Show-stopper seen through the showroom window
Last weekend, I attended the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals show in Rosemont where I talked to the owner of the vehicle featured here today. In my column for this Sunday's Auto section, I'll profile two more vehicles and owners I met at the show.
Time was running out for Jim Norton. In fact, he had just two weeks.
The year was 1966 and the 20-year-old was urgently shopping for an Olds 442. Here was the problem: the '67 models debuted in 14 short days and the young serviceman couldn't afford one. All the '66 models were being cleared from showrooms, making them difficult to find. Any free time Norton had away from his post at the Blytheville Air Force Base in Arkansas, he spent searching area dealers.
Finally, while cruising through Osceola, Arkansas, he hit pay dirt. Not only did he find a good-looking muscle car but also a change of heart.
"I happened to drive by a Pontiac dealership where something caught my eye," Norton says. He spun right around and raced back to check out the gleaming machine: a 1966 GTO. "It was the showcased model and all the spotlights were aimed at it,"
Norton soon forgot his longing for a 442 and wasted no time plunking down $3,300 and trading in his 1959 Pontiac Catalina to seal the deal.
For the next couple of years, the GTO was driven daily around the base. Longer trips involved driving over to North Carolina to visit his brother. In 1968 Norton was discharged from the Air Force and returned to his hometown of Gainesville, Georgia.
Because of the city's quaint size, everyone knew the car. "It was the only one like it," Norton says. "It had no trouble standing out." It wasn't just the neighbors who recognized the Iverness Green Pontiac. The local sheriff knew it, too.
One Saturday night, Norton was out "horsing around" with some guys when the "blue lights came on" behind him. He eluded his pursuers - or so he thought. Bright and early Monday morning, he awoke to a stern knock on his front door. "The police chief handed me my ticket and made sure I went to city hall to pay my fine," Norton recalls with a chuckle. "He wasn't too happy about being outrun."
In 1972, Norton parked the GTO in a barn where it sat untouched until 1989. He then attempted a restoration in his home basement. After getting sidetracked several times, he took it to a shop for a full and proper overhaul. It emerged competed in 2009.
"It still has that 'pop' just like when I saw it on the showroom floor," says Norton, who still lives in Gainesville. "I had to have it then and still love it today."