[Terry M. Hunt]

Anybody know what happened to John Hutchinson and Rick Wright of Purely PMD in Albuquerque, New Mexico? They were very active in the Pontiac hobby/business in the early 80's.

[Cobrabill]

Ricky Ram Air.Damn- i haven't heard that name since about 86.

If memory serves there was some health issues with John-i THINK.

[JLHarper]

One post about them I remembered:

http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...ght=purely+pmd

I looked in the SEARCH feature and saw more posts about them...one was about the RAV GTO.

I think there was one recently asking about a "special" TACH FACE, iirc.

Jeff

[The Boss]

Anybody ever come up with contact info for them?

[Blackcat]

I remember a certan person ripped them off for a bunch of parts and cash.

[Don Keefe]

Unfortunately, Rick Wright passed away on December 19, 2007. I also heard rumor that John may have also passed but I have no confirmation on that.

[drailed]

I remember taking a trip out to visit my father around 91 in Albuquerque and stopping in there. They gave me a tour of there shop and showed me there Ram air V Judge. Nice guys. I often wondered myself what happened to them.

[Cobrabill]

Used to talk to Rick all the time.Getting old is starting to suck severely.

[The Boss]

When was it that John's son died? That seems to be when everything ended isn't it?

[Terry M. Hunt]

These are the kinds of replies I was afraid I might get. Very sorry to hear we lost Rick and seems doubtful John is still with us. The inexorable march of time.

[mgoblue]

Very sorry to hear about Rick. I was a subscriber to their Purely PMD newsletter and spoke to both Rick and John on a couple occasions. They were incredibly friendly and helpful. Their newsletter had a great classified section and I bought several parts from them. The dash in my 1969 Firebird is from Purely PMD. I still have all of their newsletters (some with a risque picture) and the key fob they sent to me when Purely PMD ended is still one of my favorite pieces of Pontiac memoribilia.

[b-man]

I have some old issues of the 'Pipeline' that I acquired when I traded my old high school car to a friend for my first Pontiac, a '64 GTO 'clone'. Found out the GTO was a 'clone' soon after the trade after reading an article written by Rick Wright in HPP magazine, back then I knew almost nothing about GTOs other than that I liked them a lot.

In the trunk of the GTO were a pair of 1971 #197 455 HO heads that had been purchased from Purely PMD shortly before the car was transferred to me. My friend paid $850 for those #197 heads in 1989, big money back then when factory round-port heads were pretty much the top Pontiac performance head choice.

[The Boss]

Cool key fob, I'd love to have one of those!

['ol Pinion head]

$800-900 was pretty much going price for a nice used pair of 197's in '88-89 timeframe. Bought & sold a few pair in that time range. The economy on the west coast & east coast took a hit in '90-91,so there might have been some deals out there... not everyone knew what national market was either. One could often find deals on partial roundport engines & get what you needed & sell off the rest.

Used to get PMD's Pipeline & made a set of blue stripes for Rick for the his '71 1/2 GT-37 project. One thing I learned in the early 90's is a lot of those super rare parts advertised in the Pipeline were actually Dr Phil Baughman's out of Dallas. Personally, I enjoyed Phil Baughman's Classic GTO Newsletter a lot more than the Purely PMD's Pipeline. Learned much more out of Phil's very informative articles than ck'ing out pics of half clothed women or reading of Rick & John's RAV Judge build in the "Pipeline". Last I can remember, Rick & John built some goofy Judge for Car Craft, John lost his son, & both's involvement in the Pontiac hobby seemed to subside. That was mid '90's.

Of all these pre internet GTO newsletter pioneers, believe all have left us except Dennis Kirban & Paul Spotts. Looking back, wish I'd have subscribed to them all. Enjoy reading Dennis's posts here on PY!

[dennis kirban]

Appreciate the above compliments...I think Phil Bauman and our newsletter started almost around the same time.....he of course wrote more indepth or technical stuff than I did. Which made it nice that neither of us was copying each other. Purely PMD both super nice guys actually came one year to one of our Reunion events and when my son drove out from PA to Las Vegas years ago stayed at Johns house....

I think John has passed away several years ago....

I have all my old newsletters amazing bit of history as to what parts were back then.

Another unusual newsletter back then was out of I think Wisconsin called Goatfinders? I think his goal was to cram as much type on a page as possible. Again just an observation.

Newsletters at least most in printed form have gone by bye..we actually do a free email to our turbo customers once a week for last several years called the inner circle...its free so its tough for anyone to complain written alot like the GTO newsletter I did for many years.

Course Chris (Performance Years) also did a popular newsletter also. It was an effective way to stay in touch with customers.

I did meet Phil Bauman once as he spoke at some event I was at. I do have in my private collection one of his brand new GTO license tags with the registration. He really knew his stuff back before many owners really appreciated it.

My point being? His newsletter hold some great value.....if you find them.

Mine? Most value would be to see the difference in prices on parts back then versus now.

denniskirban@yahoo.com

[dennis kirban]

I see where Rick passed away several years ago also. I can't confirm it but I am pretty sure John passed away before that.

denniskirban@yahoo.com

[Rickyjohnson]

My goodness I heard that ram 5 start up in that orange 69 judge they also had the only psft I ever saw. Precouser to the transam. They were pretty fun to hang with. Went to a car show in Albuquerque the same year they had it on display going to an auction. If we only knew back then they knew there would come a day. I think that's were I heard the day of the 700$ GTO are gone. Little al was racing for galles Chevrolet my gosh that seems so long ago. Great guys. I used to stop in at least once a week. Wanna go really fast. It's wasn't Ricky Bobby that started that. Rip I'm smiling. Hot rod heaven is calling me too. See you guys in the pits. Yehawwww

[hgerhardt]

Forgot to reply originally to this thread... I met John and his son, and Rick at our Western Regional GTO shows that SCGG used to put on. They were always trying to get us to come visit in ABQ. Great guys.

In July 1988, Barry Troup (RIP) and I in my then-unrestored '66 GTO, and Larry Reynolds (RIP) and his wife Pat, drove out to the Wichita GTO Nationals and stopped by Purely PMD on the way. I remember them being great hosts.

At some point after Tucumcari, NM on the 2-lane which went to Wichita, Larry and I got on the gas and saw the speedo needle past the brake warning lamp at the bottom. Without a tach, I didn't realize then that the 455 with cast rods was at 6000+ RPM with the 3.08 gears I had then. Oops. Luckily it all stayed together.

In January 1990, I was testing stuff at Alamogordo, NM and had an open weekend, so I drove up and visited John and Rick again, this time to check out the two ZR1 Corvettes John had just bought, which of course I fell in love with as only a 26-year old gear head could.