In This Episode
- 0:00 Introduction to the '69 GTO Project Henchman
- 0:33 Discussion on the GTO Judge spoiler and its significance
- 2:07 Adding a spoiler to the rear of the car
- 5:55 Laying down custom stripes on the car
- 9:04 Designing and adding custom front cornering lamps
- 14:04 Final touches and testing the completed car
Video Transcript
[Joel] You're watching Powernation.
[Joel] Hi ho silver! [ engine revving ] [ tires squealing ] [ radio – hold one second, hold one second ] [Joel] We don't want to spoil the ending but we earned our stripes today as we put the finishing touches on our '69 GTO Project Henchman and try to keep it between the ditches. [Brian] Best day of work ever. [ Music ] [ engine revving ] [ Music ]
[Brian] I got you. Old eagle eye there. [Joel] I didn't calibrate my eyeballs. [Brian] 25 and three quarter would be 51 and a half. Ain't that what we said? [Joel] Back in the day if you had a '69 GTO with a spoiler there was two different styles. You could either get a GTO spoiler or a Judge spoiler. The old spoileration. One thing a lot of people probably don't know about the GTO Judge is when they first introduced the idea and concept behind it it was supposed to be a budget friendly base model option. Then Pontiac got to talking about it more and the more meetings they had about it they realized no, we need to make this our top of the line performance package. [ Music ] [Brian] Can't get better than perfect. [ tape crackling ] [Brian] When I think of a GTO Judge the spoiler itself is an iconic piece of this vehicle. Aesthetically it is definitely what sets it apart from a bone stock vehicle to me. [Joel] That's pretty dang close. Horseshoes and hand grenades man. [Brian] Six of one, half a dozen of another. Could you imagine this was your job at the factory? [Joel] Would have been a dream. [Brian] I would like to see the factory setup though. How they gauged each one down the assembly line. [Joel] I'm sure they had some sort of paper template that they just laid down and pa-tunk. Done and done. [Brian] Always think about the placement of your spoiler on a trunk lid or deck lid as some people call it. You need access for the back side for nuts or bolts. Whatever the case may be. Put it in the center. [Joel] Just kinda even up the edges best you can. You like it? [ Music ] This always makes me nervous. [Brian] I'm glad you're drilling. [Joel] Now our old GTO didn't come with a spoiler from the factory but we really wanted to put one on it, and that could be a daunting task and a little bit intimidating especially when the car's already painted. The first thing we did was measure and find the center point of the trunk going edge to edge. We went ahead and did the same thing to the spoiler. So once we had the center point of both panels we were able to set it on there. Then afterwards we laid down some tape for more of a mapping surface again. [Brian] I'm glad you got the sharp bit. [Joel] Then we set the spoiler on the deck lid just kinda eyeballing it and making sure it was straight on both sides. Then we measured the back of the spoiler to the back edge of the deck lid. [Joel] Once we knew we were centered left to right, up and down, then we went ahead and mapped out the edges of where the spoiler mounts. [Brian] Skin moves a lot you know it? [Joel] Yeah it does. Any time you're drilling through a painted surface you've gotta go slow. At the end of the day if you get in a hurry there's a good chance that paint's gonna pull up with the drill bit. Another way to prevent that from happening is to lay down some masking tape. That's gonna hold down all those layers of clear coat, base coat, and everything. As that drill's going through it'll just keep it in place. [Brian] Five-sixteenths! [Joel] Thank you sir. Really, really no going back now. [Brian] Too late. [ drill humming ]
[Brian] Ooo-wooo! [Joel] Why'd you make me do this? [Brian] I'm glad you're doing that. [ drill humming ] [Joel] Well that was fun. Let's not ever do it again. [Brian] Let's see what your handy work looks like. Adding the spoiler to the rear, which it's not a factory Judge package, it adds to the aesthetics of a Judge. We wanted something menacing, low, and sleek. We added our own touches to finish it off the way we wanted to. Hole number one looks great. [Joel] Hole number two's always the messing one. [ Music ] Stick some gaskets down. [Brian] Thank you sir. Put the short end in. [Joel] Now the GTO spoiler was a little bit taller and a little bit wider. So it just didn't flow with the car as well. That's actually why we decided to go with a Judge style spoiler because it's a little more mainstream, looks a lot more sharp, and fits the attitude of the car. Moment of truth. [ Music ] [Brian] We've got to find somebody to blame if it don't fit. [Joel] Blame the guy with the drill bit. Good on my side. How about yours? What do you think buddy? [Brian] It's killer man. [Joel] Go grab some hardware and we'll mount it permanently. I don't think we're gonna do much better than that. No going back now buddy. [Brian] Up next, we get into a sticky situation as we lay down some custom stripes.
