1974 Pontiac Ventura GTO        page 10

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One last hurrah for Dan Roy's GTO (the Fire Coral Bronze car) at the 2005 GTOAA Nationals in St. Louis.  He sold this car in the summer of 2005, probably setting a new record for an moderately modified '74 GTO.  Dan's car won it's show class ('73-'74 Modified).  What a nice way to close this chapter of his Pontiac adventures.  His many contributions to this site (photos, feedback, technical help for site visitors) have been awesome, beginning in the earliest days of the site...many thanks!

Dan's car was joined by this pair...notice all these cars have the unique pinstriping, while the green car looks like it might have a hood-mounted  tach, too. The red '74 was the only one at the convention in the Stock category.

(L) The owner of the green GTO, who later raced GTO owner Rich Vie (see the action photo in our At The Track section!).

(R) Nova fan Lucille ( bahnah@on.aibn.com ) has also developed a strong addiction to Venturas.  In addition to picking up a lime green '74 GTO, she and her husband scooped up these two refugees.  You may have seen pictures of these cars stashed in a barn when they first appeared in our classified ad section.  I'll call the one with the skewed wheel 'Brownie' to help tell them apart.

Lucille's second catch is the 'Primermobile', for lack of a better name, and this one still has its shaker scoop. Here's her letter:
" Here they are - the two GTOs I purchased off your website. Although we bought them in the winter, it was too difficult to get them out of the barns where they were parked until the snow/mud had ended.

"We brought them home to Toronto from Woodstock yesterday - the pics were taken when we picked them up. Yes - you were correct when you noticed that one of them had the turned aluminum dash inserts - yippeee!!!. One also has factory tinted windows. Both have original rims - only one has the centre caps....good thing I purchased another set off e-bay a couple of months ago.

"The GTO on the rear trailer has a broken tie rod - you can see the driver's side wheel in a painfully awkward position. They also threw in an additional rear bumper - rubber strip included - another much sought after part.

"And so the restoration continues, on and on, and on and on! Thanks to you for your efforts in keeping your website alive - it's great.  p.s. - I bought a few tiger tails on e-bay a while ago - won't they look fun hanging out the trunk lids!!!"
 

With enthusiastic fans like this, the '74 GTO is in no danger of fading away!
There were 125K miles on the odometer of this attention-grabbing Canadian GTO.  The ad provided the following details: "355 cubic inch, aluminum heads, aluminum intake, camshaft, 373 gears, lime green, stainless steel exhaust, B&M shifter, Boyd rims, new paint, new interior. VIN 2V17B4W139048" You can clearly see the turned aluminum dash inserts, which are now becoming available on the repro market.  The dollar figure is extra-high because it's in Canadian "loonies".

You'll probably recognize this red GTO from our ad section.  Details below...

"1974 GTO 4sp, hatchback. PHS documented : Buccaneer red, 3sp,a/c, p/b, p/s. rebuilt original engine, new brakes, good tires, in-dash tach, console with gauges, exhaust splitters, Rally II rims. Needs seat covers, carpet, bumpers re-chromed. Runs and drives great.1 of only 687 manual tranny hatchbacks built."  Might we add, "Get yours today!"  :-)
(L) Wallace Allen ( WMDDALLEN@peoplepc.com ) provided several shots of his car (still in its project stage) along with a bit of its history:

"...it has a 455, 350 TH transmission w/floor shifter. I was rear-ended a few years ago and that's the reason for the primered back half. The original front end is from my first car. I had it only 1 month before a 17 year old kid hit me from behind; he was searching for his cell phone. I've thought about selling it, but looking on ebay and other places to sell the car, just makes me want to keep it and get it going again. There aren't many like this around my town, and I blend in with the crowd with my '71 Chevelle, and there is no way I would blend in with this car when it's finished."  It'll be great to see another '74 restored to its former glory, best of luck to Wallace!

(R) Another page from the Canadian version of the 74 Ventura and GTO brochure.

This just in from our Canadian friends:  "Hi, I'm Luke Harris from New Brunswick Canada, and I'm president of a drag team at our school. We brought a 1974 GTO hatchback into the shop and built it into a stock car, but we use it for drag racing. I was wondering if you would be able to put us on to a line of parts so we could maybe we could get new bumpers, and new grilles. Ours are broken, and the bumpers are rusted quite bad." (Feb04) Anyone willing to help these guys out can reach Luke at ( luke_gt@hotmail.com )

Probably one of my favorite new shots this year.  What a shocking comparison, huh? John Tribbitt ( jtribbett3@comcast.net  ) is the proud owner of this car, which I believe was purchased from Greg Gatlin (top of page).  And you can check out more shots of the other prized vehicle in our Wrecks & Relics section!

The paint on the car looks beautiful.  And you can tell John's got a Red Pontiac Thang goin' on at his house :-)  He writes:

"Hi, we love your site, it has inspired us to invest in a '74 which we did recently... let people know Delaware likes GTOs too...Thanks, John and Donna Tribbitt"
There was something odd about the appearance of this Rio Vista, California GTO, but I'll have to check my other photos.  The driver's rear quarter was caved in a bit from having survived a pit maneuver (stolen, I guess), and the price was bid pretty high on e-bay for a car that seemed like a clone... but don't quote me on that.

Rumored to have been on the cover of either Hot Rod or Car Craft, I'm sure the publicity didn't hurt the sales price of this heavily-modified goat.

  (L) Noticed this little GTO sketch in the letters section of an old High Performance Pontiac mag.  The artist's name is Ted Alexander, and he is still creating these nice line drawings for the magazine.  Maybe you can enlarge it and use it as a template to test out some new paint schemes.

