66 ❘ August 29, 2019 http://www.oldcarsweekly.com
759 carsinthesametwolinesand 59 of
thesecarswereconvertibles.
“The Judge” optionwas addedto
6,725GTOtwo-doorhardtopsandonly
108 GTO ragtops.The editors of Car
Lifemagazinewhippeda Judgethrough
thequarter-mile at14.45 seconds and
97.8 mph. Supercars Annual covered
thesamedistanceina JudgewithTurbo
Hydra-Matic transmission and racked
up a run of 13.99 seconds at 107 mph.
Looking good at 50!
Jordan’s Judge turned the big 5-oh
this year and the car looks great, but it
wasn’t easy. The process took fi ve years
and actually started many years ago
when Jan’s brother Al had it. “He had
started to buy parts and quarter panels
and a hood and different parts,” she re-
called. “He wanted to restore it some
day, so he was collecting things for it.
So we had all those original parts from
when he owned it, and we were able to
use all that.”
The couple had a hard time decid-
ing at fi rst who to turn the project over
to. “We had one place fl y out to look
at it, and when it came time to give us
an estimate and they found out she had
originally bought the car it was like,
‘Oh,soit haspersonalattachment,’and
therewasnolimit,"hesaid."Ithadsen-
timentalvaluesotherewasnolimitto
theprice!”
“Noonewouldreallygiveusanes-
timatewhatit wouldcost,”Janadds.
Finally,thecouplesettledonhaving
a localshopserveas a sortof general
contractor, “but there wasn’t just one
shop that worked on it,” Cook says.
“Lots of people were involved. Like
wetakethedashoutandshipit toCali-
fornia,andanotherplacewoulddothe
chrome.Mostofthetimeit wasdoneinplaces around Wisconsin.”
Cook also scavenged
some parts himself from
junkyards that were within
driving distance. “We put
air conditioning in it,” he
pointed out. “I went down
to Tigerton [Wis.] to a
junkyard and took it out of
another car myself. We re-
placed a lot of little things,
like window cranks that
were worn out and things
like that.”
Jordan still has the
original window sticker,
which shows the car cost
a grand total of $3,446.76
after showing up on the
lot loaded with about a
dozen options and acces-
sories. Among them were
a four-speedmanualtransmissionwith
a console; flip-up headlamps; radio;
power steering; heavy-duty battery;
tinted glass;andfrontfloormats. One
noteworthyoptionnotonthecaris the
familiar hood tach, which Cook says
frequentlycausesconsternationamong
carshowattendees.“I’dsaysixorsevenThis "The Judge" was built with the
optional four-speed transmission, and
owner Jan Jordan had to learn how to
drive a manual transmission before she
could drive it home from the Pontiac
The standard 1969 Pontiac GTO "The
Judge" powerplant was the 400-cid
Ram Air III engine good for 366 hp.
During the restoration, air conditioning
was added.