[ Music ]
[Joel] Have a little extra on my end. Back in the '60s it was all about psychedelics and appealing to a bold, rebellious group of teenagers, and that's kinda what Pontiac was going with when they put this stripe package on their Pontiac GTOs. Based on how you ordered the car you could get a different variation of the colors of stripes and the color of the car itself. It's looking pretty good to me. [Brian] Yeah I love the door-fender for sure. [Joel] That's pretty close. [Brian] Cause it is wider here. [Joel] That ought to do it. You guys have seen us use Phoenix Graphics on a number of projects in the past including our '83 Hurst Olds and our Bandit Trans Am. No going back now buddy. [Brian] A little goes a long way. [Joel] Some good stuff though. And now we've partnered with them again to add a few custom touches to our '69 GTO. Now we wanted a traditional Judge stripe but not traditional Judge stripe coloring. So we asked them to modify the design just a little bit to accent the bronze on our wheels. Don't stick. I'm not ready yet. [Brian] When a vehicle's outside in the sun panel gaps tend to expand and contract with the metal itself. So it's super important when you bridge the gap with your vinyl stripe make sure you have some relief cuts to keep it from splitting or pulling when the vehicle goes out in the heat. It's like joints in the concrete guys. You've got to plan your cut so your vinyl can move with your vehicle. [ Music ] [Joel] When you're laying graphics on a curved surface it helps to pull on the vinyl to stretch it and help it maintain contact. I like the color on it though. It's almost the same bronze goldish that the Trans Ams had, the fire chickens. Basically you can stretch that inner radius of the curve before you lay it down and that'll help relax that position instead of constantly having to pull against the edge. In theory this should keep those edges from curling up on you down the road. Get a good swoop up on it. [Brian] I just want to see it from over here. [Joel] We are right on with the lines. I'll let you do the honors on the back half. Now a '69 Judge also would have come with additional decals on the front fender and the rear spoiler that actually said the words "The Judge" on them. We threw around doing that idea also but we felt like it was gonna be too much. Besides we're not building a Judge clone. We're building a Henchman. [ Music ] That's perfect. [ Music ] [Brian] Looks awesome buddy. [Joel] Dude that looks killer. That changed the whole look of the car right there. [Brian] One hundred percent. [Joel] Now we've just gotta do the other side. [Brian] Great color combo. [Joel] Matches the wheels. Goes well with the black chrome. Perfect accent. I love it. Coming up, if you can't buy it build it. We cut a few corners and design a one of a kind component. [Brian] They look good man.
