2026 Greenwood Car Show: General Motors

It's my biggest car spotting day of the year, the Greenwood car show. Let's start with GM.

With GTOs, you may be looking at a "tribute car" which is a polite name for "fake". Take an ordinary Pontiac LeMans, update the engine and the badges, and you've got a much more valuable GTO. Both this 1969 GTO Judge and this 1968 convertible appear authentic to me, though the Judge doesn't have the correct air cleaner to make the ram air induction system work. Fun fact: When the Judge was first offered, it only came in this color.

I've posted this incredible car before, but there's nothing more amazing than seeing a fuel-injected 1963 Corvette split-window.

Restored 1957 Bel Air convertibles like this one sometimes go for over $100K now. The hardtop coupes aren't much less. Always interesting to compare them to a car that's never been restored, like the sedan here. That off-pink color looks odd today but was popular in the 50s.

Very nice 1966 Sting Ray.

The 1970 Chevelle Super Sport is considered the pinnacle of GM muscle. This one has the 396. The truly legendary examples have the 454.

This 1964 Pontic LeMans coupe has 326 badges, but it appears the owner has dropped a 389 tri-power engine under the hood.

This 1948 Buick is just a great looking car.

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1967 Pontiac GTO

Gotta love Seattle, where seeing the greatest cars of all time on the street is an every day occurrence. In 1967, this car got its first 3-speed automatic transmission. This GTO also has the optional Hurst Dual-Gate shifter. Gotta love 60s car culture, when GM could say, "Look we know you're going to street race, so we'll help you out." The left side of the shifter has a normal shift pattern. For drag racing, you can bring the car to a stop, then move the shifter to the bottom of the right side. What happens next? From drivemag.com: "Placing the lever at the very back at 1 for first gear, you accelerated peal to the metal. The trick was for the driver to keep its cool up until the red line. With tires screeching, this was the moment to punch it into second gear. Usually, this meant the car tried to spin out of control and kill you. If you survived, you got to repeat the performance for third and final gear. After this, it was smooth sailing until the police caught up with you."

 

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1966 Pontiac GTO

From outwards appearances, the '66 and '67 GTO were the same. But beneath the skin, in '67:
* The old 389 c.i. V-8 was replaced with a new 400.
* A new 3-speed automatic replaced the old 2-speed.
* A new 4-barrel carb meant the end of the "tripower" intake of 3-linked 2-barrels. This car has the tripower setup. Harder to tune but more fun.
* I can see that the owner of this car has upgraded the master cylinder. In '66 master cylinders (for brake fluid) were still single-chamber but all cars went to 2-chamber in '67.
* Other interesting options on the greatest muscle car:
** You could order a GTO as either a hardtop like this one, or as a fixed-pillar coupe with full door and window frames. The coupe was less popular, but the stronger body made it a better car.
** If ordered automatic transmission, and you didn't order the optional center console between the front seats, you got a shifter on the steering column. With the console, the shifter was on the floor.

 

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1968 Pontiac GTO convertible

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1970 Pontiac GTO Judge convertible

Pontiac built fewer than 11,000 GTOs with the Judge package between 1969 and 1971, including only 287 convertibles. In 1971, only 17 convertibles were made; enthusiasts know the history of every one of those cars. "The Judge" included the forced-air induction system, a Hurst shifter, wide tires, a set of decals and a spoiler on the trunk. This car has the 'endura' front bumper, made of plastic and foam formed over a single piece of steel. Today all cars have plastic noses, but in 1970 it was a very new idea.

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1964 Pontiac Tempest LeMans GTO

Photographed a couple of years ago by my office. Looks like it just rolled out of the factory. This used to be my dream car, but I've move onto dreams that don't cause so much air pollution.

    

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Magnolia Car Show: 1966 Pontiac GTO

Little GTO

You're really lookin' fine
Three deuces and a four-speed
And a three-eighty-nine
Listen to her tachin' up now
Listen to her whine
C'mon and turn it on, wind it up, blow it out, GTO

   

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