Car Craft – October 2019

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68 CAR CRAFT OCTOBER 2019

A Pair of Four-Speed GTOs Languish on the

Texas Prairie

JUNKYARD CRAWL

By Steve Magnante / Photos: Steve Magnante

After the 1970 Ram Air IV Judge, 1965 Tri-Power cars top the “favorite GTO” list of many Pontiac muscle-car fanatics. In 1965, GTO sales

exploded to 75,352, a 132-percent gain over 1964 (when 32,450 were sold—against an internal corporate prediction of 5,000 sales). This

derelict Texas hardtop still wears the tattered remnants of its Cordova vinyl top and faded Burgundy paint.

W

hat are the odds of finding

a 1965 Tri-Power GTO in the

junkyard? Well, if the entire

run of 75,352 GTOs built in 1965 is con-

sidered, Tri-Power discoveries would

occur 36 percent of the time. That’s

right, 20,547 of those 75,352 buyers

checked the box next to Tri-Power and

were rewarded with a trio of Rochester

two-barrel carburetors topped by those

cool little circular filter elements.

In fact, 1965 was the peak year for

Tri-Power take rates, when an extra

$115.78 replaced the standard Carter

AFB four-barrel with a trio of Rochester

two-barrel carburetors and a hotter

cam with more duration and overlap

to boost output from 335 to 360 hp.

Interestingly, Tri-Power take rates were

lower in other years: 1964 = 25 percent

(8,245 out of 32,450 cars) and 1966

= 22 percent (19,045 out of 96,946

cars). For 1967 onward, all GTOs would

get special versions of the Rochester

Quadra-Jet four-barrel, an emissions-

oriented, spread-bore design.

Back to reality, GTOs have become

so popular today that you never see

one in the junkyard, right? Well,

this month, we’re in Denton, Texas,

at CTC Auto Ranch (940/482-3007;

CTCautoranch.com), where we

discovered no less than two legitimate

GTO hulks. And they’re both stick

cars with clutch pedals to keep the

driver’s left leg occupied.

1. 1966–1971 GTOs are seldom faked
   because their VIN starts with 242, a code
   only used on GTOs. Unfortunately, 1964 and
   1965 GTOs share VIN prefixes with the V8
   LeMans. Adding GTO bits to a LeMans does
   not make it a GTO. The VIN on this original-
   paint ’65 reads “237375P246717” and tells
   us: 2 = Pontiac division, 37 = LeMans series,
   37 = Hardtop Sport Coupe, 5 = 1965 model
   year, P = Pontiac, MI assembly plant, 246717
   = sequence number.