[Joel] When our GTO first rolled into the shop it was basically a project that somebody had started but never finished. The original drivetrain and engine were long gone, and front sheet metal was off, and all the trim and everything was in boxes. So the former owner kinda had a cataloging issue but as we dug through the boxes and everything we found out something really cool. This car came with front cornering lamps, which is a super rare option on these cars. Basically how they work is you'll kick on your lights at night and then when you go to use your turn signals it would brightly flash into the ditch so you could see around the corners a little bit better. So this is what we had. We had the housings and the lenses but we did not have the bezels. The original design of the bezel had a convex and concave shape to it and was a little bit rounded. At the end of the day without having the original piece it was really gonna be hard to recreate that. So it worked out in the end because this is a little bit of a custom car anyway. So we decided to go with a flat piece and it sits in there nice, flush, and just flows with the rest of the car. Before we sent it out to Send-Cut-Send we had everything dialed in down to a thousandths of an inch. From there we generated a cad file that gave us all the dimensions, the material, and the finish that we wanted on our final product. Once they add that information it was just a matter of a few days and this thing showed up in bare steel. Then we just color matched it to match the rest of the car. We felt pretty confident that our measurements were dialed in but there's only really one way to find out. [Brian] See how I'm gonna get this down in here. [Joel] Sorry, I know it's a tight squeeze. [Brian] You got the front one in too? I'm gonna let go so I can get the nut. It's important to decide up front whether I'm building a period correct car or I'm gonna build something that's a one off that I'm looking to do. A show car if you will or a driver. [Joel] I had to push on the housing a little bit. [Brian] Go go gadget arm! [Joel] Oh no! Kinda went into the abyss. [Brian] So part availability, part type, these are all things that come into play when choosing your project. [ Music ]
[Joel] It's important to know the history of the vehicle you're restoring because it can actually help you in the long run when it comes to sourcing parts. General Motors is a great platform for that. Housing needs to come towards the outside. Specially like our GTO. It falls in line with the '68 to '72 GM A-bodies. Let's say you need a passenger side door. The GTO, the Tempest, and the Le Mans all share the same doors. They were just different trim packages, and the price points are actually different. So knowing your history and what parts intermingle with one another can actually save you some money. [Brian] For our specific build, the GTO, we have front corning lights. It is a limited edition option on those vehicles that were just not available. So we had to figure out whether we were gonna make some patch panels, weld them up, re-body work them, re-paint the fenders, or what alternatives can we have? Maybe even 10, 15 years ago we didn't even have these options, but today we did something we haven't done before. We drew some patterns. We sent them over to a company. We had some one off brackets cut for this vehicle instead of welding up a limited edition fender. [Joel] Oh yeah! [Brian] Good? [ Music ] [Joel] Oh yeah, those corner lamps are definitely the cherry on top of the sundae. [Brian] They look good man. Even better than the factory bezels would have. [Joel] After a year's worth of work we finally finished out GTO. Honestly we've probably got about 2,000 hours into this thing. There's not a nut, bolt, or screw that we haven't touched. Now we couldn't really go with the chalk mark style restoration because we didn't have the original engine. She looks good buddy. [Brian] Almost complete! [Joel] Want to do a quick light check? [Brian] Let's do it. [Joel] So threw around a few different ideas and we decided that we wanted to be able to jump in this car, bump the key, and go coast to coast if wanted to. [Brian] Headlights? High beam? [Joel] Yep. [Brian] In addition to our upgrades guys we decided that we wanted the car to perform and we wanted something that we could daily drive if we wanted to, track ready at any moment. [Joel] Headlights and marker lights. Let's do left turn signal. [Brian] Left turn signal. Right turn signal. Excellent. [Joel] We decided to go with a 5-3 long block LS from ATK. We also added in a FiTech Ultimate LS intake, throttle body, and fuel management system. So now we don't have to worry about any kind of tuning issues. The more we drive this thing the better it's gonna drive. [Brian] Check out the rear. [Joel] Want to hit the brakes for me. [Brian] Brake lights? So we decided to go with RideTech. We used adjustable coil overs front and rear, upper and lower tubular control arms in the front, front and rear sway bars, and four wheel disc brakes. Left signal? [Joel] Yep. [Brian] Right turn signal? [Joel] Another one of my favorite features of this car is the trim. We wanted to do something kinda different. We knew we wanted to murder it out but we didn't just want to go and paint everything black because that's kinda overdone. We also didn't want to just put the old chrome back on it. So we wanted to put our own flare and spin on it. So we took everything over to Advanced Plating and they dipped it in black chrome, and this is definitely the icing on the cake and one of the most complimented features of this entire build. Sweet, let's hit the road. [Brian] While we had a vision in mind for this build our process was fluid. So a lot of the decisions that we made were on the fly or throughout the process. So we have a one off GTO build that you're not gonna find anywhere else. We couldn't be happier. [Joel] Between the black chrome, the custom stripe, the wheels, the spoiler. There may be a bunch of GTO Judges on the road but none of them look like this thing. [ engine rumbling ] [ Music ] [Brian] Hang onto your seats because we're finally pounding the pavement with Project Henchman. [Joel] Woo, that'll rattle your sphincter.
