Great Meeting at Dooley O'Toole's

The Indy GTO Association met Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at Dooley O'Toole's 162 E Carmel Dr Carmel, IN. Beautiful setting - beautiful evening! Great host, great waiter, great food, great meeting.

And just for fun, here are a couple of videos:
First... we appreciate other cars, too!
This is Gary Jump's '71 Cuda:

Gotta' love the sight and sound of Pat's sweet GTO!

July 18 Show and Hog Roast at Champion

Several members and friends attended this open show Saturday, July 18 at Champion Chrysler Jeep Dodge 4505 W. 96th St. Indy. We met up at McDonalds and cruised in together so we could park in the same area and break out the lawn chairs. Registration was only $5 and that included free beverages and a dinner of roasted ears dipped in butter and BBQ pulled pork. Yummmm! One of our members won the 50/50 and one of our friends won Best Engine. Fitz didn't win for the car he didn't have there this time! The sky threatened rain but there there was no downpour! A good time was had by all! Enjoy the slide show below. Click on the slideshow to enlarge photos and be able to read the few captions.

GTO Nationals

Some of our members (Bill Sanders, Ken Mowery, Kevin Reading, John Jump, Dave Fitzpatrick, Doug Reno, Brian Ray and others) spent a few days in Dayton, Ohio at the 2009 GTOAA - POCI International Convention, July 7-11, 2009.

Story to follow soon....(I hope.) The montage of photos below includes the convention at the Nutter Center and also their trip to the America's Packard Museum also in Dayton, Ohio. www.americaspackardmuseum.org

An additional entry! Thank you to Mark:
"Hey Betsy – I think the club blog is great! BTW, I was in Dayton too on Friday 7/10 & Saturday 7/11. Now I know we don’t have a GTO but our ’69 Grand Prix SJ 428 4-speed placed 1st in the FF 1969 Grand Prix category “Pop” vote on Saturday. And besides, I got a good chance to test the new window seals during the deluge on Saturday (and they worked too).
Just an FYI,
Mark Henderson
Indy GTO Club Member & Poncho Supporter!!"

"Glory Days" North County Times Article

Former Pontiac Marketer recounts "Glory Days"
North County Times Californian July 5, 2009
OCEANSIDE -- General Motors is killing the Pontiac line, cars with 102 years of history. But in a garage just off North Avenue, the past is washed, waxed and ready to roar back at the turn of a key.... Click link to read entire article: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2009/07/05/business/z6add302aaf8712cb882575e00076233c.txt

"Indiana's Largest Pontiac Dealer"...gone.

Conkle Pontiac in Kokomo was, in 2007, Indiana's largest Pontiac dealership by volume.

Today it is history. A combination of mismanagment and the high gas prices of the summer of 2008 did the deed. A family owned business since the 1940's they moved from cramped downtown Kokomo facilities to this nice new state of the art dealership a few years ago.

Nothing left now, just a kodak moment for my 1966 GTO convertible.

Prez Bill

Mystery Cruz Report June 27, 2009

Here's what we did:
8am - Breakfast at Elegance in Brownsburg. It was great!!
9am - Traveled US 136 west to St Rd 32 east to the Ropkey Armor Museum (www.ropkeyarmormuseum.com) just outside Crawfordsville. Pretty awesome collection of TANKS! This is the largest private collection of armored tanks in the country.
12 noon - Traveled St Rd 32 west to US 63 to the big town of Eugene. We dined at the world famous Covered Bridge Restaurant. (Don't bring a credit card cuz, they only take cash!)
2:30pm - Headed to Newport to climb the world famous hill used in the annual Newport Hill Climb and then to the small sleepy town of Dana and the Ernie Pyle State Museum.
Finally - Last stop was Mike Harding's house to look at his "man cave" and check out his '70 Orbit orange GTO Judge, '71 GTO HT, '66 GTO convertible and Buick Gran National.
Great weather, great food and great company!
Cheers,
Prez Bill