This shell of a car showed up in my neighborhood in Corvallis, OR a few days ago out of nowhere. I was on my morning walk, and seeing this thing stopped me in my tracks. Rarely have I seen such a stripped down hulk anywhere. Even the wrecking yards usually scrap out a car long before it reaches this condition.
At first I thought it was a late 1960s Pontiac GTO convertible. But after looking at it for a while, I realized how much I rely on the badges and emblems that are usually displayed on a car to help me identify it.
Then, my girlfriend Michelle had the brilliant idea of looking at the VIN number. Through the wonder of the Internet, I was able to decode the VIN, and find out exactly what this car is/was:
2 – Pontiac
37 – Le Mans
67 – Convertible
8 – 1968
B – Baltimore, MD
140815 – Production number
So, it turns out it’s a 1968 Le Mans.
Do you think this car is worth saving? How much effort and money will be required to get this car back on the road? Will the investment be worth it in the end? I have my doubts.
The three flat tires are studded snow tires.
I don’t think this car will be around for long. The police here are usually pretty quick about ticketing cars that are parked on the street and do not have current registration tags on the license plate.
I wonder what stories this car could tell. Maybe somebody had big dreams about a ground-up restoration and then gave up. Or maybe this was a parts car, and all the usable parts have been pulled off of it. (I think the latter is much more likely to be the case with this car.) Who knows?
Just another Curbside Classic Mystery on wheels.
Parts car. It’s way beyond my skills to resurrect, it would almost certainly cost more to restore than to buy a good straight one and keep on top of it.
I’m going to say it is/was a parts car. Looks like it’s been without it’s windshield for a long time. I definitely wouldn’t be investing the time and money to get it back on the road.
This would make a good parts car, or a good restomod, if the right parts can be found. 🙂
sometimes its not about the money, so much as its about the memory…maybe it will be left as is to keep that memory a little while longer….but i do agree its in wayyyy rough shape.
You’d need to buy a parts car just to make this a parts car. That’s a goner!
Keep the hood and send the rest to China.
Reminds me of the Chrysler LeBaron in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles after John Candy set it on fire with his cigarette.
Holy cow! I’ve never seen a dash panel that far gone! It would definitely take a whole other parts car to revive this convertible. Too much work. At least it seems like it has 4 matching rims. I would save those and retire the rest!
Save the scooped hood, too.
GM’s of that vintage were notorious for that rot, crappy windshield adhesive was the cause.
Looks like a car you could put $50,000 into and sell for $25,000, best to call the recycler; only there’s nothing left to recycle. I can see ad now; “project car”; bring trailer.
Yikes!! Junk yard wouldn’t take it without the title and had to be dumped somewhere??
In a lot of places, this is common. Let’s see… I bought this car without a title and stripped it for parts. Now the scrapyard won’t take it without title. 3 choices:
a) cut it up for scrap, so no title needed
b) put time and $ into getting a title
c) push it out to the street and make it the city’s problem
Exactly
Yep. I knew a repair shop owner that practiced option c. When derlics were left on his lot 6 mo to a yr. and he had not heard from the owner they got a midnite tow truck ride. Right on out to the interstate .If they ever called he said “Ah hell I just assumed you came and got it months ago”.
The 1968 Le Mans had a chrome front bumper. Did somebody prime this one? Or is it an Endura bumper as on the GTO?
As it is, the bumper does make it look like a GTO. So do the hood scoops.
I think this is an abandoned ersatz-GTO project.
I’m pretty sure the Endura bumper was an available option on the LeMans. Either way, you kinda need one if you’re doing a GTO clone.
I think that’s the case with the 71-72 LeMans but in 68-70 the Endura was GTO only
That Endura bumper may be the only salvageable part.
The Endura bumper AND that GTO scooped hood… look to be valuable pieces on that Le Mans.
In fact, that looks like the whole front clip from a 68-69 GTO.
IMO you guys are being too harsh. My Windsor looks a lot like this right now.
Could be a parts car, but looks to me like a fairly solid shell that’s been stripped down and ready to go for bodywork and paint. The makings of a GTO convertible clone? Possibly it WAS in a shop and there were some issues so the owner is looking for a new shop to continue work.
Ignore the wheels. When you send a car for body and paint restoration, you want to put crappy wheels on it. They will get covered in overspray. (Granted, you would also put crappy wheels on a parts car.)