[ Music ] [ engine revving ] [ Music ] [Tommy] First impression, this thing'll rock n' roll. [ Music ] [ engine revving ] [ Music ] [Brian] Best day at work ever. [ Music ] [Joe] High, ho, silver! [ engine revving ] [ tires squealing ] [Joel] Ha, ha, ha! That'll rattle your sphincter. Woo hoo hoo! You know sitting in this field of rusty old Pontiacs I can't think of a better storybook ending for our old GTO. A lot of people will walk through a place like this or drive past a place like this and all they see is a bunch of rusty junky metal but for guys like me, Brian, and Tommy we see the potential in each one of these cars. No matter how far gone something is with enough time, money, and effort you can bring one of these vehicles back to life. [Brian] Performance, fuel economy, power, it's all right here. [ Music ] You know days like today where you get to actually drive your finished project. Whether it's a weekend warrior or something you've been working on for 10 years, 5 years, whatever, when you're driving down a road, two lane, windows down, 80 degrees, sunny, and running through the gears its just a feeling that you can't describe. It's what really makes you a gearhead, really makes you appreciate the fruits of your labor. [Tommy] This old car don't drive like an old one. It just feels good. Building a car like this takes a lot of work but it's really and truthfully a labor of love. Whenever we drug that car into the shop it looked pretty decent and it still had a bit of work we needed to do to it. For us that was an excellent opportunity for us to modernize this car. With the late model LS, overdrive 5-speed manual cause you've gotta have that. Just an automatic slush box isn't gonna give you that thrill of the shift. And then we also did several other upgrades with better suspension, better brakes, and so on and so on but we didn't really want to change the exterior shape of the car. We wanted to pay homage to what the premiere muscle car of the Pontiac division was, which would be The Judge of course, and put our flare on it. I do believe we knocked it out of the park as far as that goes. [Joel] Any time I drive one of these old cars I'm transported back to that time when I was a kid. I think a lot of people can relate to it in that sense. It feeds your soul in a way. We had a pretty good blank canvas to start with. It was no where near as rough as any of these cars. It's basically missing its front face, its drivetrain, and a few other trinkets. We were still able to bring it back to life with our own vision, but the car turned out better than we could have imagined. It's got its own character. It's got its own presence, and it definitely gets a lot of eyeballs going down the road. [Brian] I can't believe a muscle car from back in the day can perform like this today riding around up and down the highway. It's crazy! There's a lot of satisfaction actually taking a vehicle, whether it's from a salvage yard or a donor vehicle you purchased from somebody or even a driver and seeing it all the way to the end. There's a lot to be said for blood, sweat, tears, and hard work, and something that you're super passionate about. [Tommy] Just out enjoying these things is what it's all about. I tell people all the time just drive it man, just drive it! [Joel] I kinda wish we had known about this place a little bit earlier because we would have been able to find our cornering lights we were looking for. You know what? The car still turned out great. It's got is own character and its own spin on an otherwise unique vehicle. Walking around a place like this I'm automatically transported back to my childhood. When I was six or seven years old I was out with my dad in places like this pulling parts and now here I am 35 years old still doing it. That's the great thing about what we do. For us it's not a job, it's not a hobby, it's a lifestyle. This is who we are 365 days a year 24-7. We're car guys. This is what we do. [Brian] Man this thing handles like a dream. Like sitting on your couch. Something to be said for 80 degrees, windows down, 5-speed in a '69 GTO. [Joel] If I ever decided to run away to Mexico or Canada I'm taking this thing. It definitely gives you that sense of freedom in a way. [Tommy] Pretty proud of this car. It's a performance car built to be enjoyed. To go out and have some fun. Like ripping through the gears. Kinda carving some corners out on the curve. Some of it's conversation. Trading war stories between each other. Figuring out how you did this, or how they did that, or what you used to do. Man let me tell you about what we're planning to do in these things. That's what it's about. Yes sir! That's what it's all about.
