tberg

Great looking Firebird. I always liked the early one's front end the best of all of the years. Have fun.

225 40 17 fronts 235 60 17 rears

Stopped by the shop to take a picture of the VIN tag so I could add the car to my insurance policy, and snapped a couple new pictures. Progress is being made (slowly) but the end is in sight. Paint is in the buffing and wet sanding stage right now. Hood was painted, and today, the hood tach gets painted. Wheels and new tires installed, barely a half inch of clearance to rear of front wheel well when steering wheel is turned heavily in either direction. Whew!

Thanks everyone. I can barely wait to be driving it. When we added disc brakes I had to upsize the wheels a bit. I wanted something that still look classic and somewhat period correct but thought the gold would look good against the green paint. I really like the way they look. Next stop, a real test drive.

Took the first photos of my goat out of paint this afternoon. Yesterday, I saw it before the clearcoat and the color while beautiful was lighter and more silvery than I expected. But today, with the clearcoat on it darkened the color to a perfect shade and very, very close to its original Verduro Green. Tomorrow the hood and hood mounted tach get painted and installed. One unexpected hiccup was when I went to the 17" gold wheels and ordered the tires that the shop told me the size needed to be back in November of last year, well today when they were mounted, they look incredible but they clip the rear of the front fender well. In order to use these wheels, I'm going to have to purchase a lower profile tire to clear the fender, so it's back to the tire shop tomorrow. Here are the first photos still in the paint shop so no bright sunshine shots yet.

Spoke to the shop owner today, and he told me that my Goat will be out of the paint booth by Tuesday afternoon, next week. I told him "I hope so as I'd like to drive it before I'm dead from the virus or otherwise." I'll be at the shop Tuesday afternoon with camera in hand, so hopefully that evening I'll have some new pictures of a completely painted GTO. Heavy, heavy anticipation....

For pure aural pleasure from the factory, the Jaguar F-type R or SVR are hard to beat, but for sheer primal volume, my 1972 De Tomaso Pantera is ferociously loud whether idling or w.o.t., a deep guttural scream.

Although my soon to be back to me GTO is a 50 year old dream car to me, I have several other cars that represent some other of my favorites. First, my weekend toy is a 1972 De Tomaso Pantera. When my desire for a midlife supercar came a callin' about 18 years ago, I didn't feel I could afford a Ferrari or its upkeep. I hated (and still dislike) anything Lamborghini since the Miura (they're just so ugly), so I bought a Pantera. Tom Tjaarda's original design was for me the best of the breed before the wide bodied, fender flared, Countach winged models of the 1980s through the early 1990s. I always thought the Pre L (1971-early 1972) cars were the best, most beautiful examples of classic Italian wedge design, and to this day I still think they stack up admirably to contemporary sports cars. And I figured with a Ford Mustang engine amidship, that maintenance costs would be reasonable. Well, I was wrong about the reasonable maintenance, and frankly, just starting the car was usually a 30 minute ritual, so I found myself almost never driving her. Especially when in 2013 when I bought my current daily driver, a 2010 5.0L Jaguar XKR, pulleyed and tuned to about 600hp, the XKR was quicker, more nimble (on the track and on the street), more comfortable, more reliable, and the Jag didn't care about external conditions like temperature or traffic, something the Pantera could not tolerate. I literally wasn't driving it a dozen miles per year. It was just an expensive paper weight. But it was so beautiful, that I decided about 6 years ago, that either I was going to make it a car I wanted to drive rather than resent driving or I was going to get rid of it. So, what started as a carburetor to fuel injection swap turned into a four year project to make it what I wanted in order to enjoy it. We transplanted a built 351 Cleveland with over 500hp, added cooling upgrades, tore out the entire interior and installed C-4 Corvette seats covered in diamond stitched leather, covered the dash, door panels, and firewall in the same themed leather, put flush windshield glass, headers and exhaust upgrades, some suspension and transmission upgrades, and now I drive it every weekend, and more importantly, it starts by just turning the key, something that had never happened in the past. It is now a gorgeous, high powered, luxurious sports car that is a pleasure to own and drive. And the attention it garners is something else. I'd be remiss if I didn't say that my daily driver, my 2010 XKR coupe isn't the best automobile I've ever owned. An Aston DB9 doppelganger (that outperforms the Aston), it is beautiful, reliable, quick, and comfortable and forced me to make my Pantera better. You can buy 5.0L XKRs on the used market now in the low to mid $20,000 range which makes it the best bargain priced luxury GT on the earth. My other Jaguar XKR which was previously my daily driver is a 2002 XKR convertible, of the prior generation. It is nowhere near the excellence of the 2010 car, not nearly as powerful, ride and handling are much poorer, and reliability was terrible, but it's so beautiful and wears it heritage link to the venerable XKE in looks everytime you look at the big cat. So for top down cruising in the Southern California sunshine, I've kept it in the stable. I have a couple of others of which I don't have current pictures, a 1958 Corvette which is undergoing a complete restomod on a modern chassis with a modern engine and transmission but that's still a couple of years from completion. I also have a 1978 Datsun 280Z which I've owned from new but which I never drive. It's been restored in the past but in need of another one and will be next up to get refreshed. Below are some pictures of the first three. Hope you enjoy them.

I think many of the '60's big Pontiacs were/are beautiful. I'd love to someday add to my collection with a Grand Prix from that era. My accountant has a collection of Bonnevilles and Catalinas. I find it odd that if you look at the value of full sized convertibles like the Lincoln Continental of the 1964-67 era and see how much in demand they are now, that an automaker wouldn't go out on a limb and design a new niche car like that or like your Catalina. It seems there would be a market.

Gorgeous!

That car is just beautiful, congratulations! My dad's first station wagon was a 1959 Catalina wagon that was just beautiful. I wish I still had it. Fond memories.

New to this forum and this is my first post. I have a 1968 Verduro Green GTO coming back from a body off restoration in the next couple of weeks. I can hardly stand the wait. Fifty years ago in high school, drawing pictures of the '68 Goat kept me awake in class for three years. School was easy and boring but the GTO was interesting and gorgeous. Although I have several interesting cars as well as a superb daily driver, the '68 Goat was always my favorite design of all time. I bought a nice driver about 10 years ago, and when I started seeing some small rust bubbles appear under the paint soon afterwards, and since I had a tenant who was restoring a car for my best friend's son, I decided to let him take apart my car to see what's what. After the car was completely taken apart, the guy left and the car sat for several years, disassembled. About a year and a half ago, I got a new body shop tenant who agreed to restore the car in exchange for rent. The car was supposed to be done by the end of last year but there was more rust repair and metal replacement. The car is in the paint booth now and should be out of paint by next week, afterwhich the interior goes back in and it gets test driven. I pretty much left if stock as I always loved it as it first appeared, however, I did add 4 wheel disc brakes and 17" wheels and tires. I'll post photos when it comes out of paint. As stated I have a few interesting cars including my daily driver, a 600hp 2010 Jaguar XKR (just a beautiful, reliable, quick DB9 look alike with better performance), my weekend canyon carver, a restored/modified '72 De Tomaso Pantera (a 500+hp missile powered go cart that's Nascar loud), a 2002 Jaguar XKR convertible for open top cruising, a 1978 Datsun 280Z that I've owned from new and will undergo its 3rd restoration after the GTO is done, a '58 Corvette undergoing a restomod complete restoration now which will take a few more years. Below are a few photos. I'll report back after the GTO is available.