There are only two days remaining to bid on this gold 1974 Pontiac GTO located in O’Fallon, Missouri. Based on the X body Ventura, this was a one year only body style. Equipped with a three-speed manual, this GTO is bid to $12,300 and is listed here on eBay.
Adorned with the Trans Am shaker scoop, the L76 350 cubic inch four-barrel engine produced 200 horsepower at 4,400 rpm and 295 lb-ft of torque at 2,800 rpm. There was no optional performance equipment or larger engines offered in this GTO.
A special feature on the 1974 GTO is the functional shaker scoop that used a solenoid-operated air valve to allow the intake of cold air when accelerating. Engineers incorporated an actuation system that prevented the flapper from working until coolant temperature exceeded 140 degrees.
This GTO came with the standard M11 three-speed manual. A buyer could opt for the M20 four-speed manual or M38 automatic transmission. Designed with gas mileage in mind, the 8.5-inch GM 10-bolt rearend is fitted with 3.08 gears. The G80 limited-slip differential was an extra cost option. With approximately 7,000 GTOs produced in 1974, they don’t come up for sale very often.
Its not one of my favorite body styles but interesting.
The pictures need to pull back on front and sides (but maybe it’s intentional to hide boxy body)
I like the 60s model best and prefer the 1973 prior barn listing better if i had to pick the next decade models .
Good luck with the sale 👍😂
One more thing if this goat would have used the Laguna malibu approach with a rubber painted bumper in front with a little more style headlights then it would of looked sportier 👀
Full pix of this model front and side
https://images.app.goo.gl/gW1XvG6sYsnQXhY27
Sad ending for the run that lasted ten years on this most iconic of cars, often referred to as the godfather of muscle cars.. Pontiac advertised it as its “tough little road car.”
Darn shame Pontiac couldn’t, or would not, build a 400 or 455(!!) GTO out of this smaller body. I mean Chevrolet had the SS396 Nova’s, not in ’74, but they had built them. If they were going to send off the goat better to go out with a bang than a meow. Different times I guess.
Pontiac was a great car in the 60s but not this era no way
I drove a red 4-speed version of this model years ago and really liked it. Despite the fact that it is a Nova in a poncho, I found it to be an attractive offering and still like it all these years later
Not a Chevrolet 350….
Had a buccaneer red 74 GTO hatchback 4-speed car that was quite fun to drive. Got me through college and during one dare, we fit 9 people in the car going down the road in Erie (Behrend College).
Loved watching the hood scoop flap open when mashing the pedal
Unfortunately, being a Pittsburgh car, rust was a major problem, including the rear leaf spring mounts pushing up into the trunk area.
Sold it for $800 in very rough condition…
Was the buyer from Ohio? They’ll run a car for years after we Pennsylvanians can’t get it inspected anymore 😆
As has been pointed out many times on this site, this appears to be either a “yes honey, I really am trying to sell my old car” effort, or a rather dim seller. It runs, but you couldn’t be bothered to pull it out into the driveway, and clean the fast food bags out of the back seat? Not exactly a motivated seller I should think, or not the best person to do business with.
I had a Ventura with a 350 and an automatic and it was a fast little car!! Three speed on the floor is interesting to considering most all GTO’s prior were four speeds!! This model definitely didn’t try to put muscle into the public’s hands!! More a novelty than anything else!!!
True that most stick GTOs were 4-speeds(including for ’74), but the 3-speed manual was the standard transmission in every GTO year from 1964-1972, even in Judges. Only for 1973 was a 4-speed the standard trans.
The non hidden wipers unfortunately kinda partially block the entertaining shaker.
Optional Gage pkg would be nice. Good it has few options to save weight, tho i would see what i could do about that heavy front bumper.
& add pertronix.
& possibly ditch the heavy sideways muffler if it’s still on there.
Apparently, unlike 1st & 2nd gen f-bodies, non a/c novas & venturas with no vent windows get no astro ventilation fresh air vents at opposite ends of the dash for the face – odd.
Carpet in very nice shape & dash is not cracked.
Older model trim rings & center caps look good here.