Show Full Transcript
[Joel] Hi ho silver! [ engine revving ] [ tires squealing ] [ radio – hold one second, hold one second ] [Joel] We don't want to spoil the ending but we earned our stripes today as we put the finishing touches on our '69 GTO Project Henchman and try to keep it between the ditches. [Brian] Best day of work ever. [ Music ] [ engine revving ] [ Music ]
[Brian] I got you. Old eagle eye there. [Joel] I didn't calibrate my eyeballs. [Brian] 25 and three quarter would be 51 and a half. Ain't that what we said? [Joel] Back in the day if you had a '69 GTO with a spoiler there was two different styles. You could either get a GTO spoiler or a Judge spoiler. The old spoileration. One thing a lot of people probably don't know about the GTO Judge is when they first introduced the idea and concept behind it it was supposed to be a budget friendly base model option. Then Pontiac got to talking about it more and the more meetings they had about it they realized no, we need to make this our top of the line performance package. [ Music ] [Brian] Can't get better than perfect. [ tape crackling ] [Brian] When I think of a GTO Judge the spoiler itself is an iconic piece of this vehicle. Aesthetically it is definitely what sets it apart from a bone stock vehicle to me. [Joel] That's pretty dang close. Horseshoes and hand grenades man. [Brian] Six of one, half a dozen of another. Could you imagine this was your job at the factory? [Joel] Would have been a dream. [Brian] I would like to see the factory setup though. How they gauged each one down the assembly line. [Joel] I'm sure they had some sort of paper template that they just laid down and pa-tunk. Done and done. [Brian] Always think about the placement of your spoiler on a trunk lid or deck lid as some people call it. You need access for the back side for nuts or bolts. Whatever the case may be. Put it in the center. [Joel] Just kinda even up the edges best you can. You like it? [ Music ] This always makes me nervous. [Brian] I'm glad you're drilling. [Joel] Now our old GTO didn't come with a spoiler from the factory but we really wanted to put one on it, and that could be a daunting task and a little bit intimidating especially when the car's already painted. The first thing we did was measure and find the center point of the trunk going edge to edge. We went ahead and did the same thing to the spoiler. So once we had the center point of both panels we were able to set it on there. Then afterwards we laid down some tape for more of a mapping surface again. [Brian] I'm glad you got the sharp bit. [Joel] Then we set the spoiler on the deck lid just kinda eyeballing it and making sure it was straight on both sides. Then we measured the back of the spoiler to the back edge of the deck lid. [Joel] Once we knew we were centered left to right, up and down, then we went ahead and mapped out the edges of where the spoiler mounts. [Brian] Skin moves a lot you know it? [Joel] Yeah it does. Any time you're drilling through a painted surface you've gotta go slow. At the end of the day if you get in a hurry there's a good chance that paint's gonna pull up with the drill bit. Another way to prevent that from happening is to lay down some masking tape. That's gonna hold down all those layers of clear coat, base coat, and everything. As that drill's going through it'll just keep it in place. [Brian] Five-sixteenths! [Joel] Thank you sir. Really, really no going back now. [Brian] Too late. [ drill humming ]
[Brian] Ooo-wooo! [Joel] Why'd you make me do this? [Brian] I'm glad you're doing that. [ drill humming ] [Joel] Well that was fun. Let's not ever do it again. [Brian] Let's see what your handy work looks like. Adding the spoiler to the rear, which it's not a factory Judge package, it adds to the aesthetics of a Judge. We wanted something menacing, low, and sleek. We added our own touches to finish it off the way we wanted to. Hole number one looks great. [Joel] Hole number two's always the messing one. [ Music ] Stick some gaskets down. [Brian] Thank you sir. Put the short end in. [Joel] Now the GTO spoiler was a little bit taller and a little bit wider. So it just didn't flow with the car as well. That's actually why we decided to go with a Judge style spoiler because it's a little more mainstream, looks a lot more sharp, and fits the attitude of the car. Moment of truth. [ Music ] [Brian] We've got to find somebody to blame if it don't fit. [Joel] Blame the guy with the drill bit. Good on my side. How about yours? What do you think buddy? [Brian] It's killer man. [Joel] Go grab some hardware and we'll mount it permanently. I don't think we're gonna do much better than that. No going back now buddy. [Brian] Up next, we get into a sticky situation as we lay down some custom stripes.
