Yeah, we didn't do any performance modifications other than the six-speed transmission, but it does just change the car. It really makes it drivable now. It's a perfect day here in California. There's something about a manual transmission in a big tank like this just makes me smile. But just knowing that you're in control, it's doing it because you want to do it, not because the transmission thinks that you do it. I mean, that's what I like. And the hood tach stroker genius, I just think it's the greatest thing. I like it even better than heads-up display.
Makes you smile. Goes good.
Welcome to the episode of Jay Leno's Garage. The car featuring today, a true unicorn. By that I mean a very unique muscle car, probably produced in smaller numbers than almost any other muscle car from the era. It is a 1967 Pontiac 2+2 HO with the 428 engine. Now, what that means is it's basically the same size as a Bonneville or a Catalina, but it is neither of those. Those had the 421 engine. This is the 428. And it's not even quite a 428. They call it that because Chevy and Ford had the 427, Chrysler had the 426. So they just kind of fudged it up to 428 to sound a little bit more impressive than 421. It's got the hood tach, came with a manual transmission, rally wheel, you know, all the options of the period. This car was $4,000 brand new in 1967, which was a lot of money at the time. This was the car for the guy that thought the GTO was too small or was like the teenager's car, the young person's car. This was what was effectively called a banker's hot rod. The equivalent might be the Buick GS. This was a big Pontiac. See, not a lot of people wanted a big Cadillac-sized car with a manual transmission. They all wanted the automatic, but there were a few oddballs out there. I think they did maybe about 187 of these, I think. How many were black convertibles? I don't know. What we did in this one is we took out the four-speed. We put in a Tremec Magnum six-speed transmission because I wanted to get at least double-digit mileage at some point. Yeah, this thing just eats gas like crazy. And luckily, our team, George and Jimmy, did a great job. We went with our favorite transmission, Tremec. You know, boy, they make stuff that fits in just about anything. It was a wonderful, easy job to do. American Powertrain helped us with all the ancillary stuff. The hydraulic clutch switch from that to hydraulic from manual. The guys had to do a bit of trimming. This transmission is like a quarter of an inch or maybe an eighth of an inch higher than the standard four-speed that was in here. So we had to do a little modification. Had to modify the floor and the tunnel so it could take this six-speed. And it really works out great because your revs drop to about, you know, at 70, 2,100, something like that RPM. It's a great car to drive. To me, Pontiac was always the best handling of all the GM cars. I thought the best suspension and handling. I like the Firebird more than the Camaro. I like the GTO more than some of the other midsize Chevelles and stuff like that. I mean, it was all good stuff. I had never really seen one of these. I found this at the Audrain auction. It takes place every year, last week of September, first week of October in Newport, Rhode Island. It's a great car show and they always have kind of a small auction, maybe 80 cars, 90 cars at best. And this was there. Unfortunately, the previous owner had heavily modified it. He put big police spotlights here, you know, the kind that fold down, they got the handle. And he chinned this whole front end, which made it look kind of pimpy to me. I didn't like it. He did a nice job on the paint and the chrome. You know what's funny? When you restore a car like this, if you do it right, it's tough to get your money out of it because these things were built when technology was expensive and labor was cheap. Now it's the other way around. When I got it, it looked pretty good until I went to drive it at night and realized, well, there's no lights. We pulled the dashboard out and all the wires had been just zip-tied off in a bundle because it was obviously way too much work or way too much trouble for somebody to put it right. And like with a lot of auction cars, it looked perfect and it drove okay. It was fine. It just, I didn't have any lights, you know. And we finally got the wiring down. That took a few hours to do. So that was a little tricky. As I said, George and Jimmy, our metal man, they just did a terrific job.
There's only two real men here.
That's it. Okay, shifter is there. And that is 9/16 right here.
Let me get a pry bar. Good to see you, that lb. You want me to pull on this side? There we go. Hold it. We'll put it on the cart. Thanks. We'll see.
Okay. Chris is happy heavy. Heat. Heat. Good old grade eight bolts in there. 67. Yeah.
