Wrecked, Rescued, And Reunited - 1972 Pontiac GTO

At first glance, this Wilderness Green '72 GTO may prompt a couple of queries, such as, "Why does it look like it was restored only from the cowl forward?" Or, "Who would order a 455 H.O. GTO and keep the bench seat, manual front drum brakes, and poverty caps?" These questions and more will be addressed in the epic account that follows.

In the fall of 1983, muscle car enthusiast John Mounts was partaking in a favorite pastime— junkyard crawling—with his good friend Keith Andersson, a devotee of '50s Pontiacs, who also worked at a PMD dealer parts counter. While exploring Kennedy's wrecking yard in La Center, Washington, they made a discovery.

Keith tells HMM, "Initially we split up in the yard, but when we met up again, I asked John, 'Did you see the GTO down there?'" He replied, "It looks like a Le Mans with the decals added to it."

"I think it's the real deal," Keith responded, as he had seen another similar one once before. John remained skeptical, however.

The Pontiac was in poor condition. It was hit on the front driver's side so hard that the wheel and tire were pushed back into the firewall. And its engine and transmission were gone. Despite its appearance and his indifference, John jotted down the VIN in his notepad.

The following spring, the two friends were at a local swap meet when John came across a 1972 Pontiac service manual while rifling through boxes of factory literature. Since '72 was the first year that the engine type was identified by a code in the VIN, he quickly learned what the "X" meant in the VIN he'd written down for the Freemont, California-built GTO.

He and Keith had found one of the three 455 H.O., manual trans, '72 GTO pillared coupes built. Also unique was its lack of additional options beyond an extra-cost AM radio, vinyl trim, Custom carpet, and rear bumper guards. There was no power steering or power brakes, no Rally gauges or bucket seats, and not even the Safe-T-Track limited-slip differential.

John was already into high-horsepower/ low-production muscle cars, so "The fact that it was plain- Jane just made it even more appealing to me," he says. After he and Keith discussed it, John returned to the yard, took a few photos of the Pontiac, and spoke with the owner. The photos didn't develop well, but he did buy the GTO.

Not long after John had trailered the battered A-body home, its original owner, Garry Heinrich, called. He'd read an article in a car magazine that listed just how rare his GTO actually was. His search for it led him to John.

Garry told HMM he ordered the GTO from Forrest Pontiac-Buick- GMC in The Dalles in Oregon, in February of 1972, and he explained why he optioned it the way he did. "I wanted the quickest muscle car I could buy at a good price. My research of the cars I was considering revealed that the GTO offered the most performance per dollar. I ordered it bare bones except for the 455 H.O. engine and M22 trans. I put about 20,000 miles on it before trading it in to the local Chevy dealer on a '74 Z28. At the time, I had no idea how rare it was."

For 1972, the GTO could be purchased more inexpensively because it reverted to an option on the Le Mans line. The GTO option could still be ordered on the two-door hardtop, but the lower-cost pillared coupe could now be configured as a budget-friendly Goat, featuring a cloth/Morrokide bench-seat interior and rubber floormat. An all-Morrokide bench-seat interior and carpeting were optional. The hardtop came with carpeting and the aforementioned seat choices, but also offered an extra-cost Morrokide bucket-seat interior with upscale side panels and door pulls.

The W62 GTO option included a 250-net-hp 400 engine, dual exhaust with side splitters, Hurst floorshifted H.D. three-speed manual, G70-14 blackwall tires, Endura front bumper, scooped hood, fenders with air extractors, firm shocks, front and rear anti-roll bars, swirl-finished lower dash trim plate, and GTO identification.

Doing some additional research on his Pontiac's past, John learned that the second owner had purchased it off the dealer lot and totaled it in 1976. The Goat then went to a wrecking yard in Vancouver, Washington, and was soon bought by the third private owner, who wanted the 455 H.O. and the M22 for his '68 GTO. A few years later, he traded the 68,178-mile '72 Goat sans its powertrain to Kennedy's for some parts.

Knowing it would require frame straightening and a bunch of replacements for missing or damaged items to get it back on the road again, John began the search. He told HMM, "I'm just a junkyard hound, and that's how we spent weekends, so I found a lot of the parts I needed that way."

Keith also scoured the Pontiac parts books and checked with dealers around the country for any '72 GTO and Le Mans components still in the GM pipeline. He later bought out the stock from a few dealerships, which netted an NOS left front fender, four steel wheels, three hubcaps, and other items.

