Seeing Red
You have heard this sad tale before. A guy buys a car sight on unseen on the internet and it is not what it was supposed to be. This has happened many times, resulting in hard feelings, refunds, law suits, or selling at a huge loss. In the case of this 1968 GTO, it was misrepresented, but the owner decided to stick with the car, resulting in the stunning show car you see here. The road to restoration was not easy and filled with potholes, but perseverance, patience and working with the right restoration shop brought this GTO across the finish-line with flying colors.
Chuck Bove had always longed for a 1968 GTO. After some searching, he located what was advertised as a low-mileage survivor car located in Crystal Lake, Illinois, by a private party on the internet. It looked great in the photos, plus it was in a factory color scheme that Chuck really wanted: Solar Red with Parchment interior. Payment was made and Chuck eagerly awaited delivery of his dream car to his home in Northern California. When the car arrived it looked like a well-worn original, but it needed some mechanical attention and was as Chuck says “Quite a wanderer on the freeway”.
At first Chuck brought the GTO to a local repair shop to get it checked out. The next day the shop called him back with a laundry list of repairs needed just to make the car safe to drive. He told a friend that was experienced in collector cars about the issues with the car, who recommended that he have the car inspected by Josiah Coy of Coybuilt Inc. in Modesto. Coy is a muscle car specialist and a Pontiac enthusiast as well, previously winning major awards at SEMA and the Los Angles Roadster Show for the 1965 GTO he built. The car appeared to look solid at first, but a deeper inspection revealed some ugly secrets in the form of rust and old, poorly executed collision repairs. After the inspection with Chuck and his friend, Coy described the car as a “fluffed and buffed, crashed damaged rust bucket”. Not what Chuck wanted to hear…
Here is the fork in the road for collector car owners: Cut bait and sell at a loss, or bite the bullet and jump in with both feet. Chuck decided on the latter and commissioned a full frame-off, concours quality restoration with Coy.
The restoration begins
Coy and his team stripped the tired Pontiac down to a bare shell, then they separated the body from the frame, revealing the severity of the old collision damage, bad rust repairs and a host of other issues. “The car had been in a pretty major accident at one time”, recalls Coy, “The firewall had tears in it and dents from the engine leaving its mounts in a front-end collision. The dash had a dent from what looked like someone’s kneecap getting rammed into the lower steel section of the dash. The inner door was also slumped in from a person getting slammed into the inner door during a crash. The factory lap welds under the front passenger kick panel to firewall body mount braces where opened up like a sardine. It was ugly.”
With more stripping and disassembly, Coy found even more serious rust issues, requiring the replacement of both quarter panels, left rocker panel, main floor pan, firewall, windshield channel, both inner wheelhouses and both doors. The original trunk lid, trunk floor drop offs and lower cowl shoulders required repairs, but were able to be saved. Remarkably, the trunk floor, normally one of the first areas to rust was in near perfect condition, spared the ravages of rust due to a blown power convertible motor top line that had spewed oil all over the floor, thereby preserving it. The GTO frame was also damaged and deeply pitted, so another original frame was sourced for the restoration.
Starting with a freshly power coated frame, work began on the chassis. A 1970 GTO HD sway bar and Hotchkis lowering springs were power coated with a rubbed finish and rear axle housing was partially painted, exactly as the factory did, all in an effort to replicate the original manufacture finish. Also added was a quick ratio 12 to 1 steering box internals for better road feel. After all the welding and body panels were repaired, the body was lowered back on the body and shipped to KC of KC’s Paint in Fort Worth Texas for finish body work and paint. Countless hours of body work, blocking, painting and cutting and buffing resulted in a laser straight body. Even the floor pans were body worked, then block sanded and it shows.