Manual front DISK brakes here?
I liked the body design on these when they came out but also because it was lighter than the ’72 GTO. ( and possibly any of the GTOs. Also, since it is all set up for a Pontiac V8, all the V8 Pontiacs bolt right in. So if you find one of these in good body condition, grab it. Then start searching for a very interesting engine choice. Pontiac, that is from 1965 on up. 421s, 428s, 400s, 455s could still look stock and be a blast to drive. And with all the available Nova suspension pieces available. You can modify for drag racing, track days or just a canyon carver. This one would be priced right if the condition was there to support it. ( not enough photos to even consider it, and the lack of presentation indicates a seller that is not serious about selling. I never saw one of these in this color.
Are you sure about this? I bought a 66 GTO 389 to put in a 79 Firebird and the motor mounts would not line up.
What was the previous engine in that Firebird? If it was the Pontiac 400 or even the 301, the mounts should line up.
But most of the motors in the ’79 birds came from other GM makes: Chevy 5.0 and 5.7 V8s, Olds 6.6 V8, and Buick 3.8 V6. Less than 20% of 1979 Firebird got one of the actual Pontiac engines.
It was a 301. As I recall , the the mounts on one were centered on the block while the other had mounts at the front of the block.
Scott, sorry for my brain fade. The ’70-79 350s and 400s had 5-bolt bosses per side and will bolt up to the 301 mounts in a ’79 Firebird. Pre ’70 only had two bolts per side making a mount swap necessary.
A last ditch effort by Pontiac to try and keep a name alive. And only 10 years after the original debut. I guess when you know things are close to the end, people will grab most anything they can get their hands on. I don’t care for this car, nor will I ever. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
I really do find it amazing how short of time span the GTO type muscle was around …..mostly over by ’72 some folks say ’70 was the peak.
Even shorter. The SD 455 was a freak for ’73-’74 with little to no competition in the showrooms.
Things didn’t really get competitive until ’66 or ’67 depending on what some people consider a true muscle car, so even still the time table gets shorter… definitely a sneaze compared to the hot machines nowadays which has just improved every year since 1982…..37 years and running.
Yet nothing built in all of these 37 years and counting can hold a candle to the original speed machines in class, factory involvement, and most of all.. nostalgia…never will.
I dont think I would call it trash. This car is just the plain Jane gto. With 3 speed. And 350 block. The price is a bit high, but with legalization everybody is a bit high on there stuff these dazes. I have a 75 omega with the 260 m11 3 speed on the floor, neat little car built for economy but with feel of a shifter in your had. And kinda rare. I would enjoy driving this car, if you want a hot rod buy and older model , if you can afford one. Bet a reasonable offer would take this one home.
A Nova with GTO badges is not what I expect to be the great Goat…! Not the biggest fan of this Nova/Apollo/Ventura( or whatever) body but I know many like them especially due to its acceptable weight and Camaro suspension similarities.
Such a GTO is probably more interesting for the inner circle of Pontiac fans than the general muscle car crowd… nevertheless it IS interesting at least due to what it is not…
pontiac helped implode itself . before , during, and after the gm strike not many workers in any position appreciated what they had. they all focused on what was lost buisness wise. you can even tell things were not right with the workers not putting build sheets in there proper cars. or build sheets placed in the wrong cars. after the strike very few appreciated the brand. it seemed like an ongoing joke with workers shoving trash in car vents during the building process. chevy corvette employees did not stand for that kind of crap. and any worker caught doing those kind of things got there walking papers in a hurry. i only wish there were a few executives had the guts and cash to revive the brand and then pontiac would have gone full circle . back to a worker appreciated brand. some will say the gas prices did not help but chevy endured. you did not see those kinds of problems with the camaro during the same era. this is probably why we have so many imports in the USA . why even the auto importers were afraid to first build on US soil because of how american workers had become.
