General Information
Being that I have a thread for my ST that I was able to start on Day 1 of purchase and keep updated as I've modded the car, I realized, I never really made a single thread for the GTO to keep track of it's progress in the almost 8 years I've owned it now.
Never too late to start I guess! I've made it my kind of unofficial goal of 2016 to focus (no pun intended) more on my GTO again, and it starts with this thread. FAIR WARNING!! This will likely be very long winded. It's kinda hard to summarize 8 years of owning a car in one quick post.
I'm doing this mostly for myself because I just want everything contained in one thread for easy reference. Especially since all my old threads contain dead tcg upload links and I need to reupload all my pics anyways. :rant: So here goes.
If we're gonna start from the beginning, we probably should start with the before time. When I drove an 02 WRX. It started life with me purchasing it like this in 2004:
And 4 years later it left me like this:
Had a lotta good times with the car, but in those 4 years I did just about everything I wanted to do with the car, so it was time to move on to something new. There's nothing like a turbo AWD car.......but there's also nothing like a RWD V8 car. My first car I had when I got my license was an 88 Monte Carlo, and while it may not have been a fast car, it was a fun car. I needed to get back to that feeling.
After weighing all my options, I determined a GTO would be right about in my price range. V8, RWD, nicer interior than an f-body, I figured that would just about fit the bill. I still wasn't comepletly sold on the GTO looks, because I absolutely hated them when they first came out. I couldn't even fathom that GM would call that thing a GTO. But then again, I was almost physically ILL when I saw my first bugeye WRX in person, and it's now one of my favorite cars of all time But it was clear I would have to find the right GTO if this was going to work.
I kept an eye on the classifieds, looked at a few that interested me, but nothing really wowed me that made me feel like I had to jump on THIS one right now. I was in no rush really since I didn't NEED a new car, so I could afford to be picky. I was also scouring forums and such for for sale threads.....and one day while surfing LS1GTO I found a for sale ad, and these pictures were inside:
YUP. That was the one. It wasn't local, but it was only about a 3 and half hour drive away in Cali. So I started chatting with the owner. He was the 2nd owner of the car, and he was actually from Australia, which is why he did the Monaro conversion. He was also a Detailer, so there was no doubt he kept the car in immaculate condition, because that was his best advertising. His reason for parting with the GTO? This was about the same time the first G8's were hitting the road, and he wanted to be one of the first owners, as he was wanting something with a little more cargo space for when his family from Australia came to visit, and also, silver cars don't really make for great billboards when you're trying to show off your sweet detailing skills
Car that was well cared for? Check. GTO that didn't LOOK like a GTO? Check. I needed to see this thing in person, so I made the drive out. It didn't take long for me confirm what I already felt. I had to have this car.
So I gave him a deposit to hold the car while I worked out financing, drove back home, and about 3 weeks later, on 3/30/08, drove back out with money in hand to pick up my new ride.
As I drove away I couldn't get the grin off my face. I stopped at a gas station to top off before I hopped back on the freeway, and there is where I got my very first "Hey! What kinda car is that???" Not even 5 minutes into ownership. That's when I knew i'd made the right choice.
A few hours later, it was at its new home.
It wasn't completely stock, but being that it was a Cali car the previous owner didn't want to get too crazy with it. When I bought it, it had an intake, jba shorty headers with the stock catted mid pipes, the custom dual split exhaust with an x-pipe going into magnaflow mufflers, and a B&M short shifter. It was a pretty decent sounding setup. And would hold me over...for awhile.
Now it must be said that I still owned the WRX as well at this point. I would have loved to have kept both cars, but at the time I still owed some money on the WRX, and was really not in a position financially to be able to make payments on both cars, and also selling the WRX would help me recoup my bank account from the GTO purchase, and maybe even help fund some mods :naughty: So the WRX had to go. But for a couple months, it was great being able to drive both cars. They were both so different from each other, but still great in their own ways.
It took a few tries, but the day finally came where a competant buyer could take the WRX off my hands, and before he showed up to drive it away I took these final pics.
