[tolerico]

Yeah, odd no comments.

I am not on the forums enough. Had I been, and had seen the notification of Jim's cars up for auction, you can bet I would have been the new owner of the GeeTO tiger.

Perhaps no one commented since they were contemplating bidding and wanted to keep interest low?!

;-)

[shawn e.]

Damn Shame!!!!!! Probably a lot of "Jim Who"!

[unruhjonny]

wow;
Consdiering who's those were, they seemed to have sold for screaming deals - also, I seem to recall reading of the "Ponte-Carlo" - someone appears to have gotten a great deal for a unique car there with an even more unique history.

[tolerico]

Some people outside the Pontiac community I guess may not know of Jim Wangers (must not be real car american guys - he is only talked about everywhere) but no way they don't know of the tribute GeeTO tiger race car the past 18 years or so. It has been featured in every major car magazine ---- and heck --- a model car was made of it and is sold at every car show in America.

Hopefully somebody true to Pontiacs bought it and they are not a dealer or ebayer/flipper.

[keith k]

I'm on Mecum's mailing list, and knew the cars were coming to auction. But when Mecum's "pre-sale estimate" states $125-$150K... I lose interest. It is really surprising the GeeTO Tiger went as cheap as it did.
The Ponte Carlo price does not surprise me. But even that one had probably triple the sale price sunk into it over the years....

[433lemans]

I just hope that Pontiac guys got these and preserve them as they are.

[Chief of the 60's]

LOL! Wow! With all the armchair quarterbacks claiming they went cheap one of them should have got out of that armchair and "stole" one of the cars, like that clone GeeTo. A clone is a clone is a clone and that car was a clone. No different than a clone GTO or Judge.

[GTOnly70]

Nobody gives a rat's ass about the "Ponte Carlo".

[Chief of the 60's]

Originally Posted by GTOnly70

Nobody gives a rat's ass about the "Ponte Carlo".

I always thought it was fugly. The least he could have done was use an '86 GP 2+2 Aerocoupe.

[tolerico]

You are probably right about the Ponte Carlo, GTOnly70.

Noone except perhaps a few diehard Pontiac racers cares about it.

Except to me as the Ponte Carlo was the car Jim had out street racing one night in the 1990s and I was challenged to a race by him since the Ponte had a 428 engine at the time, and my goat had a 428.

It was my first time ever meeting Jim. So for that alone, the car means something to me. And for just $18k I would bought it just to have it as a conversation starter.

[Simple Man]

Originally Posted by Jerry H.

The truth is that no one outside the Pontiac community knows or cares who Jim Wangers is. I would have bought the GTO for that in a minute, even if I had to have someone else drive it. 10 second Chevys are a dime a dozen but a 10 second Pontiac is different.

Wangers and/or his associates had the choice whether to enter them 'No Reserve' or 'Reserve'. Although a few cars did ok with No Reserves, most did not. If you enter your car with a reserve and it doesn't meet it, they will lower the fee to the No Reserve if you tell them that's the best you can do. I've sold 2 cars at Mecum listed with a reserve and always got the 5% no reserve fee.

BTW, the dealers have way overpriced their regular Pontiacs and GTOs. Just look at Ebay and look at the ridiculous asking prices. 55k for a regular 65 GTO with the non original motor and just an average restoration? 49k for a base 69 or 70 GTO with an automatic? Not to mention 69k for a 2+2 that looks pretty good but when you look closely you can see where corners were cut. You see these same cars over and over. One I saw for almost 2 years! I noticed that 2 of the prominent dealers were not at Indy Mecum and I've seen them at every Mecum sale I can remember in the past several years. Could it be that they have too much unsold inventory? Very possible

^^THIS^^
To those in the know, they might have been special cars, because of their provenance, among other things. But to most of the rest of the world, they were cars, that had little meaning. A Monte SS with a Pontiac engine. A Grand Prix. GTO tribute drag car.
If not for the Wangers connection, how many of you would be saying "waste of a 455, putting it in a Chevy".....

[Chief of the 60's]

Originally Posted by Simple Man

^^THIS^^
To those in the know, they might have been special cars, because of their provenance, among other things. But to most of the rest of the world, they were cars, that had little meaning. A Monte SS with a Pontiac engine. A Grand Prix. GTO tribute drag car.
If not for the Wangers connection, how many of you would be saying "waste of a 455, putting it in a Chevy".....

Perfect

[hgerhardt]

I first drove the Ponte back in the late 80's-early 90's with Jim as passenger and he kept egging me on to punch it harder. Even drove over to a freeway onramp so that I could go WOT for a longer time. Once on the freeway, he looked behind us and seeing no traffic, he told me to come to a stop and "launch it!". So, of course I did (this was in the middle of a weekday, so no traffic). Car had the 428, 200-4R, 3.73 gears in the 8.5 10-bolt from a GN and M&H Streetmasters. Gotta say, it did launch and run well.

That experience with the Ponte (and Jim's offer to have his engine builder, Duncan, build a 428 for me), caused me to do a major redo on my '66 GTO. To this day, I still have that 428 with solid roller and E-heads and EFI with a 200-4R and 3.73-geared 12-bolt, so apparently that car had quite an influence on me back then.

[tolerico]

Originally Posted by Chief of the 60's

LOL! Wow! With all the armchair quarterbacks claiming they went cheap one of them should have got out of that armchair and "stole" one of the cars, like that clone GeeTo. A clone is a clone is a clone and that car was a clone. No different than a clone GTO or Judge.

I don't think anyone cares if that GeeTO tiger is a clone of a GTO. It is a Pontiac. Period. And a super cool 10 second 1/4 mile one to boot that nearly every Pontiac enthusiast or racer knows about. Not like a "GTO" is worth so much more these days any way. Values are not all that on GTO's in case no one has noticed.

I would have wired the money in a heartbeat had I known it was up for sale. Doh. Where else can you find a bitchin' and legit 10 second Pontiac with notoriety like that come up for sale and sell for that price. 'Clone' or not.

[Mr_GTO]

I think the person in charge of the collection took them to the wrong auction. Cars like these should have gone to BJ in Scottsdale. It has a much higher visibility point and they would have marketed the cars a little bit better than what Mecum does.

[1965gp]

You can’t really say no one knows of the GeeTo tiger car when I can go to my local hobby lobby and find a model of it.

[unruhjonny]

I still don't quite know how to feel about being called an 'armchair quarterback' for suggesting that some people got great deals...

[1965gp]

I think this was just a case of the wrong people being in the room at the time. I was at the BJ Scottsdale auction a couple years ago and the 70 Charger from F&F 4 and F&F 5 sold for 68k. Now that sounds like a lot of money- but the car was titled to Universal pictures (had documentation) and was in two different billion dollar movies. I had only gotten approved up to 35k because I really didn’t plan on buying anything- god do I regret that. An entire generation has been raised on that car. Could have been my retirement.....

[bird72]

Everyone that posts on net forums is an armchair quarterback, unruhjonny, I wouldn't worry about it.

[Chief of the 60's]

This ds me of the Randy Williams '63 Tempest 2 door wagon that sold at Kissimmee several years ago for $30,000.00. That's all I heard was, "it was a Randy Williams car" and "Scott Tiemann built that car" and "there was 200 grand spent on that car".

Hammer price with a room full of people and hundreds, if not thousands on their computer..... $30,000.00