(R) A gent by the name of Bob has his GTO in the body shop for some major body work...these types of panel replacements are tricky and not for the faint of heart.  "Here are some pictures of my 74 GTO at the body shop getting new GM quarters and tail light panel. This is the third one I've owned. You can put my e-mail address with the pictures, if anyone would like to contact me with any questions. I have a pretty good knowledge of these cars. Thanks, Bob ( Slickvillepanels@aol.com )"  Thanks for the kind offer, Bob.

A visitor by the name of Adam forwarded these shots of his paint job nearing completion.  "My website is still up-and-running, with lots of pictures and information at www.onetrak.com/1974gto "  You can talk GTOs with Adam at 1974gto@cox.net
(L)Shawn Bingaman ( pontiaclocator@yahoo.com ) shares the story on his dark blue scoopless GTO: 
"Hi, just bought my car back after 3 years! It was originally Pinemist Green with (UGLY) lima bean green interior. Tach/gauges/formula wheel/rwd/am-fm/4 wheel drum brakes/4 speed. It's currently Blue Raspberry Metallic/gray recaro cloth. I owned the car for 7 years then sold it to finance a move but it's BACK! For the full story see MY PONTIAC STORY on Performance Years! Awesome site!!! Glad I found it!

PS....I have a friend with a 73 Sprint stick car, another with a GTO drag car, and a guy in a nearby town has 3 74 GTOs 2 Hatchback cars, plus another GTO with in 15 minutes of here that is for sale! Also I am a race director for the OUTLAW PONTIAC DRAG SERIES."
   (please see www.outlawpontiacdragseries.com for race dates)

(R) Mike Adair ( pontiacmike04@hotmail.com ) purchased one of 3 GTOs that a friend in Canada had in storage (you may remember those cars being sold on this site).  He originally posted these shots of the retrieval of his project car on performanceyears.

(L) We have lots of shots of red Goats, but this one is taken from a nice overhead angle.  The owner was interested in selling (spring 2005) but was working on a price if I recall.

(R)
This beauty of a car is owned by Diz Dean, and I'm still kicking myself trying to remember who supplied the photo!  He and his car are evidently pretty well-known.
New sheet metal has been hung on Bob's ( slickvillepanels@aol.com )'74 GTO. Sounds like he's making great progress!

"...The shop got the quarters lined up perfectly, the gaps on the trunk lid and doors are perfect...  I'm getting ready to start on my engine (the original 350 with all the stock components) my engine rebuilder is pi--ed because were are rebuilding the engine to the stock 200HP. I'm trying to tell him this is a numbers-matching car, even all the date codes are correct.  I'm hoping to have my car on the road by next spring for cruising. The color of my car is Gulfmist Aqua, white vinyl top with white interior and rare column shift...well, got to go work on my air cleaner today, hope to get it painted with the 30% black...Thanks, Bob"

Speaking of fleets, meet Joe and Lucille, a Canadian couple who now own NINE X-body vehicles, all of 1974 vintage!  They started with Novas (their '74 Spirit of America is in our Project pages) but have lately taken a fancy to the Ventura.  If their Nova restorations are any indication, the Venturas that you see here are in very good hands.  Check out where they found one of their build sheets...
 Mike Adair ( pontiacmike04@hotmail.com ) has his Sunstorm Yellow '74 torn apart and ready to begin its transformation into a Buccaneer Red '74 GTO clone. 

"Good day Roland...I don't if you already knew, I already have a Ventura I'm cloning to a 74 GTO, thought I'd send some pics of it. The car was originally yellow with tan interior. I'm changing the color to Buccaneer Red with the red, white and blue stripe on it... I'm putting a stroker 455 in it (474 c.i.). I have a nice set of Prostar rims and tires to put on it.  This is not the car that I had bought from the guy in Woodstock. I've had this car for about a year longer...

"I usually do all the work myself, but I bought a semi last year, and with a single car garage, there's not enough room to do anything!  So I have to rely on good friends and their shops. Thought you would like to see some of the pics. I now have everything to put the car together, but I'm just waiting for the body to get done. Don't mind the date on the pictures...they're wrong!"

NOTE: I've seen discussion in the past about what the trans tunnel looks like for floor shift vehicles, so here's a nice look, thanks to Mike.  Looks like this was an automatic.

Bob ( Slickvillepanels@aol.com ) is making some great progress on his GTO project, and reveals some more of his Ventura fleet.

"Yes the progress is coming along fine, everyone loves the color of the car. The green 73 Ventura 4 door was purchased  from the original owner, the car only has 57,000 miles on it... their grandson put the mag wheels on it. I paid $200 for it.
"The green 74 GTO has extensive rear frame rot, if I can get it out of the weather I may restore it later on.  The green 74 came with original 350 engine, air, gauge package, 4 speed (someone put a M22 rock crusher transmission in), bucket seats, clock, tilt wheel...the guy  threw in a 1970 455 engine YH code 360 HP, not a bad deal for a $1000.

"With the  green 74 that makes four74 GTOs I've owned.  I have pictures of the ones I owned  in the 1980's,  if I dig them up I'll email them to you. Take it easy, Bob"  

(L) Jake Laduke had a small fleet of three Venturas out in California.  He kept a '73, but sold a '74 and this GTO, which is missing its motor.

(R) I was so excited to see this e-mail titled "my '74GTO", thinking, "Wow, I didn't know Eli owned one!"  New York City is a tough place to own a good car, so I totally understand the 'downsizing' concept   :-)

If you have some '74 GTO pictures you'd like to share, just drop me a line at pontiacv@pontiacventura.com ; this site is updated monthly.  -Roland  (It's OK if you no longer own the car, too.)