cars. And hope I can enjoy it as long as I can.

You can follow me (the car especially) on Instagram @blue65gto

Greetings from Belgium !

Tom