64 ❘ August 29, 2019 http://www.oldcarsweekly.com
Jordan shopped for the car on her
own, though. And she made all the de-
cisions herself. It all turned out to be a
learning experience for a fi rst-time car
buyer. “After I knew what to look for,
I went to the Pontiac dealer in Wausau
[Wis.] and they had a ’69 Judge, and I
actually signed a contract,” recalls Jor-
dan, a resident of Mosinee, Wis. “But
by the time I got my loan and went
back, they had sold it to someone. And
because I was so young I didn’t realize
that was illegal. So I went to Cooper
Pontiac in Stevens Point, because they
had one. It was orange, it was cool and I
didn’t care if it was fast because I didn’t
speed. I drove slow [laughs].”
“My dad passed away when I was 7
years old and my mom said I could buy
a car. Nobody came with me to look for
the car, I just knew what I wanted and I
went alone. I got a loan from the credit
union of my employer. They took the
payments right out of my paycheck, so
they weren’t too worried about the pay-
ments getting made.”
Jordan had one little issue to solve
before she could drive the car 20 min-
utes home from the dealer, however. “I
didn’t know how to drive a stick shift,”
she says. “So the salesman gave me les-
sons.”
Jordan wound up driving the Judge
daily for about fi ve years before she
decided it was time for something dif-
ferent. The GTO stayed in the family,
though, because she sold it to her broth-
er, Ed. He kept the car for a few years
and then sold it to another brother, Al.
“Then Al took it off the road and put it
in storage in 1977. And then Al moved
to Alaska and he sold it to my son, Troy
Hack. Troy was going to restore it, but
it was just too expensive, so Troy gener-
ously gave it back to me.”
That was in 2000 — 26 years af-
ter she had last owned the car. Jordan
wasn’t sure what would eventually
happen to the Judge, but she knew she
didn’t want the car to leave the family.
“I wanted to restore it, but it was just
so expensive,” she says. “So I just had
it sitting in my garage, and I’d look at it,
but that was about all.”
In 2010, Jordan married Roger
Cook, who thought it was a good idea to
restore the GTO back to its original glo-
ry. Cook had some background with the
car, too. “We dated in that car back in
the early '70s,” he laughs. “She doesn’t
like me telling people that, but we used
to date in this car!”
“But then he went back to the Air
Force and we went our separate ways ...
until we were married in 2010,” Jan adds.
“I always liked it, and I fi nally said,‘We need the space. We are either going
to restore it or get rid of it,” Cook says.
“So we started looking for somebody
who would take it on.”
It took about fi ve years, plenty of
hand wringing and help from a lot of
different sources, but The Judge was fi -
nally back presiding over the streets of
Mosinee in 2016.De Judge cometh
Any muscle car inspired by the
“Here Come ‘de Judge” skits on Rowan
& Martin’s “Laugh In” TV show was
sure to be a bit crazy and the GTO Judge
was crazy in a very fast way. As Car Life
magazine once put it, “Pontiac inspired
the supercar for this generation... and
The Judge is one of the best.”
“Born Great” was the catchy sales
slogan that Pontiac Motor Division
used for the 1969 GTO “The Judge.”
The new model of GTO was designed
to be what Car and Driver magazine
called an “econo racer.” In other words,
it was a heavily optioned muscle car
with a price that gave you a lot for your
money. It was a machine that you could
take racing, pretty much “as is,” and for
a lot less money than a purpose-built
drag racing car cost. It was seen in many
street races, too.
GTO styling was shared with the