Building a Ram Air ll
During his search for parts for the restoration, Coy discovered a very rare Ram Air ll block, casting number 9792506 for sale, as well as a set of equally rare and correct NOS #96 Ram Air ll cylinder heads still in the original box. Wanting to make this Pontiac more than just the average GTO, Coy approached Chuck with the idea off upgrading the car to Ram Air ll specifications. Acquiring all the special parts to do this would be challenging and certainly not cheap, but the decision was made to do it. Only 12 GTO convertibles were produced (built between May and July of 1968), with the optional Ram Air ll package. Chuck’s car was built the third week of May 1968, making it a perfect candidate for the upgrade. Eventually, Coy located the correctly coded and dated Rochester carburetor, starter, intake manifold, water pump and other small parts to make the Ram Air as authentic as possible.
The Ram Air ll option features a 366 horsepower, 400 cubic-inch engine with 10.75:1 compression, producing 445-foot pounds of torque with free-breathing, exhaust side round-ported cylinder heads. A specially recalibrated Rochester Quadra-jet carburetor was fed cold air though functional hood scoops. Lighter valve springs, a 308/320-degree duration, 0.470-inch lift cam, forged steel pistons and crank shaft and a set of low restriction cast iron exhaust manifolds were all part of the package. All Ram Air ll cars required a mandatory M-21 four-speed transmission and 4:33 rear end. The Ram Air ll option was priced at $630, which is over $4,000 in 2018 dollars.
It’s all in the details
After the restored and painted body was shipped back from Texas, Coy began the slow and tedious process of detailing every piece of the GTO to show quality, carefully reassembling the car. Attention was paid to the smallest of details, such as insuring that the proper grain and texture was on the exhaust hangers and hoses. Everything was done to exacting detail for correctness and authenticity. “If I could get accurate information as to what process was done, locations, plating, etc, I employed it throughout the build,” Coy explains “ But if I could not get accurate information on something, I would not move forward. I’ve seen too many cars at shows where someone copies incorrect paint markings, sticker locations and other things. This car had to be right”.
Other interesting options on this GTO include hidden headlights, factory hood mounted tachometer and Firestone Redline Wide-Oval G70-15 tires mounted on Pontiac rally wheels. Coy also added a rare set of correctly date-coded, factory 4-piston Delco front disc brakes with two-piece rotors to help slow down this powerful Pontiac, as well as a correctly dated and numbered Muncie M-21 close ratio 4-speed transmission. Although the standard rear axle ratio for Ram Air ll cars was 4:33, a set of 3.90 gears were installed in a 8.5 nodular case for better drivability.
After two and a half years of work, Chuck finally got to drive his car, but not too far, as the show circuit awaits. Final detail work and minor adjustments are still being made at the time of this writing; however, it has been shown a few times already and is a contender for the GoodGuys Muscle Car of the Year. It will also be on display at the 2018 SEMA show in Las Vegas and then on to some concours shows in 2019.
Today, this 1968 GTO is stunning. The factory Solar Red color is striking against the pearlescent white interior that Pontiac calls “Parchment”. The hidden headlight option surrounded by Pontiac’s famous body colored Endura bumper, plus mean-looking hood with twin scoops and a tachometer all work to make this car look aggressive and powerful. The overall quality, correctness and fit and finish of this GTO reflects the high attention to detail given to this restoration.
Were the countless hours of restoration, research, hunting parts, detailing, not to mention money and taking over two and a half years to complete worth the effort? Turning the key and hearing that beast of a Pontiac engine come to life, then looking back on Chuck Bove’s and Josiah Coy’s smiling face answers that question.
Specifications:
- 1968 Pontiac GTO
- Owned by: Chuck Bove
- Restored by: Josiah Coy, Coybuilt, Inc., Modesto, CA
- Engine: 400ci/366hp V-8 Ram Air ll
- Transmission: Muncie M-21 close ratio 4-speed manual
- Rearend: 8.5 nodular case, 3:90 posi-traction
- Wheels: 14×7 Pontiac Rally II
- Tires: G70-14 Firestone Redline Wide-Oval from Coker
- Special parts: Ram Air ll, hood tachometer, hidden headlights, power front disc brakes, rally gauge package, wood-grain sport steering wheel
