AUGUST 1969
It was
August 1969, toward the end of the 1969 car season, when the 1970 models were soon to arrive on the showroom floors of all the car dealerships.
To put the time in historical perspective, the famous Moon Landing had just occurred a month earlier in July of 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped out onto the moon's surface. The Viet Nam war was still raging. It was also the era of the hippies and Woodstock.
I was in my third year of Army Reserve duty. In my civilian job I was a payroll
accountant at a major corporation in Pittsburgh (my wife also worked at the company).
We owned a 1967 Tempest (red with black vinyl roof and interior). It was the first car I ever 'ordered' to my specifications. It had a 'slanted' rear antenna that retracted, and a 4-speed manual transmission, with the gearshift on the floor - not unusual, except we had a bench seat in front!
Even though the red Tempest was only two years old and I was quite happy with it, I just wanted to see if there were any deals at the Pontiac dealership on new 1969 models before the '70 models arrived. I wasn't really serious about buying a new car, since we just finished paying off the red one!
My wife and I were about 25 years old and had been married for five years. In 1962 when we were dating, I bought a new 1963 Corvair then traded it in for a 1964 Pontiac Tempest right after our wedding in '64; and I ordered the red 1967 Tempest in Sept. '66.
It was not unusual in those days to keep buying new cars in order to maintain a
warranty and to keep up with the latest car models that seemed to change every year.
A car payment was accepted as a permanent part of the budget.
However, my wife was
not enthusiastic about purchasing a new car in 1969. She wanted to save the money for a house, and very reluctantly agreed to go to the dealership, with no intention of buying a car. It was amazing to see the showroom actually just about empty of all cars!
However, the salesman said he had a '69 in the basement.
He didn't say what model and didn't act particularly enthusiastic about it.
(Maybe he acted that way on purpose! )
Little did I realize what I would see as we went down the steps to the basement.
There sitting almost in the dark, with one or two lights shining on it, sat this beautiful yellow and black GTO convertible, with four-speed manual transmission on the floor!
I was totally stunned! It was everything I could have wanted in a car.
Actually, I hadn't been looking for a GTO. They were expensive, and I figured it would throw our budget too far out of whack. (However, insurance wasn't as much of a problem for 25-year-old married men as it was for single men.)
And once we saw this car, even my wife knew we wouldn't be leaving the
dealership without signing papers and taking on car payments again! More accurately,
she knew I was not leaving the dealership without buying this car!
So a few days later, after we signed all the papers and the dealer got the car prepped, my wife and I drove out of the dealership in
our gorgeous new GTO convertible (top down, of course) . We marveled at seeing the sky as we drove.
Of course, I was thrilled with the four-speed transmission and the powerful sound that was coming from the engine!
As we enjoyed our ride back to our apartment (the 1st floor of an older home, with no garage, unfortunately),
we never dreamed we would still have the GTO all these years later, and that many of the miles we would put on it after 1980 would be to travel to 'car cruises', which weren't even around in 1969!
As of this writing, we have been going to car cruises for 30+ years!
Car Shows v. Car Cruises
Our first 'car show' was in 1980. The GTO was only 10 years old, and there was an advertisement in the paper for a 'car show' about 2 hours' drive. We thought we were going to the show as 'spectators' to look at cars from the '20s through the '50s.. But they insisted we put it with the show cars, to be 'judged'. They were welcoming all 'muscle cars'.
We didn't win anything (the undercoating took away points), but we enjoyed being there, talking to so many 'muscle car' owners. Little did we know where that was going to lead.
There were only a handful of car shows in our area at first, (it was difficult to get judges), but 'cruises' now number in the hundreds, with no official judging of cars. Everyone just enjoys showing off their cars.
We finally did buy a house in 1973, with a proper garage to park the GTO, which was still our only car. It had been through several winters parked outdoors. However, it was protected in parking garages in the city during the workweek.) I also had it heavily undercoated, which worked against it at car show for points, but it wouldn't have lasted this long without it!
This blog will be about our past and present adventures with our GTO!
One further note: We discovered a few years ago that our car was built in Baltimore during the week of the Moon Landing, July 1969. The factory must have had to re-tool quickly for the 1970 models to be in showroom floors in September, considering there were quite a few changes to the body of the 1970 model. .
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