Mike Bruck’s long love affair with his 1968 Pontiac GTO isn’t one of those “love at first sight” stories. Truth be told, Bruck didn’t even really want to buy a new GTO, and the one he wound up getting wasn’t even his first choice among some slim pickings on the new car lot.
“I actually had to buy one. I was involved in a mishap and was without a car, so I had to go buy a new one,” Bruck recalled. “It was at the end of the year and the ’69s were not out yet, so we had to buy what was available on the lot. I bought this one off the lot.”
If he had more cars to pick from, Bruck admits he might never have gone home with the handsome gold-and-black hardtop coupe. And he says he definitely wouldn’t have gone home with it if he had just $250 more in his pocket. “I was GTO shopping or Firebird shopping. It was between this one and another GTO,” he said. “The other one was a red one and it was a Ram Air II and it had disc brakes, which was a rare option in 1968. But it was like $250 more, and $250 was a lot of money. A lot of money. I paid $3,347 and change for this one and took it home right off the lot.”
The story certainly has a happy ending. Bruck’s GTO has never been far from his side for the past 43 years, going with him as he criss-crossed the country for a series of job-related moves. Eventually, he took the car all apart and embarked on a lengthy restoration that finally concluded in the late 1990s. The car is a stellar specimen today with hardly a flaw to be found anywhere — even in the car’s original interior.
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Verdoro green, Ivy Gold interior, and a base 400 2 barrel. The ex wife and I drove the wheels off it for two years without a single problem.
