Dave Russell

Here are a couple of shots of the first mods I have made to my newly acquired 65 LeMans. The original steering wheel had suffered the effects of many years in the California sun so it had to go. I found a Grant repro wheel that looks good and has a rim that is a bit thicker than the original "skinny Minnie". It was an easy install and guess what- the horn works, amazing. The next item to get replaced was the shifter. The stock one is quite short and the detent button was awkward to the point where shifting manually was tricky. I replaced it with a Lokar shifter that came with their new "Muscle Car" knob setup. This one is a big improvement on the stock unit, it's about 11 inches long and has a very short throw compared to the original. Manual shifting on the turbo 400 is way easier and more precise.....nice work Lokar! Installation was not too bad, I had to relieve the tranny tunnel a bit and fab up a cover when the shifter was in place. The worst part was the RE & RE of the console. There are a big bunch of wires under there for the audio stuff and I was worried that I would get it all buttoned up and find out something wasn't working. I was lucky. If you have a Lokar shifter you can retro fit this knob to your old unit. I don't think you will fool anybody into thinking you have a manual but you never know. I like it because it works.

This Car is definitely a LeMans with a 389 so I guess the 389 was added at sometime later. The engine was made a couple of months before the car and the car has many options so I thought maybe Pontiac was like Chev and if you knew the dealer you could get just about any combination. ( I worked at a Chev dealer back then) I don't have much information about the car, it was sold at the Mecum Anaheim auction Nov 16th 2012 and in Dec it went to Al & Eds Autosound in Hollywood for a very high end install which included Focal speakers, Alpine amps, Kenwood subs and a Rockford Fosgate processor along with dynamat throughout and a Clifford alarm system. Somebody spent a big wad on that install! I would really like to know more about the cars history so if anyone out there knows the car please share the info. Thanks- Dave

I recently bought a 65 LeMans convt that has a 389 and lots of options. Could you order a LeMans with a 389?