John ultimately located the third owner and was told that the 455 H.O. was later swapped into another car and sold, but the engine then went to a machine shop near Portland. He couldn't recall its name but provided a general description of where it was located.

About the same time, a Mopar friend of Keith's told him about a machine shop where he saw early Pontiac engine parts while he was checking out Chrysler Hemis. It was in the Minnehaha and East Vancouver area.

Driving home from the Spring Portland Swap Meet in April 1986, Keith and John decided to seek out their respective machine shops. As you may have guessed, they were both looking for the same one, but there was no sign, and it was Sunday. Trolling the parking lots of the industrial park in which they hoped to find it, they caught the attention of a man in a Jeep pickup who soon stopped them to ask what they were doing. After telling their stories, the man replied, "I'm the guy you're lookin' for," and he opened his shop so John and Keith could look around.

Though there was no '50s Pontiac gold to be mined for Keith, John's rainbow ended on the 455 H.O. block he spotted with his GTO's partial VIN stamped into it. Destined for a boat, it was dropped off for a rebuild, but its owner ended up buying a ready-to-run Pontiac from the shop instead. The engine was in pieces, but all the major components except for the carburetor were there. John bought everything and returned with his truck to haul it all home.

He would still have to source accessory brackets, a correct carburetor and ram-air system, and another M22, which he since has, but that doesn't diminish the significance of having found and bought the original and rare 455 H.O engine about six years after it was separated from his totaled Goat.

In 1995, John had the GTO's frame and cowl repaired, marking the first actual work toward rejuvenating the Pontiac. He and Keith performed additional labor on the GTO in a rented garage in Olympia in the late 1990s, but when Keith moved about 345 miles east to Tekoa in 1999 to open Chief Auto Restoration, the Pontiac went with him and was stored while other projects were completed.

They picked up the gauntlet again around 2011 when the engine was sent to Kroll Machine & Supply in Colfax for rebuilding and a Ram Air IV cam upgrade. With the GTOAA International Meet coming to Portland in 2011, a serious push was made to debut the '72 at the event. But issues arose.

According to John and Keith, the frame required squaring up on a frame machine once again. The inner bracing of the NOS fender had been welded in crooked, so its parts had to be separated, properly aligned, and rewelded. After they were painted, three of the four NOS wheels were discovered to not be true, so they had to be fixed, and then stripped and repainted.

John wanted to retain as much of the GTO's originality as possible. To that end, Keith performed the bodywork and paintwork only on the NOS fender, the used replacement parts—radiator support, inner fender wells, Endura nose, front valance panel, grilles, GTO hood, and right front fender—and the area just beneath the rear window. The rest of the body, however, retains its original paint. Tailpipes and splitters are original, and the exhaust pipes and mufflers are NOS.

"We fought really hard to be ready for Portland, but finally had to give up," Keith laments.

"It took another year, but we were able to work more methodically, so the car is more accurate because of it."

Finally roadworthy in 2012, the GTO's first major trip would be driving from John's DuPont, Washington, home about 1,300 miles to Loveland, Colorado, for the GTOAA International Convention and back. "Initially, I was concerned about how the elevation would affect the carbureted engine," John says. "But there were no issues. I was amazed at how trouble-free the GTO was."

Also around 2012, John and Garry reconnected after having lost touch following their conversation in the 1980s. Garry mailed John the GTO's original window sticker and handwritten retail order, and sometime later, John drove the Pontiac over to Garry's house in Boring, Oregon, from DuPont—about a 285-mile round-trip—to show it to him.

"I attempted to drive to Dayton, Ohio, for the 2013 GTOAA event, but in Kansas, the engine developed an issue," John recalls. "Though the tow-truck driver was only required to tow the car to a nearby shop, he offered to use his own truck and trailer to bring the GTO all the way back to Washington. It wasn't cheap, but at least I could get it home so it could be diagnosed by the engine builder and not just the closest shop to where the car broke down in Kansas." Back at Keith's shop, they pulled the engine and brought it to Kroll's. It turned out that it was a component failure unrelated to the build. As a result, one cylinder needed to be sleeved before Kroll's rebuilt the engine.

John and the GTO hit the road once again in 2014, this time heading for the GTOAA International Convention held in Pittsburgh that year. The event celebrated 50 years of the GTO and, at over 5,200 miles round-trip, represented the longest excursion John has completed to date. The Pontiac performed without a hiccup, and it won the long-distance award.

