Welcome to johnnys66garage
The Beginning of this GTO
This 66 GTO was bought brand new by my dad. It was driven very cautiously [lol.] on the mountain roads of West Virginia as he finished up at WVU. Then it made the drive to Ft. Bliss TX and saw winters between West Virginia & Connecticut. By 75' it had 156k miles and was both worn out and rusted out. But dad had thought it thru and built a home in Chesapeake VA on a hill with drive-in access to the basement where he parked the GTO.
First Attempt
My brother and I couldn't be more different, as kids, he played sports, and I warmed the bench. Thus, when I was barely a teenager, I felt it was time to get off the bench and learn practical engineering skills with Dad in the basement. And thus began the initial tear-down of the GTO. We removed the frame from the body, torn apart the engine, transmission, and rear-end. I sandblasted the entire frame, and well that's about as far as we got before I started driving a 5-speed Yota pickup and chasing pretty girls.
A little later
Fast forward to 2005, I'm working as a Mechanical Engineer just as my dad and living in sunny FL. The time was finally right for the GTO to move to a new home in Florida, so when Dad agreed, I flew up to VA, and we spent some time reassembling the GTO enough to roll and pull up the big, curved hill!
Up the hill she goes!
Here we go, pulling the GTO out of the basement for Good! We loaded the engine and the rest of the car in the Penske. Of course, we performed these activities 100% without beer. lol.
Off to the Sunshine State!
She is now loaded up for the haul to FL. Pretty cool moment. She would now get a proper full restoration and a good bit of modern engineering and customization. It took a while, as for many years I spent most of my time traveling the world for work. But thankfully the time did come for the GTO.