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It all started when a friend of mine pointed out a "wantabe" '67 (GTO) LeMans,
he told me about GTO's and about a 3 months later I found a '67 GTO convert
in the classifieds. $1200.00 (this was in 1981) gto ( Oooops "got") me into
my first GTO and what turned out to be a life long passion. The car was a faded
purple (YUCK!!!!!!!!, I thought) which later I found out to be "Plum Mist".
At the time the GTO came originally equipped with it's YS engine, auto trans
with the his and hers, PB, PS, Power top, ralley clock, tilt steering colum,
door edge gaurds, rear speaker and AM radio. After awhile the color grew on
me and I had great asperations of restoring it back to original color. I was
in the military so the car sat for the next many years in central Oregon in
a nice dry location. Meanwhile I collected some GTO options that if I had ordered
the car in 1967 I would have checked these options, I later added ralley gauges,
AM/FM radio, 8 track player, under-dash tissue dispenser, head-rest seats w/
passenger recliner seat and a wood grain steering wheel.
While moving around, I looked around for other "Plum Mist" convertables by
talking, asking and using the internet. So far, after about 15 years, I've
only found 7 total including mine. Of the 7, 4 have black interior and 3 parchment,
of the 3 parchment, one has a bench seat (in TX), and one has a tilt wheel (mine).
Know of any others?
I finally got the car in my own home in 1996 and waited for the right time
to restore it. That time FINALY came (whew) in 1999 and is almost finished
in 2000 (19 years, Geee!). The car is going to be a nice driver, not a trailor
queen so the resto wasn't perfect (I haven't replaced the crome yet) but lookin
great. The car has new interior and top, original engine and drive train rebuild
and a recent Plum Mist paint job (after countless hours of blocking).
Thanks to Marc Neary for selling me the car, AMES for supplying resto parts,
Al's Concept Paint Shop for applying the flawless paint job and my wife Sharon
for alowing me the time and $$ to restore it. I'll finally get to take it to
the 10th annual GTO Tiger Run in Bend, Oregon this year. |
