We bought the car from an eBay ad in May of 2010 and it was a month later that we got to touch it when Lloyd flew to Denver, CO to pick it up. Lloyd drove it to Sharol’s mom’s home in central Kansas and since it drove so nice, he cancelled his flight back to Florida and decided to drive it back instead. It had 53,799 miles on the odometer when we got it and put just over 2,000 more miles on it when he finally got back to Jacksonville. We are the 4th owner. It is the closest to Lloyd’s original 1968 GTO that we have been able to find. The original one was also April Gold in color, had parchment interior and factory air. Lloyd bought his original car new in 1967 and we dated in it while in college together.
We have added air conditioning, front disc brakes, rally gauges and tach, new plug wires, new retro AM/FM stereo radio, new speakers, tilt steering wheel, new parchment interior, new black carpet, new tires, a repaint, changed to 2.56 rear end gears (for better gas mileage) and changed to 15” Rally II wheels/tires. We have put over $20,000.00 in upgrades and repairs. We take it to weekly Cruise-Ins, car shows around Jacksonville and many car tours.
We have driven the GTO to the west coast 4 times. In 2012 we drove the GTO to San Diego to show our daughter the GTO. It was first a stop in Kansas to see relatives there, then to Tucson to see my mother and sister, from there to San Diego. After a short visit there it was back to Florida.
In 2013, we drove the GTO to Kansas to visit relatives, then to Illinois to visit friends, on to Dearborn, MI to see The Henry Ford Museum, then to Dayton, OH for the 5-day POCI/GTO Co-Vention. After that we drove to Helen, GA for a Bavarian town visit and back to Florida.
We have also done the Bourbon Tour in Kentucky in 2014, touring Lexington, the Horse Park, the Corvette Museum, and a variety of sights around Bardstown, KY. From there we drove to Kansas to visit relatives and on to California to visit our daughter in San Diego. Then back home to Florida.
Another tour in 2015 was to N. & S. Carolina where we went to Ashville, Brevard, Pisgah Forest, drove some of the Blue Ridge Trail, Maggie Valley (Dale Walksler’s Motorcycle Museum-Wheels Through Time), and then stayed a few days at a B&B in S. Carolina before heading back to Florida.
In 2016, we drove to Page, AZ to tour the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and then up into Utah for 10 days of National Parks and canyons (Zion, Canyonlands, Bryce, Arches, Monument Valley, etc.) on a loop through central Utah. We did have a major issue and lost the engine (valve problem) and had to take a friend’s tow vehicle on the tour and rented a truck/trailer and towed the GTO back home. Had it fixed in a month and did a 1,000-mile tour with friends around Georgia to break the motor in. No problems since.
We have toured Utah & Idaho sights, Yellowstone National Park, Devils Tower, Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and a number of sights on a tour in 2017.
Our longest trip was over 7,400 miles when in 2018 we went with the GTO Association of America (GTOAA) group (30-60 cars) and toured Historic Route 66. We started at the Route 66 Museum in Pontiac, IL (near the Pontiac Museum there) and drove to San Bernardino, CA over 15 days staying at old motels and enjoying many of the sights and museums along the road. We continued on to San Diego to see our daughter & family then to Tucson to see my mother and sister, and back to Florida on I-10. In June 2020, we did a Mini-GTOAA Route 66 tour from St. Louis to Tulsa with a dozen of our 2016 trip group and saw many new sights on the Route.
In 2019, a dozen of us from the Dixie Chapter Pontiac Club drove from Jacksonville to Gettysburg, PA for the Pontiac-Oakland Club International (POCI) National Car Show. Lloyd drove the GTO while the others towed their Pontiacs. We had a great trip, and the show was awesome, except for the 100+ degree days, but we had fun and really enjoyed touring the battlefield one afternoon.
We have done a number of 2-4-day tours in Florida and Georgia with a group of friends around Jacksonville, so the GTO does not sit idle too much. We bought the GTO with 53,799 miles on the odometer and it now has over 116,000 miles so you can see it is a driver and we enjoy taking trips in it. They were meant to be driven and we are proof that they can still be driven.
Lloyd & Sharol Hoffman’s 1968 GTO