[ Music ]
[Joel] Have a little extra on my end. Back in the '60s it was all about psychedelics and appealing to a bold, rebellious group of teenagers, and that's kinda what Pontiac was going with when they put this stripe package on their Pontiac GTOs. Based on how you ordered the car you could get a different variation of the colors of stripes and the color of the car itself. It's looking pretty good to me. [Brian] Yeah I love the door-fender for sure. [Joel] That's pretty close. [Brian] Cause it is wider here. [Joel] That ought to do it. You guys have seen us use Phoenix Graphics on a number of projects in the past including our '83 Hurst Olds and our Bandit Trans Am. No going back now buddy. [Brian] A little goes a long way. [Joel] Some good stuff though. And now we've partnered with them again to add a few custom touches to our '69 GTO. Now we wanted a traditional Judge stripe but not traditional Judge stripe coloring. So we asked them to modify the design just a little bit to accent the bronze on our wheels. Don't stick. I'm not ready yet. [Brian] When a vehicle's outside in the sun panel gaps tend to expand and contract with the metal itself. So it's super important when you bridge the gap with your vinyl stripe make sure you have some relief cuts to keep it from splitting or pulling when the vehicle goes out in the heat. It's like joints in the concrete guys. You've got to plan your cut so your vinyl can move with your vehicle. [ Music ] [Joel] When you're laying graphics on a curved surface it helps to pull on the vinyl to stretch it and help it maintain contact. I like the color on it though. It's almost the same bronze goldish that the Trans Ams had, the fire chickens. Basically you can stretch that inner radius of the curve before you lay it down and that'll help relax that position instead of constantly having to pull against the edge. In theory this should keep those edges from curling up on you down the road. Get a good swoop up on it. [Brian] I just want to see it from over here. [Joel] We are right on with the lines. I'll let you do the honors on the back half. Now a '69 Judge also would have come with additional decals on the front fender and the rear spoiler that actually said the words "The Judge" on them. We threw around doing that idea also but we felt like it was gonna be too much. Besides we're not building a Judge clone. We're building a Henchman. [ Music ] That's perfect. [ Music ] [Brian] Looks awesome buddy. [Joel] Dude that looks killer. That changed the whole look of the car right there. [Brian] One hundred percent. [Joel] Now we've just gotta do the other side. [Brian] Great color combo. [Joel] Matches the wheels. Goes well with the black chrome. Perfect accent. I love it. Coming up, if you can't buy it build it. We cut a few corners and design a one of a kind component. [Brian] They look good man.