Floorpan looks solid and the back seat isn’t nasty, on a convertible with no roof, which tells me it’s been stored indoors until recently. Body looks decent, except for the missing section behind the door on the drivers side. Looks like the door has been replaced. Possibly it was lightly T-boned on that side. If you’ve got the panel to replace it, that repair looks very doable.
That is for sure a GTO bumper
It would depend on where the rest of the car is, but I’m pretty sure this would be best crunched into a cube.
I don’t care what kind of car it is and if it could be saved or not. Since I doubt it belongs to the house it is parked in front of that means it was abandoned during the night somehow. I’d be pissed off and have a strong desire to ring the neck of the owner.
If that were the case I’d have a strong desire to raid it for the hood and bumper and place them in my adjacent garage. But that’s me I guess, I make lemonade out of lemons
Here in the rust belt, that is quite restorable assuming no frame rot or hidden body damage. If the owner can DIY, the cost may not be prohibitive.
That looks like the Pontiac Le Mans Mad Max Beyond Restorable edition.
Hahahaha, best comment!
Man and I thought I was a pessimist. Most of the cars you see crossing Barret Jackson auction blocks looked exactly like this or worse at some point 😉
On the question of value, several months ago (Automobile Magazine December) a 69 GTO went for $63000 and was said to be a good buy. But a fake GTO is not going to be worth much. Convertibles from the 60’s seem to bring $40,000 or more for full size cars. Not sure what a mid-size convertible might be worth or if a fake GTO is worth more than a correct Le Mans convertible. I would guess that it could be worth $30,000 to $40,000.
$4500 FIRM
NO LOWBALLERS I KNOW WHAT I GOT
If I wanted a ’68 LeMans convertible (and I actually do, in theory) I’d rather pay for one already in decent shape than pay to have this example restored and/or work on it myself. For one thing, I don’t want or need the GTO appurtenances, although I would like factory air, PosiTraction, stick shift, front disc brakes, etc. For another, those high-priced 1960s cars tend to have show car-quality paint, chrome, etc., and I wouldn’t insist on that – just a well-equipped, rust-free, relatively safe car with everything intact.
Mystery Solved! I talked to the owner yesterday. He moved the car off of the street and into his driveway. This is a parts car. He is restoring a 1969 GTO, and he recently bought this car, and a running 1969 Le Mans to use as parts cars. He paid $3,000 for the two cars, and he said this car alone, once he starts parting it out, will be worth $4,000 to him. He told me each fender is worth $700 each, the hood is also worth $700, the truck lid is worth $300, and the driver’s door is worth a couple of hundred dollars. (He is going to use the passenger door for his restoration.)
He told me Pontiac parts are getting very scarce, and the old car restoration hobby is taking off as more and more baby boomers retire, and start looking around for something to do, and something to spend their money on.
The owner also told me he used to think he wanted to restore a late 1960s Camaro but those cars have just gone out of sight in price. Pontiac stuff is still reasonably affordable.
Sounds like a fun project. A friend of mine drove a 69 GTO with a 4-speed as his daily driver back when these were just old cars.
As for the demographics of baby boomers and muscle cars, I’d say the owner is a tad optimistic. I think we’re slightly past the peak in both cases and muscle car values are going to trend down.
Even if he doesn’t get what he’s expecting, if he can use the passenger side door and sell off some of the other parts, he’ll still come out ahead if he paid $3000 for this *and* a running LeMans.
Does make me wonder where the rest of the car went if he bought it in this shape though! Maybe this will be its second “tour of duty” as a parts car…
Good to hear the mystery is solved though. I had one of my own this week when a ratty (but with valid plates) FJ40 Land Cruiser showed up in front of my house. Stayed in precisely the same spot for four days, never saw anyone coming or going, and then disappeared overnight last night. Maybe a visitor to one of the other houses on the block, but why was it parked in front of mine in that case?
I agree. I’m 62 so that puts me in just at the first third of baby boomers. My experience is that if you were very interested in cars as a teenager then you will still be today and may want to get a project. Of course some would prefer one already done and not have to deal with a time consuming project.
However, not everyone was into cars back then and consequently they aren’t that interested in old cars that need work. Combine that with lack of skills and a very large percent of baby boomers are eliminated. I know far more in this group then those who are into the cars.
As a project these things are very time consuming first, require a LOT of money if you don’t have skills, and the right mind set which many lack and explains all those started projects that then sit forever. Oh, and not to mention that much of what is left tends to be in rough shape and therefore the work load is greater and more demanding.
