Calgarian guitar player’s ax fix resulted in him getting a chance to fall in love all over again with fabled muscle car
A dent in a Fender Stratocaster guitar led muscle car enthusiast Brad Tomlinson to his second 1974 Pontiac GTO. Here’s how he got there. In the early 1990s, the Calgarian bought his first ’74 GTO.
“It was a Sunstorm Yellow coupe,” Tomlinson says. “And the car needed some bodywork with patch panels. I worked with a guy who was a body man who couldn’t work in the trade anymore because he’d developed some kind of allergy to the products used in the industry.”
Working out a deal with an autobody shop through his friend, Tomlinson was instructed on how to do the bulk of the repairs to the GTO. “My friend would stop in and inspect my work,” Tomlinson adds. “While he was able to do much of the metal cutting and welding, I did most of the rest of it, including grinding the welds and laying down filler and sanding.”
His ’74 GTO was resprayed Sunstorm Yellow and Tomlinson unmasked the car in the booth and drove it home. “Early on after I’d done the body, I was at a Co-Op store and was approached by a fellow who was excited to see the GTO – it turned out he’d been the original owner,” Tomlinson says. “He said if I ever wanted to sell it, he wanted to buy it.”
Fast forward to 2014. Tomlinson’s GTO was needing more bodywork. While he says he didn’t really want to sell the car, he knew it was time to let it go. Unable to find the contact information of the gentleman he’d met in the Co-Op parking lot he listed it for sale on Kijiji. “I was contacted by someone who wanted to know a whole lot more about the car, and he turned out to be the son of the original owner – he bought it, and I was glad he got it,” Tomlinson says, admitting that for years after he was slightly remorseful that he’d sold the GTO.
In 1964 the GTO package first appeared as an optional extra for Pontiac’s mid-size LeMans. Under the hood was a powerful 389 cubic inch V8 – meaning there was plenty of horsepower pushing a lighter weight car down the road. It was the GTO that really started the muscle car trend, and it’s an era of automobile production in which Tomlinson was raised.
“I grew up in the Sixties and Seventies,” he says. “And those were the muscle car years.” Tomlinson’s first car was a 1970 Olds Cutlass with a 455. He drove it for years around Calgary before moving on, returning to the fold when he bought his first 1974 Pontiac GTO. These are rare cars in Canada, as in 1974 the GTO option was no longer available on the Lemans. Instead, the GTO became an option package on Pontiac’s smaller Ventura model, which was available as either a coupe or a hatchback.
According to Tomlinson, only 148 GTO equipped Venturas were sold new in this country in 1974. At the beginning of the oil crisis, the lighter weight GTO-equipped Ventura still sported a 350 cubic inch 200 horsepower V8. A 3-speed manual was standard, while a 4-speed automatic or a 4-speed manual were available options.
“Every spring I’d see people getting their cars out of storage and I really began thinking I should buy another muscle car,” Tomlinson says. That’s around the time his Stratocaster’s dent took him to an autobody supply shop, seeking extra-fine sandpaper.
“In the parking lot, there was a woman in a Pontiac convertible,” he says. “I started talking to her about GTOs, and she said, ‘My husband is selling his ’74 GTO.’” Her husband was Carmine Golemme of Classic Performance, a muscle car restoration shop in Calgary. From his years of owning his first ’74 GTO, Tomlinson knew Golemme. The pair had met on more than one occasion.
“I drove up and was shown another ’74 GTO,” Tomlinson says. “It was immaculate from bumper to bumper, as Carmine had completely restored the car, working from the bare metal up.”
Documentation from GM Canada indicates the car was originally sold by J.E. Mac Sales Ltd., in Bashaw, Alberta. Where it spent the bulk of its years is lost in time, but Tomlinson didn’t hesitate. He decided almost instantly to purchase the GTO, equipped with the rebuilt original 350 cubic-inch engine. The car features an upgraded cooling system, disc brakes all around and all new suspension.
Finished in factory original Gulfmist Aqua and white interior, Tomlinson bought the GTO in September of 2022. While it was equipped with the 3-speed manual transmission, Tomlinson had Golemme swap it for a 4-speed.
“I sure like having the 4-speed, and I’ve been driving it all over the place from May to September in the two years I’ve had it,” he says. “If it wasn’t for the dent in the Stratocaster taking me to the autobody supply shop, I’d have been none the wiser that this one, my second 1974 Pontiac GTO, was even available. What are the odds?”
Greg Williams is a member of the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC). Have a column tip? Contact him at 403-287-1067 or [email protected]
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