George had the transmission out in a day and the new transmission out the same day, and the next couple of days were spent modifying and cutting a little bit bigger hole for the transmission and a few other things, but for the most part it was pretty straightforward. A company, American Powertrain. As I said, boy, it comes with a kit how to do this whole deal. It really makes it a really nice car to drive. And the six-speed really helps you because before I think it had about 3.90s in it. It's 70, you know, I'm turning like four grand and it was just too much. So now it's like 2,100 and it's just a lot of fun to drive. You know, it's like being in a toboggan. You're outside in the great open air in this thing. It's like driving your living room. It's so funny, but it's addictive. It's comfortable. It's got all the silly options. The hood tach, which I love, the simulated wood-grain steering wheel, which always makes me laugh. And of course, the manual transmission, AM/FM radio, no air conditioning, no power windows. And when you want to put the windows up, you actually have to stop, get out, walk around the car, and roll down the windows. It's one car that should have had electric windows. It should have been this, but the previous owner, the original owner didn't spring for it. This is not the original color. I think it was blue and white because I think I found an ad somewhere that had this car for sale when it was blue and white. A previous owner, as I said, did a nice job. I mean, the paint is flawless, the trim, the chrome. When we replaced the big spotlights that were here, we've got new pieces here, new windshield pieces. You know, you get spoiled with American stuff like this because almost all parts are available. When you're doing Duesenbergs and all these rare European cars, ah, you're not finding parts. And when you do, they're crazy expensive and they don't fit or they're rusted. But that's the one you have to use because there aren't any other parts available. Interior, you could get a brand new interior, which this did. It was a white interior, which I never liked in a convertible. It just gets too dirty. So, of course, a little hot in California in the summertime, but that's okay. But as you can see, it's in really nice shape. The chrome is good. I like the wheels. This is exactly as it left the factory, the redline tires. It is so much fun to drive. Before we take it for a drive, let's take a look under the hood and show you what we're talking about. Kind of have to get down on one knee like you're proposing to this thing every time you open the hood. We had to put new springs in. I think we put a new pad in too. This is the original motor, 428. Now, normally this would have been 360 horse, the 376 horsepower. Had the forged steel crank, a few other high-performance pieces, different carburetor. That's the original motor. Kind of factory headers for lack of a better term. Yeah, it's all as she left the factory. There's a lot of room and you actually stand in this thing and work on it. You got the dual master cylinder. I think '67 was the first year that became mandatory on all cars. Power steering, power brake. We got one of those. We take our Optima battery, we cover it with one of those vintage-looking fake batteries so it looks period correct. You know, it's funny. I thought the previous owner stuck this, says 428 here. I thought the previous owner just stuck that in there for whatever reason. But that's the way it came. They wanted everybody to know, no matter where you were, whether you're being hit by this car, run over by this car, stuck under the hood, they wanted you to see 428. You'll see it. It's in the driver's compartment. True. 428. 428. That was their big number. Very straightforward, easy to work on. Plugs are accessible, you know, engine coolant, all this kind of stuff. It runs really good. Runs really good. Let's shut this. Come on. Let's take it for a ride.
Suddenly it's 1967.
You know, I mentioned before when you're restoring these kind of American cars, a lot of new old stock still available. When I got this, it did not have air conditioning, which they didn't put in, but it didn't have a clock, but it had the space for the clock like they used to do in America because they'd leave the space blank so people know how cheap you are. So I looked on eBay, found a brand new Pontiac 2+2 clock. Yeah, the same one that goes in the Bonneville or Catalina. And I bought it for a couple of bucks and I put it, works fine. So that's kind of cool. This thing is so hilarious to drive. As I mentioned, it's like driving the great outdoors. You know, when you get in modern cars, they have all kinds of safety features, you know, T-tops and all this kind of stuff. Not this thing. You're just out. You're on your own. Just a big 428, steel forged crank, 376 horsepower. I think it's 452 foot-pounds of torque. It's pretty good, especially for this. Actually, they wanted to make sure that the power rating was the same as the GTO. So this turned about the same time, you know, low 13s in a quarter mile as a GTO. Just the idea of low 13s was considered blisteringly fast back in the early days.
