Читать книгу How to Restore Your GTO: 1964-1974 - Don Keefe - Страница 6

INTRODUCTION

When CarTech contacted me about the idea of writing a GTO restoration book, I was of course, very flattered. I was also impressed that CarTech knew exactly what was needed in the already densely populated GTO book market.

My first question was, “How do you envision this book being different than the others in the marketplace?” My editor’s response was that he wanted to make this book a process-oriented restoration guide focusing on GTOs, rather than something that would tell you what was correct for a given year or engine—that had already been capably done by other books in the past, most notably the seminal Pontiac GTO Restoration Guide 1964–72 by Paul Zazarine and Chuck Roberts, and the spectacular Collector’s Originality Guide: Pontiac GTO 1964–1974 by Thomas A. DeMauro. I look at this book as a spiritual companion to those earlier works because, collectively, they give a comprehensive view of what the Pontiac GTO is all about. Those other books show you what is original and correct, and this book tells how to properly go about the wrenching, welding, grinding, stitching, and painting.

This book does not get deep into the rebuilding of engines and transmissions, for a couple of reasons. First, CarTech already has books that cover those topics. Second, these operations, particularly transmission rebuilding, require specialized tools and machine work. By the time you have invested in everything needed, you will be money and experience ahead by having those operations farmed out—or at least the machining done elsewhere. Third, with a limited number of pages, any coverage in one area would have to come at the expense of another. Since those topics are capably handled elsewhere, I concentrate on territory that hasn’t already been covered.

This book is geared to home restorers, people rebuilding a car in their own garage to the best of their abilities using a combination of original factory, reproduction, and used parts. I do my best to show what it takes to restore and re-use what you already have and how to know when parts need to be replaced.

The idea is not necessarily to turn your car into a trailer queen, though I cover the major systems restorations with one of the top Pontiac restorers in the country, namely Scott Tiemann of Supercar Specialties in Portland, Michigan. Scott restores some of the most abused muscle cars and factory race cars into 100-point restorations for many of the top collectors around the world.

It is my intention that this book aids you in the restoration process, as well as provides insight and advice. This book teaches the skills necessary to get you out of the surprises that inevitably turn up, and also helps you avoid the majority of them in the first place. Thanks for purchasing this book; I believe you’ll find just about everything you need to successfully restore that aging GTO of yours into the muscle car of your dreams.