As Luck Would Have It
There are atheists, deists, humanists and all other forms of religious beliefs surrounding a higher power in this world. Some of us believe in fate, some of us in chance or luck. If you’re like me, you might not know the status of your eternal salvation but you praise and make sacrifices to the car gods. Just like the shedding of blood as an offering thousands of years ago, some of the car gods expect offerings of scattered pieces of aluminum blocks, pistons blown 50 feet into the air, shrapnel from rear ends that scatter like a detonated grenade.
Then there are the more kind car gods. Shall we say, they lean more into karma than brutal sacrifices. Do good and good things will happen to you, or for us gear heads, restore well and be rewarded well. Think what you like but after learning Jerry’s story, it’s easy to understand why the car gods bestowed a forgotten GTO unto a very worthy restorer.
If you’ve attended any car shows in San Diego county, you know this car. The one with a crowd vying to take a look at a true representation of the 1960’s muscle car era. You might spot the unmistakable Pontiac beak that won 1968’s Motor Trend Car of the Year. Or the Steve McQueen cool Torq Thrust wheels. Hell, it’s probably the jet black paint on this flawless ‘68 GTO that grabs you. It’s both menacing and seductive from afar and that is what draws you in. As you get closer to this GOAT, you’ve probably noticed the meticulous nuts and bolts restoration that she’s undergone. Yeah, she’s period correct and mostly factory too. But those aren’t the only things that make this car special, not even close.
Jerry grew up in Chicago. Commuting for him was the public transportation system and he enjoyed it. His family wasn’t into cars. “To this day when I tell my Dad I’m bringing the GTO, he’ll just shrug and ask me which one is that?” But that never stopped the car bug from biting a young Jerry. He started collecting and building model cars at 14 years old, a hobby he still pursues today. “I still have like 10 of my original car models.”
He takes me to a case, “This was my first car!” He says, pointing to a model tucked safely in the glass. There sits a 1965 Chevrolet Impala Super Sport. “To us back then, Super Sport was just a name. What made it special was that I learned to do body work on this car. Look!” That’s when I noticed the random patches of primer on the body with part of the fender missing on the model. A recreation of his car, a memory and an accomplishment. Sitting next to that model is an identical 1965 Chevy Impala SS, only it sports a dark blue coat of paint, the finished version of his first car. A physical memory of something car guys hold dear, their first. And Jerry has found a way to some extent, to bring his back to life.
Jerry was working in beautiful Oceanside, CA and cruising a 1965 Ford Mustang that he’d just finished restoring. One day, a gentleman named Wayne stopped to admire the Ford. “Did you paint this?” He asked Jerry. “Yeah, that was me.” Wayne continued to admire the fresh restoration when he said the words most car guys would kill to hear, “You’re definitely the right guy to fix up the car sitting at my parents house. It’s an old GTO.” Except this story isn’t today, it’s 1992, when you could still pick up a solid Pontiac without breaking the bank. Jerry passed on the offer.
Over the next six months, Wayne would reach out to Jerry and ask him to buy the old GTO, which Jerry would kindly deny. Until one day, Wayne told him that either he came to look at it or it was headed for scrap. “I had no money a this point, it was all wrapped up in the Mustang.” Regardless, Jerry still took a short drive to Fallbrook to check out the rotting GTO.
The abandoned car was covered in “leaves and shit. Rat shit, everywhere.” as Jerry puts it. The car had sunken into the mud, halfway up the rims. Only a few feet away from the car laid a motor. He was able to pop the hood of the car and inspect it. The original motor had an issue (a common occurrence in the ‘68 model), so they swapped a new motor in and still ended up parking here. And there she sat, waiting from 1978 to 1992, for someone like Jerry to save her.
“While he was talking to me, I was trying to figure out how much of the car was left and how much does he want for it?” Why? So he could part it out and make some money on the deal. The car was cool, but she was pretty far gone. Years of ocean breezes, seasonal tree sheddings, mud and a rat infestation made this car less than desirable. That’s when he says, “Give me $300.” Sold!
“One thing I noticed was that the car had never been wrecked and the parts were never stripped. It was an incredibly complete 1968 Pontiac GTO, just rotted out and full of rats. Which all dove out of the car when the tow truck yanked it out of the mud.” At this point, he figured he had a run of the mill GTO but all of that was about to change.