[Joel] When our GTO first rolled into the shop it was basically a project that somebody had started but never finished. The original drivetrain and engine were long gone, and front sheet metal was off, and all the trim and everything was in boxes. So the former owner kinda had a cataloging issue but as we dug through the boxes and everything we found out something really cool. This car came with front cornering lamps, which is a super rare option on these cars. Basically how they work is you'll kick on your lights at night and then when you go to use your turn signals it would brightly flash into the ditch so you could see around the corners a little bit better. So this is what we had. We had the housings and the lenses but we did not have the bezels. The original design of the bezel had a convex and concave shape to it and was a little bit rounded. At the end of the day without having the original piece it was really gonna be hard to recreate that. So it worked out in the end because this is a little bit of a custom car anyway. So we decided to go with a flat piece and it sits in there nice, flush, and just flows with the rest of the car. Before we sent it out to Send-Cut-Send we had everything dialed in down to a thousandths of an inch. From there we generated a cad file that gave us all the dimensions, the material, and the finish that we wanted on our final product. Once they add that information it was just a matter of a few days and this thing showed up in bare steel. Then we just color matched it to match the rest of the car. We felt pretty confident that our measurements were dialed in but there's only really one way to find out. [Brian] See how I'm gonna get this down in here. [Joel] Sorry, I know it's a tight squeeze. [Brian] You got the front one in too? I'm gonna let go so I can get the nut. It's important to decide up front whether I'm building a period correct car or I'm gonna build something that's a one off that I'm looking to do. A show car if you will or a driver. [Joel] I had to push on the housing a little bit. [Brian] Go go gadget arm! [Joel] Oh no! Kinda went into the abyss. [Brian] So part availability, part type, these are all things that come into play when choosing your project. [ Music ]
[Joel] It's important to know the history of the vehicle you're restoring because it can actually help you in the long run when it comes to sourcing parts. General Motors is a great platform for that. Housing needs to come towards the outside. Specially like our GTO. It falls in line with the '68 to '72 GM A-bodies. Let's say you need a passenger side door. The GTO, the Tempest, and the Le Mans all share the same doors. They were just different trim packages, and the price points are actually different. So knowing your history and what parts intermingle with one another can actually save you some money. [Brian] For our specific build, the GTO, we have front corning lights. It is a limited edition option on those vehicles that were just not available. So we had to figure out whether we were gonna make some patch panels, weld them up, re-body work them, re-paint the fenders, or what alternatives can we have? Maybe even 10, 15 years ago we didn't even have these options, but today we did something we haven't done before. We drew some patterns. We sent them over to a company. We had some one off brackets cut for this vehicle instead of welding up a limited edition fender. [Joel] Oh yeah! [Brian] Good? [ Music ] [Joel] Oh yeah, those corner lamps are definitely the cherry on top of the sundae. [Brian] They look good man. Even better than the factory bezels would have. [Joel] After a year's worth of work we finally finished out GTO. Honestly we've probably got about 2,000 hours into this thing. There's not a nut, bolt, or screw that we haven't touched. Now we couldn't really go with the chalk mark style restoration because we didn't have the original engine. She looks good buddy. [Brian] Almost complete! [Joel] Want to do a quick light check? [Brian] Let's do it. [Joel] So threw around a few different ideas and we decided that we wanted to be able to jump in this car, bump the key, and go coast to coast if wanted to. [Brian] Headlights? High beam? [Joel] Yep. [Brian] In addition to our upgrades guys we decided that we wanted the car to perform and we wanted something that we could daily drive if we wanted to, track ready at any moment. [Joel] Headlights and marker lights. Let's do left turn signal. [Brian] Left turn signal. Right turn signal. Excellent. [Joel] We decided to go with a 5-3 long block LS from ATK. We also added in a FiTech Ultimate LS intake, throttle body, and fuel management system. So now we don't have to worry about any kind of tuning issues. The more we drive this thing the better it's gonna drive. [Brian] Check out the rear. [Joel] Want to hit the brakes for me. [Brian] Brake lights? So we decided to go with RideTech. We used adjustable coil overs front and rear, upper and lower tubular control arms in the front, front and rear sway bars, and four wheel disc brakes. Left signal? [Joel] Yep. [Brian] Right turn signal? [Joel] Another one of my favorite features of this car is the trim. We wanted to do something kinda different. We knew we wanted to murder it out but we didn't just want to go and paint everything black because that's kinda overdone. We also didn't want to just put the old chrome back on it. So we wanted to put our own flare and spin on it. So we took everything over to Advanced Plating and they dipped it in black chrome, and this is definitely the icing on the cake and one of the most complimented features of this entire build. Sweet, let's hit the road. [Brian] While we had a vision in mind for this build our process was fluid. So a lot of the decisions that we made were on the fly or throughout the process. So we have a one off GTO build that you're not gonna find anywhere else. We couldn't be happier. [Joel] Between the black chrome, the custom stripe, the wheels, the spoiler. There may be a bunch of GTO Judges on the road but none of them look like this thing. [ engine rumbling ] [ Music ] [Brian] Hang onto your seats because we're finally pounding the pavement with Project Henchman. [Joel] Woo, that'll rattle your sphincter.
