For those of you following along at home, I recently sold my GVR4. She had been a faithful companion for the last 13 years, serving as my primary daily driver, bad weather car, drag strip terror, AutoXer, RallyXer, TSD Rallyer, and more. Unfortunately, the first 10 years in New England finally took their toll and large sections of the underbody started disintegrating from the inside out. I put her up for sale and within a few days she was sold. The new owner drove down from Ohio the next day and drove her back. She is now being parted out, with the good bits going to restore his own car.
Following a search for a fun replacement, I picked this up yesterday:
The car is a mostly stock 2005 model, 33k miles. LS2/T56 combo. Upgraded clutch, shifter, cat-back, some nice factory appearing aftermarket gauges. This is my first V8 car so I'm looking forward to putting some miles on her and enjoying that torque and awesome sound.
33k miles in 8 years? The previous owner must been afraid to drive it much; all that raw horsepower, you know.
I always liked seeing your GVR4 on the galant board years ago but I know how it is. They can be money pits.
You still have the FD right? When the GTO rusts, just drop that LS2 right in the RX7.
Well that's going to be a good time.
PHeller
UberDork
10/3/13 11:38 a.m.
As always:
Whenever someone gets a new car I've got to "stance it up" haha.
It'll be a good time, I'm sure!
I never liked these at first, but the more I see them the more I like. Congrats on picking up an awesome looking car! Are you planning to use it just for daily duty or will it see any track use?
stan
SuperDork
10/3/13 12:56 p.m.
I guy here at work just got one of these. Sounds great.
Nice upgrade, I'd say...
jstein77 wrote:
33k miles in 8 years? The previous owner must been afraid to drive it much; all that raw horsepower, you know.
There seems to be a fair number of these on the market with low miles like this, but the majority of them are automatics and/or have red interiors which I don't care for. I'm guessing these were all the "2nd fun car" type. My commute is only 3.x miles so that's something like 1500 miles a year if I were to never ride the bike or drive the FD. Should keep the mileage low ;)
crankwalk wrote:
I always liked seeing your GVR4 on the galant board years ago but I know how it is. They can be money pits.
You still have the FD right? When the GTO rusts, just drop that LS2 right in the RX7.
Yea, I really enjoyed that car and was sad to let it go. Lot of history there. Yea I still have the FD for track/autox. Haha, yea don't think that hadn't occurred to me. Plan "B" ;)
Double_Wishbone wrote:
I never liked these at first, but the more I see them the more I like. Congrats on picking up an awesome looking car! Are you planning to use it just for daily duty or will it see any track use?
No plans to take it to the track in its current form since the FD is totally set up for that already. Probably just for the street and enjoying having a radio, A/C, etc. for the time being.
stan wrote:
I guy here at work just got one of these. Sounds great.
Nice upgrade, I'd say...
Yea I think the aftermarket exhaust and shifter really sealed the deal for me. It's tight and sounds awesome but not obnoxious, with just the right amount of cracking and popping on the overrun.
The car was a private sale and it seems like the PO may never have cleaned it ever. I spent a couple hours with the shop vac, an entire canister of cleaning wipes and leather conditioner for the first round of clean-up. There's a certain bond I think that you form with a new car once you've had a chance to examine and clean every single surface. Pretty happy with the results so far:
Damn that's pretty! Something similar would be high on my daily list if I didn't have kids and thus had a couple bucks to throw around.
Double_Wishbone wrote:
I never liked these at first, but the more I see them the more I like. Congrats on picking up an awesome looking car!
X2 - Odd; I felt the same way and I too tend to like them more as time goes on - I really like this color combination.
unk577
Reader
10/6/13 3:34 p.m.
Good looking GTO.
They are very well built, nothing will rattle. Everything is screwed together on the interior. The top corner seams on the rear seats, next to the head rest will split.
I bought/parted 13 of them from salvage auctions. Of those 13 only 1 didn't have damage to the front. This leads me to think they go much better than they stop.
Enjoy it, they are great cars
4g63t
HalfDork
10/6/13 4:07 p.m.
GTO for GVR-4, you're forgiven
unk577 wrote:
Good looking GTO.
They are very well built, nothing will rattle. Everything is screwed together on the interior. The top corner seams on the rear seats, next to the head rest will split.
I bought/parted 13 of them from salvage auctions. Of those 13 only 1 didn't have damage to the front. This leads me to think they go much better than they stop.
Enjoy it, they are great cars
Rear headrest seam is already split. I'm going to have to start a thorough leather conditioning regimen (I don't think the PO ever did) and sew those back up :| Supposedly no front end damage (clean carfax, owner claimed no accidents, nothing stands out) but I haven't had anything apart yet to know for sure. The '04s only had 2-pot front brakes but the '05s got 4 so maybe that'll help there. One other immediate to-do is to replace the radius rod bushings with poly (came uninstalled with the car) so the front wheels don't kick back 2" under hard braking.
High on my want to own list. Well done.
