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Car
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For December 1999 |
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MICHAEL & JEANINE (a.k.a. NEEN) BEAN'S 1966 "BEST YEAR" POST GTO
The best way to start this story is to let you know how we got the money for our goat: We had, yes had, a 1966 Ford T-bird, nice car, 390 chromed to the gill, no hot rod, but a nice cruising car. It was stolen one night and after fighting with our insurance company for months we received our check. The day we received our check, we began looking for a GTO. I never knew how hard it was to find one for sale. I had called on our car once before and was told that it was sold, so we kept looking and found a nice '67, but it too was sold. A few weeks went by and no luck, then I saw an add in the paper for a '66 that I had called on once before, and I tried one more time, figuring this might be my lucky day. The car was still on hold, but the person had not shown up or called back in two weeks. I was told "money talks" and I had the money. So I drove to Petaluma that next morning, looked at it, drove it, put some money down on it and two days later drove back to Petaluma with my wife, who had no idea what the car looked like yet, she still had not seen it. Nevertheless, she liked it, and I think it took her two or three days to stop grinning after she drove it home. We have only had "our GTO" since May 18, 1999 and have not had the time to do to much work to it. We have enjoyed driving it almost every weekend. I have known my wife for 14 years and for at least everyone of those years she has lusted after GTOs. That whole Monkeys TV Show thing, I guess. Besides it being the first Muscle Car, as she keeps reminding me. Me, I'm more of a Mopar person, but driving the goat has definitely made an impression on me. We may even be in the market for one more if the price is right. Our red on black 1966 post GTO is fairly stock 389 with a mild comp cam, 280 is my best guess as I've been told that it could be any where from a 270 to a 290. It has the stock 4 barrel carb and manifold. The stock exhaust manifolds open up to 2 1/2 inch pipes all the way through the two chamber flow masters. It has the stock 2 speed slip and slide some more tranny and 3:23 gears in the rear. Interior Is basically stock, except for the Tach, CD player, and auto meter gauges. As you may have seen at a few club events the body is in fair condition, but in bad need of a nice new bright red paint job and some minor body work. The car is 33 years old and has not had any major body work done to it. That being said, I have a few things I would like to do to the car. This winter we (yes we) Neen and I will pull the motor, just to paint it, pull the heads and have them ported along with some valve work. Add a tri-power set up that is currently being rebuilt with some larger jets for the outside and middle carbs. We are considering using a set of Ram Air exhaust manifolds in order to keep the Stock/Sleeper look, but may go to headers just for fun. A turbo 350 transmission is about to be sent out for work with a shift kit added for a little extra performance. I am still looking for a 3:90 third member for the rear end, but I will settle for 3:73's. In my spare time I have been cleaning up a set of old American mags that will have 215/60's in the front and 245/60s in the rear. These should be on the car shortly. The paint will have to wait a year or so, but that will eventually get done as well. I am going to try to get around 350 horse power at the rear wheels. Hopefully this will all be done in time for the (I hope) rescheduled Dyno-Day. With all the changes we are planning on doing this year you may have to suffer through an update mid year 2000. As I mentioned above, I'm more of a Mopar person and I have not worked on many Pontiacs, but at the club events all of you have been very helpful in informing me on how and what you have done to your cars making it easier for me to do the work I want to do. Something I must say, this is not an easy task at a Mopar show. One thing we enjoy most about our club is that club members as a group are friendly helpful and are not afraid to drive their cars and have fun doing it. Burn outs and all.
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