1969 was the year when the GTO was already starting to feel the wrath of insurers, as fewer companies were willing to tolerate the muscle under its hood and how drivers enjoyed it on the road.
With the insurance costs going up, people were slowly stepping away from cars with large engines, so the GTO nosedived to 72,287 units. It was an expected decline, with the hardtop continuing to be the preferred version with over 58,000 buyers.
The convertible was far behind, with 7,328 units.
The specimen in these photos is one of these convertibles, albeit, as you can tell from the pictures, the car now needs massive help to return to its original glory.
This 1969 Pontiac GTO convertible has recently been pulled from a collector’s estate, but it landed on eBay with very few specifics. eBay seller radiopicture didn’t share much about the car, claiming the engine and the transmission have already been rebuilt, while the front suspension links are new but non-original.
Otherwise, we’ll have to decrypt everything the hard way, so I’m surprised the car enjoyed so much success on eBay.
This GTO looks like a work in progress, and the photos indeed suggest that the engine and the transmission have already been rebuilt. I wish we knew more about them, but not even the photos help much, as the car looks buried alive, blocking essential details.
The body also seems to require some work, and you can tell that some parts are not original. The previous owner was probably working on bringing this GTO back to the road, so they were putting it together using parts from other cars. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the engine is also a bigger block than the original unit installed on the car.
The good news is that the GTO has already managed to find a new home thanks to a fierce battle that received 16 bids nearly at the last minute. Despite its condition, this GTO convertible still received much attention from online users, with someone bidding $6,300 to secure the car. The battle has just ended, and the GTO will now leave for a new home (unless we’re dealing with a non-paying bidder, which has become very common these days).
While this GTO is a work in progress, I can only hope that whoever bought the car won’t use it for parts. Continuing the project is the right approach, but considering its shape and how much it cost, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this GTO convertible becoming a donor for another sibling.
Is this the right price for a GTO in this condition? Let me know what you think in the box after the jump, but besides its shape, keep in mind that the car landed online with almost no info.