Yeah, we didn't do any performance modifications other than the six-speed transmission, but it does just change the car. It really makes it drivable now. And let me tell you something, these T-56s are just unbreakable. They're just a great, great transmission. I even put one in my Maserati. You know, the ZF is very nice, but parts for that are more expensive. An entire transmission like the Tremec is bulletproof. You can't break it. Certainly not with the torque of a six-cylinder Maserati. So yeah, it's always been a smart choice. Bolts right up. And the guys did a heck of a job putting it in.
It's a perfect day here in California. There's something about a manual transmission in a big tank like this just makes me smile. Obviously, you know, the new 10-speeds and all these kind of transmissions are much faster, but just knowing that you're in control, it's doing it because you want to do it, not because the transmission thinks that you do it. I mean, that's what I like. I love this era of American cars. This is when they really started to get good disc brakes in the front, got serious about handling. And you think this car would be heavy. It's not. It's between 3,800 and 4,000 lb. You know why? Because the complete absence of any safety equipment. No steel torque guard beams, no airbag, no airbag actuators, no absorbing bumpers, nothing. Nothing. You know, you die by your own hand in this thing. And the hood tach stroker genius, I just think it's the greatest thing. I like it even better than heads-up display.
Makes you smile. Goes good.
For younger people who don't know, Pontiac was the performance arm of General Motors. You had Buick, Oldsmobile, Chevrolet was the sort of middle-America everyday car. Buick was luxury, Oldsmobile was luxury, and of course Cadillac, the ultimate luxury car. And everybody had their own motor. John DeLorean, before he kind of disgraced himself, just a brilliant engineer, father of the GTO. Ed Cole was president in the '60s. Ed Cole was the guy who developed the Corvair, which I think is probably the greatest European-American car. Just a brilliant design. It's so funny. It got beat by Mustang. It was considered a failure because they only sold 1.8 million of them. I guess Mustang by that time had sold like two or three million. So it was deemed not successful. But I love mine. I think it's a great-looking car. There's some great GM designs by the mid-'60s. I don't think Pontiac sold anywhere near the numbers that Buick or certainly Chevrolet did, but they were unique. As I said, I think the Firebird was the best-looking of those midsize cars. I thought it was better looking than the equivalent of the Ferrari, which it shared the same body with. The Fiero was not really good when it first came out. It had that Iron Duke four-cylinder engine, but by the end it had a little V6 and it turned into quite a performance car. They mistakenly sort of marketed it initially as an import fighter, you know, just economy secretary's car. Well, it was actually a pretty good little sports car. And by the final generation of it, I think it had a five-speed manual and a V6.
That was fantastic.
'67 Pontiac was riding high, and when they introduced the GTO, they thought they might sell 15 to 20,000. I think they sold something like 80, some huge amount. I mean, it was a huge, huge success. It made them rethink the whole marketing thing because prior to that they only allowed, let's see, for every 10 lbs of car you so much cubic whatever, you couldn't put the big engine in the smaller car. Big engine only went big car, you know, that kind of thing. Once they saw how much people clamored for it and how popular it was, boy, that formula changed real quick. It's hard to believe this is the standard suspension. I mean, it really handles good for what it is. You can't help but have a smile on your face when you're driving this.
Drop it in six. What am I turning? 1,700 RPM. That's not bad. 70 mph and it's got the torque to pull it. So I love the massive shifter with the big cue ball on it and Hurst shifter. That was a magic name back in the '60s. When you had a manual transmission, you just got a Hurst shifter. It was just something you did. And they really were good. They really were such an improvement over the factory.
Hey, if you've got one of these cars, I'd love to hear from you in the comment section. A guy named Jack Anderson, he does the 2+2 club. He's got all the information. If you're into these cars, join the Pontiac Club. It's really good. I mean, they have access to every factory thing, every bit of build sheets, whatever you need, you can get it through them. So it's kind of a fun group of guys. Because I met him a few times when I got my Firebird, and now I got this one, and I got the Grand Prix. So I've gone from not having any to being a three-time Pontiac guy. So check it out. Join the Pontiac Club. Hey, listen, we'll see you guys next week. We have something totally different from this. See you then.
