When Calgarian Curtis Smith dragged home a basketcase 1966 Pontiac GTO, his wife Sheree Wittman gave him an ultimatum: The car couldn’t be a multi year project.
“Finish it in two years, or find another wife,” Smith says she told him.
Thankfully, Smith had a good set of tools to help him. Several years ago, Smith inherited a full complement of Snap-On wrenches, sockets and other hand tools from his late father, Robert, who started purchasing them during World War Two when he was building Lancaster bombers in Goose Bay, Labrador.
There’s some definite history behind the tools, and his Dad put them to good use.
But, while Smith himself isn’t mechanically inept, he says he’d never attempted anything quite like a complete body-off-frame vehicle restoration.
“I could dump oil and replace a filter,” Smith says, “or change a starter or an alternator, but my mechanical skills were pretty limited.”
However, six years ago when a friend needed to get rid of some project cars, Smith was offered the 1966 GTO. A complete, rolling car, the GTO came with boxes of extra parts collected over the years.
Before he started his project, Smith says he didn’t even know what a body-off-frame restoration was – he soon learned. The friend who sold him the car gave him directions, telling him to get numerous boxes and a bunch of Ziploc plastic bags and a good marker.
“He said, ‘take the car apart, and note with as much detail where all of the parts and pieces came from’,” Smith recalls. Soon, he had the body in a special rotisserie, and the stripped-down frame was lying on the garage floor surrounded by boxes of parts.
Smith knew he couldn’t do a concours restoration because the engine, while correct for the car, wasn’t numbers matching. At some point in the GTO’s life, the block had been changed, and Smith knew it would hurt the overall retail value when he was finished. Plus, he says the car itself isn’t incredibly rare.
So, he opted to build a very clean, very original driver.
He started with the frame, which had suffered some stress cracking. In Calgary, Nortruck Manufacturing & Distributing welded it before it was sandblasted and powdercoated black at Top Gun Coatings.
He wanted to get somebody working on the body as soon as possible, and through word of mouth learned about Andy Smith at Mirror Image Restorations just north of Cochrane, Alberta.
The shell of the GTO together with doors, hood and trunk lid was delivered to Mirror Image while the 389 cubic inch engine, Muncie four-speed transmission and rear axle were sent out for rebuilding. A complete driveshaft had to be made, and DSI Drive Systems in Calgary built it up.
Smith carefully cleaned the myriad other pieces of the car, using mainly a wire wheel mounted on a bench top grinder. Many components were powdercoated black to match the frame, while the majority of fasteners were cadmium plated.
When parts and pieces started coming back, Smith enlisted the help of GTO-guru Mike Moore. Together, they worked to reassemble the car; while Moore was assembling the hubs and brakes on the left side, for example, Smith would be doing the same on the right.
Meanwhile, Andy Smith at Mirror Image repaired old accident damage on the driver’s rear quarter panel, and replaced two small areas of rusted metal in the trunk. Overall, the body was in respectable shape, and once the metal prep work was complete it was sprayed the original marina turquoise blue.
There were hiccups along the way, including Smith being sent three different headliners before getting the right one for his coupe. In addition, the engine had to be rebuilt again – this time by Classic Performance. A new block was found, and while it’s not numbers matching, it’s got the correct date and model codes for the high-performance four-barrel carburetor the car has had from original.
For those wondering, Smith and Wittman are still married, as he managed to meet his two-year deadline. He has added some 16,000 kilometres to the finished car, which he enjoys driving around Calgary, and on longer tours around southern Alberta with friends and their cars from the Rocky Mountain Goats — GTO Association of Alberta – a club he joined mid-way through the project.
“I’d have learned so much more, and much sooner, if I’d joined them before I ever even started on the GTO,” Smith concludes.
Greg Williams is a member of the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC). Have an auto related item to share for the column or What’s Next? Contact him at 403-287-1067 or gregwilliams@shaw.ca. Visit his website at gregwilliams.ca
WHAT’S NEXT
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Aug. 16: Northern Mopars 25th annual all Mopar/AMC show and shine at Capitol Hill Community Centre (14th St. & 20th Ave. N.W.). Registration 9 a.m. until noon, $10 non-competition or $20 judged for all Chrysler and A.M.C. vehicles. Show runs until 4 p.m. with awards and door prizes presented prior to 4. Spectators are free but a donation to the Liver Foundation of Canada is appreciated. Call Larry at 403-243-4703 or visit HYPERLINK “http://www.mopars.org” http://www.mopars.org for more info.