John managed to rescue this exceedingly rare GTO from its final demise and then find the original engine that made it so rare. Over nearly three decades, he and Keith kept the Pontiac out of the elements to preserve it, hunted down the parts to repair it, and ultimately brought it back from the dead. It's even been driven to GTOAA national events regardless of how far away they were. That's quite a transformation for a Pontiac that was totaled and junked more than 40 years ago.

OWNER'S VIEW

I easily adjusted to its manual steering, but the small drum brakes aren't great. Disc brakes should have been standard. With the manual trans, I put it in a lower gear and engine-brake sometimes. I put the bias-ply tires on the GTO, because I wanted it to look as correct as possible. They worked well when new, but after a few thousand miles, it got harder to keep the car from wandering. —John Mounts

1972 Pontiac GTO

300 horsepower @ 4,000 RPM

415 lb-ft torque @ 3,200 RPM

1/4-mile: 15.4 seconds @ 92 MPH*

S P E C I F I C A T I O N S

PRICE

Base price: $2,721.60 (Le Mans coupe)

Options on car profiled: GTO option ($344); vinyl trim ($27); 455 H.O. ($134); four-speed H.D. manual transmission ($231); pushbutton radio ($65); Custom carpets ($21); Hood Air Inlet ($56); Unitized Ignition ($77); rear bumper guards ($5)

ENGINE

Type: Pontiac OHV V-8; cast-iron; four-bolt mains Reciprocating assembly

Nodular cast-iron crankshaft, cast Arma-Steel rods, cast-aluminum-alloy pistons

Cylinder heads: Round-port, cast-iron, 2.11/1.77-inch valves

Displacement: 455 cubic inches

Bore x stroke: 4.15 inches x 4.21 inches (currently 4.18-inch bore)

Compression ratio: 8.4:1

Horsepower @ rpm: 300 @ 4,000 (net)

Torque @ rpm: 415 lb-ft @ 3,200 (net)

Camshaft type: Hydraulic-lifters, 288/302-degrees duration (advertised), .414/.413-inch lift

Induction system: Pontiac aluminum dual-plane manifold, Rochester Quadrajet four-barrel carburetor, GM mechanical fuel pump

Ignition system: GM/Delco Unitized

Exhaust system: Ram Air manifolds, dual head pipes, mufflers, and tailpipes

TRANSMISSION

Type: Muncie M22 four-speed

Ratios: 1st 2.20:1

2nd: 1.64:1

3rd: 1.28:1

4th: 1.00:1

Reverse: 2.27:1

DIFFERENTIAL

Type: GM (Chevrolet-type) 8.875-inch ring gear 12-bolt housing

Ratio: 3.55:1

STEERING

Type: Saginaw

Ratio: 24:1

Turns-to-lock: 5.6

Turning circle: 37.4 feet

BRAKES

Type: Hydraulic

Front: 9.5 x 2.50-inch drum

Rear: 9.5 x 2.00-inch drum

CHASSIS & BODY

Construction: Body on frame, full perimeter frame, welded and bolt-on steel body panels

Body style: Two-door coupe

Layout: Front engine, rear-wheel drive

SUSPENSION

Front: Unequal-length A-arms, coil springs, shocks, 1.125-inch anti-roll bar

Rear: Four-link, coil springs, shocks, 0.875-inch anti-roll bar

WHEELS & TIRES

Wheels: 14 x 6 inches, stamped-steel

Tires: G70-14 bias-ply blackwall

WEIGHTS & MEASURES

Wheelbase: 112.0 inches

Overall length: 203.3 inches

Overall width: 76.7 inches

Overall height: 52.0 inches

Front track: 61.0 inches

Rear track: 60.0 inches

Curb weight: Approx. 3,705 pounds

CAPACITIES

Crankcase: 5 quarts

Cooling system: 18.9 quarts

Fuel tank: 20 gallons

Transmission: 2.5 pints

PRODUCTION

There were just 10 GTO two-door pillared coupes built with the optional 455 H.O. for ’72, and three of them were equipped with a manual transmission.

PERFORMANCE*

Acceleration

0-60 mph: 7.1 seconds

1/4-mile ET:15.4 seconds @ 92 mph

* Source: June 1972 Motor Trend test of a ’72 GTO 455 H.O. four-speed hardtop with 3.55 rear.