Never too late to start I guess! I've made it my kind of unofficial goal of 2016 to focus (no pun intended) more on my GTO again, and it starts with this thread. FAIR WARNING!! This will likely be very long winded. It's kinda hard to summarize 8 years of owning a car in one quick post.
I'm doing this mostly for myself because I just want everything contained in one thread for easy reference. Especially since all my old threads contain dead tcg upload links and I need to reupload all my pics anyways. :rant: So here goes.If we're gonna start from the beginning, we probably should start with the before time. When I drove an 02 WRX. It started life with me purchasing it like this in 2004:
And 4 years later it left me like this:
Had a lotta good times with the car, but in those 4 years I did just about everything I wanted to do with the car, so it was time to move on to something new. There's nothing like a turbo AWD car.......but there's also nothing like a RWD V8 car. My first car I had when I got my license was an 88 Monte Carlo, and while it may not have been a fast car, it was a fun car. I needed to get back to that feeling.
After weighing all my options, I determined a GTO would be right about in my price range. V8, RWD, nicer interior than an f-body, I figured that would just about fit the bill. I still wasn't comepletly sold on the GTO looks, because I absolutely hated them when they first came out. I couldn't even fathom that GM would call that thing a GTO. But then again, I was almost physically ILL when I saw my first bugeye WRX in person, and it's now one of my favorite cars of all time
But it was clear I would have to find the right GTO if this was going to work.I kept an eye on the classifieds, looked at a few that interested me, but nothing really wowed me that made me feel like I had to jump on THIS one right now. I was in no rush really since I didn't NEED a new car, so I could afford to be picky. I was also scouring forums and such for for sale threads.....and one day while surfing LS1GTO I found a for sale ad, and these pictures were inside:
YUP. That was the one. It wasn't local, but it was only about a 3 and half hour drive away in Cali. So I started chatting with the owner. He was the 2nd owner of the car, and he was actually from Australia, which is why he did the Monaro conversion. He was also a Detailer, so there was no doubt he kept the car in immaculate condition, because that was his best advertising. His reason for parting with the GTO? This was about the same time the first G8's were hitting the road, and he wanted to be one of the first owners, as he was wanting something with a little more cargo space for when his family from Australia came to visit, and also, silver cars don't really make for great billboards when you're trying to show off your sweet detailing skills
Car that was well cared for? Check. GTO that didn't LOOK like a GTO? Check. I needed to see this thing in person, so I made the drive out. It didn't take long for me confirm what I already felt. I had to have this car.
So I gave him a deposit to hold the car while I worked out financing, drove back home, and about 3 weeks later, on 3/30/08, drove back out with money in hand to pick up my new ride.
As I drove away I couldn't get the grin off my face. I stopped at a gas station to top off before I hopped back on the freeway, and there is where I got my very first "Hey! What kinda car is that???" Not even 5 minutes into ownership. That's when I knew i'd made the right choice.A few hours later, it was at its new home.
It wasn't completely stock, but being that it was a Cali car the previous owner didn't want to get too crazy with it. When I bought it, it had an intake, jba shorty headers with the stock catted mid pipes, the custom dual split exhaust with an x-pipe going into magnaflow mufflers, and a B&M short shifter. It was a pretty decent sounding setup. And would hold me over...for awhile.
Now it must be said that I still owned the WRX as well at this point. I would have loved to have kept both cars, but at the time I still owed some money on the WRX, and was really not in a position financially to be able to make payments on both cars, and also selling the WRX would help me recoup my bank account from the GTO purchase, and maybe even help fund some mods :naughty: So the WRX had to go. But for a couple months, it was great being able to drive both cars. They were both so different from each other, but still great in their own ways.
It took a few tries, but the day finally came where a competant buyer could take the WRX off my hands, and before he showed up to drive it away I took these final pics.
I couldn't get a good enough angle on my gauge cluster, and the outside light pretty much washed away any view I did have. And I also sorta forgot to roll up my passenger window when I did my run, so wind noise ruined everything. If I had at least remembered to do that it might have been actually semi-useable. 