The cynic in me sees this as a restomodded GTO “tribute car” crossing the block at Barrett Jackson for $150,000 a year form now. Perhaps I watched too mant “Fast and Loud” episodes
If it were me, I’d rather be restoring a ’68 GTO than a ’69; I prefer vent windows (they’re the only GTOs with cranking ones) and much prefer the ’68 dashboard with its exposed painted metal below, one of the few things it had in common with the ’67. No hidden headlamps, though.
(We had a ’67 GTO – a/c, THM 400 on column, no console – in our family when the ’68s came out. Amazing how antiquated-looking our ’67 suddenly became!)
This car looks like a refugee from a Goodmark ad! There was an interesting editorial in a recent issue of Hemmings Muscle Machines mag that lamented the shortage of “parts cars” It stated that those few remaining parts cars are now referred to as “project cars” when offered for sale, at much higher price than the parts cars of our memories. A car like this,if it had a title, missing motor, tranny seats ,bumpers etc, would probably be termed a “builder”. If the car currently has a salvage title or it will be rebuilt as a salvage car then it’s value and future sales potential would be a big consideration. Is this thing worth anything? Sure it is. A LeMans convertible will surely be built as a GTO convertible clone, a” tribute car”. Hopefully the owner would not falsely represent his car , but always check the VIN before purchase. This would be a valuable car, but if was professionally restored there probably wouldn’t be any profit margin left.
I think a car in this shape can be built by a skilled dedicated hobbyist, someone with the skills and patience to do it himself a little at a time. In a sense this is a GTO clone on a month by month payment plan. A lot of us don’t have the cash to drop twenty grand on a fairly nice car, to begin with, or the ability or desire to refinance our house to buy a car on long range credit. What we can do is buy a car in this shape for 500 to 1.500 bucks and get to work. If you were lucky you might find a wrecked sedan or wagon and get a lot of the needed parts at a good price. At least you would know that the work was done right as shiny paint and smooth body work can hide a ton of bondo and misery. .
At this point in my life I am a big proponent in going after the car that you want, even if you have to start with a rough car, (but hopefully not too rough). I was going through my collection of old “Skinned Knuckles” magazine and I focused on the the lead photo of Matt Joseph’s “Restoration Primer” articles. In this photo we see Matt seated nonchalantly smoking a pipe, dressed in a white dinner jacket in front of a beautiful mid fifties Aston Martin coupe. I believe he, at one time owned two Aston Martins. I am sure that these weren’t cheap when he acquired his but they are now un obtainable for anyone not a millionaire. There are a lot of high end European and Japanese cars that are hitting the bottom of their depreciation curve and be bought at ridiculously low prices. Just check CL for the prices on 70s and 80 MBZ 450 SLs for example. Now a SL or Jag XJS isn’t an Aston, but it’s a pretty good substitute, for me at least. Sorry for the length of this post but I am whipping myself up into a Jaguar XJS buying frenzy right now. I’ve got a whole theory about buying the low hanging fruit in my blog
Well it is nice to find out the back story.
Reminds me of the 4Runner and 4Runner frame I found in front of a Toyota fan’s house earlier this year.
It looks like a gutted parts car to me I have something similar in my driveway stripped of nearly all I can use but still rolling so I can move it and position it for scrap pickup eventually
There is a very ambitious body guy on the net that made a video showing how he uses a 68-72 A body convertible donor car like this to create 70-72 Monte Carlo drop top conversions. That’s one GM should have done! Although probably only bits and pieces are salvageable from this one.
GM came very close, close enough that early brochures depicted such a car.
Sadly, dropped at the last second.
Financially, it makes no sense to restore; there are so many missing parts it will cost considerably more to restore than it will be worth when completed.
When it comes to old cars however, dollars aren’t always the sole deciding factor. It becomes an emotional/challenge issue sometimes and that becomes the deciding factor to fix or forget.
Looks like the lumber sitting inside could be useful!
Neatly slice it up and sell the pieces. The front clip, rear quarters, decklid, and even the bare frame can all be used for something else.
I have zero body / welding skills but growing up in the salt belt I can see this is clearly a ‘ builder ‘ for someone who doesn’t care about flipping it like the jerkoffs on T.V. do .
I used to buy abandoned & stripped theft recoveries and build , paint and trim them out using parts from wrecks and junkers , I made decent cash and enjoyed my self , it’s what a serious GearHead does , they fix tings , not cut checks .
-Nate
@Amazonray-
Not to mention, once the sheet metal is removed there’s probably someone with a wrecked or badly rusted A-body coupe or convertible who needs a complete frame.
Ran when parked.