“I followed the tow truck home and the entire trip to Oceanside, more rats kept jumping out of the damn trunk and I was thinking to myself ‘what the hell am I bringing home!?” After getting the car home, Jerry planned to pay for the build by pulling original parts off the car and selling them at the swap meet. “Stupid me, I had no idea it was an H.O. car!” He says with a laugh. A grimace of pain crosses his face, all these years later, as he thinks of the parts he sold for cheap.
Mira Costa college offered a local body shop program which Jerry quickly enrolled in. He hauled his rat infested Goat down to the shop. With high quality tools, a killer paint booth and a shop teacher named Jack who was eager to share his passion, Jerry was in the right place. He started by kicking the last of the rats out of their longtime home, yanking the interior and sandblasting the car. With the paint stripped, Jerry got his first real look at the damage. The rear valance, dash, cowl, front window frame, trunk lid, trunk floor, rear quarters and more had seen better days. Jerry quickly sourced a donor car and started slicing off all the parts he needed. “I practically had a complete car in parts when I was done chopping it up!”
Let’s pause for a moment and remember, Jerry still had no idea what he had. To him, he had a cool GTO. It was something fun to work on, keep him busy and not much else. After drilling out every spot weld in the car, sanding, priming and replacing every rotten panel with donor parts, a new car started to appear. He staged parts on his dining room table to be sprayed. But life got in the way and the restoration wasn’t completed for another eight years before he could drop the motor in. Jerry is a purist at heart. And it shows in the quality of his restoration.
For most hotrodders, this is where the story usually ends. But for Jerry, it had just started. Let’s rewind for a moment, remember the motor sitting under the avocado tree for nearly twenty years, well Jerry had it rebuilt instead of selling it and it was the best decision he ever made. “I knew one motor was from ‘69 and the other was ‘68. So I put the ‘68 back in the car because I figured it was cool. I still didn’t realize it was the numbers matching motor.” Tipped off on the Pontiac historical society, Jerry submitted his vin and P.H.S. responded with a grundle of information on the car. “Pontiac kept everything! They send you everything down to the window sticker from the dealership with all the options that came on your car!” After looking over the numbers they sent him, he noticed the motor matched his vin, numbers matching baby!
After receiving the P.H.S. information, he set his sights on re-purchasing all the H.O. parts he’d sold years earlier. Jerry was cruising it around, doing an occasional burn out here and there but her main duty was cruising to local car shows where fate had another twist in store. It was 2013, twenty years after Jerry first purchased the GTO and about seven years after realizing he had the H.O. model thanks to the Pontiac Historical society. Jerry parked the car in a stall for the Vista Burger Run car show and proceeded to chat with strangers, friends and admirers of his beautifully restored car when he noticed an older couple walking around the car.
They inspected almost every nook and cranny of the car. They read the poster repeatedly when she approached Jerry. “We’ve been looking at this car and we think this is our car.” She said with a smile. “No it’s not! This is my car!” He responded. “Well you listed the original owner as the person who owned Monitor Products and that man is my husband.”
Monitor Products had purchased the car, so the original owner’s name wasn’t on the title. The name in question, Don Montgomery. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because it should be! Don is a hot rod legend who built and raced some of the coolest and most badass cars to run the ¼ mile. He’s also a well known author and authority on hot rods. So when Jerry asked if he had any info or paperwork on the GTO, he was elated to receive a package only a week later showing just how highly optioned the car was.
You see, Don knew what he wanted and he knew what to order and this GTO was built for him. He ordered it from Gianera Pontiac in La Cresenta, built in Fremont, CA. It was a luxury muscle car, fast enough to be fun (hence it being an H.O.), sleek enough to stand out with menacing black paint, a tough turbo 400 and of course, posi traction to light up both tires at will.
Call it luck, fate, destiny, chance or accident, it’s fair to say that something special was waiting for Jerry under those avocado trees. A car with a beautiful history that deserved to be saved and shared. This is no run of the mill story, no, this story is evidence that maybe the car gods have a special place for this car and they knew Jerry was the one to save her.