[ Music ] [ engine revving ] [ Music ] [Tommy] First impression, this thing'll rock n' roll. [ Music ] [ engine revving ] [ Music ] [Brian] Best day at work ever. [ Music ] [Joe] High, ho, silver! [ engine revving ] [ tires squealing ] [Joel] Ha, ha, ha! That'll rattle your sphincter. Woo hoo hoo! You know sitting in this field of rusty old Pontiacs I can't think of a better storybook ending for our old GTO. A lot of people will walk through a place like this or drive past a place like this and all they see is a bunch of rusty junky metal but for guys like me, Brian, and Tommy we see the potential in each one of these cars. No matter how far gone something is with enough time, money, and effort you can bring one of these vehicles back to life. [Brian] Performance, fuel economy, power, it's all right here. [ Music ] You know days like today where you get to actually drive your finished project. Whether it's a weekend warrior or something you've been working on for 10 years, 5 years, whatever, when you're driving down a road, two lane, windows down, 80 degrees, sunny, and running through the gears its just a feeling that you can't describe. It's what really makes you a gearhead, really makes you appreciate the fruits of your labor. [Tommy] This old car don't drive like an old one. It just feels good. Building a car like this takes a lot of work but it's really and truthfully a labor of love. Whenever we drug that car into the shop it looked pretty decent and it still had a bit of work we needed to do to it. For us that was an excellent opportunity for us to modernize this car. With the late model LS, overdrive 5-speed manual cause you've gotta have that. Just an automatic slush box isn't gonna give you that thrill of the shift. And then we also did several other upgrades with better suspension, better brakes, and so on and so on but we didn't really want to change the exterior shape of the car. We wanted to pay homage to what the premiere muscle car of the Pontiac division was, which would be The Judge of course, and put our flare on it. I do believe we knocked it out of the park as far as that goes. [Joel] Any time I drive one of these old cars I'm transported back to that time when I was a kid. I think a lot of people can relate to it in that sense. It feeds your soul in a way. We had a pretty good blank canvas to start with. It was no where near as rough as any of these cars. It's basically missing its front face, its drivetrain, and a few other trinkets. We were still able to bring it back to life with our own vision, but the car turned out better than we could have imagined. It's got its own character. It's got its own presence, and it definitely gets a lot of eyeballs going down the road. [Brian] I can't believe a muscle car from back in the day can perform like this today riding around up and down the highway. It's crazy! There's a lot of satisfaction actually taking a vehicle, whether it's from a salvage yard or a donor vehicle you purchased from somebody or even a driver and seeing it all the way to the end. There's a lot to be said for blood, sweat, tears, and hard work, and something that you're super passionate about. [Tommy] Just out enjoying these things is what it's all about. I tell people all the time just drive it man, just drive it! [Joel] I kinda wish we had known about this place a little bit earlier because we would have been able to find our cornering lights we were looking for. You know what? The car still turned out great. It's got is own character and its own spin on an otherwise unique vehicle. Walking around a place like this I'm automatically transported back to my childhood. When I was six or seven years old I was out with my dad in places like this pulling parts and now here I am 35 years old still doing it. That's the great thing about what we do. For us it's not a job, it's not a hobby, it's a lifestyle. This is who we are 365 days a year 24-7. We're car guys. This is what we do. [Brian] Man this thing handles like a dream. Like sitting on your couch. Something to be said for 80 degrees, windows down, 5-speed in a '69 GTO. [Joel] If I ever decided to run away to Mexico or Canada I'm taking this thing. It definitely gives you that sense of freedom in a way. [Tommy] Pretty proud of this car. It's a performance car built to be enjoyed. To go out and have some fun. Like ripping through the gears. Kinda carving some corners out on the curve. Some of it's conversation. Trading war stories between each other. Figuring out how you did this, or how they did that, or what you used to do. Man let me tell you about what we're planning to do in these things. That's what it's about. Yes sir! That's what it's all about.