We have 9 million boat loads of Jap cars cause American car companies got lazy and built crap believing Americans would buy their shoddy built cars. Not so. I will never own a foreign car. Thats just me. I was 17 years old when this excuse of a Pontiac came out. Never liked it, but for those that do. So be it.
hard lessons to have learned. but its our history. question is how can you change people when like you say crap being built. a pontiac of last resort . what they did to the GTO…also you got to remember the carbon free steel japan sold us in those days. cars were literally melting away.
Not that i don’t disagree on support our workers but tell me a car made of 100% American parts from drive train, bolts, wiring to engine ?
Sadly many cars even branded with the big three auto makers have Asia Pacific, Canada, Mexico and yes some in India parts. Then taking further built outside the US. 😟
Some might argue that the Camry is American made in Kentucky that races in the Daytona 500 speedway yearly.
I think some lost interest in US made vehicles when they became cookie cutter like all others looking the same. When they refuse to be efficient in fuel yet fun..
I love at the 60s-70s and see cars that would take me to the dealer to test drive yearly and buy when different .
My first car in late seventies was a 55 chev hardop that averaged 8 mpg punched out followed by a 69 RS Z28 Camaro . They each handled a teenager racing on weekends and taught me to build them back when i should of backed off to win a county back road race but stubbornness caused engine rebuilds and clutches etc.😏
The new today models doesn’t have to be 800 hp as theV6 cranking 350+ keeping it interesting with decent mileage.
I even get into Teslas drive to be electric with speed and eco. I am sure it has batteries and diodes from outside the US but it’s different and will challenge others to follow too.
I love the retro cars Camaro, Challengers and Mustangs and Corvettes.
I will say the Ferrari newest version knockoff rear engine Vette has not grown on me yet.
I want the Ranchero and Elcamino
back ad i don’t need a 12-15mpg truck four door with
no cargo space to-haul. I do want to pick up small items and tow a classic home from
A barn from time to tine 👀😎
I drive a classic 67 convert mustang,63 split and 54 3100 as well as a Suzuki for toys and Prius driven weekdays that gets 58 mpg for distance. I want a Tesla eventually etc. I kid i earn carbon creds for the weekend bang on fun .
in todays technology i think its impossible to have 1 country build a car of all parts made in its own country. id like to see something that has a uniform building platform like something on the order of UL LABORATORIES in the car building buisness. the world is so wasteful in its parts building. like starters and alternators engine mounts tran mounts and all individual parts like said. you dont need 300 different starters to do the same thing and its wastefull to do so. i think there is an impossibility for anything to be built within any country. and those days are completely gone and its a true folley to even think its possible. the only way we will save this planet is through uniformity of individual parts for all things manmade. and the sooner that is done the sooner our children will have a clean environment to live in. the fate of this world will rely on these manufacturing decisions. our children deserve better than we our doing right now. look at cuba in there parts adaptation for there vehicles because of the inability to import for numbers of years . they in affect adapted what they had in order to keep there economy going. if anything we can learn somthing from there ingenuity. as far as enticing someone to a show room i dont think that will happen till most parts are made of plastic. then the unique adaptations of parts will begin to happen at an alarming rate . the technology is there. we just need good engineers to follow through on these ideas. could you imagine a plastic ferrari, cadillac, camaro z28, or trans am, or el camino…just think a plastic 55 chevy 1500 pounds lighter than original. how about a plastic ZL1 engine. we are so close to making these engines for real. if we do not completely go electric first.
I had a brown non-hatch ’74 GTO with the factory 4 speed back in the early ’90’s.
It was a fun car to drive. I added a Summit racing cam, reworked the Q-jet, and distributor and changed to a 2 1/2″ exhaust system with an h-pipe.
The car ran really well for low compression Pontiac 350 with 3.08 gears. It gave my friend’s ’89 Mustang GT fits when we would mess around with the two cars.
i especially liked the 1969 pontiac 350 with 4 barrel . i believe it had the ram air III #48 heads and a nice cam from the pontiac factory assembly line . it put out i believe 275 hp out of that little pontiac 350. talk about a sleeper
Truly hard to believe and sad to see what became of Pontiac if you ever drove a 61 0r 62 Catalina or Bonneville back in the day they were great automobiles some of the finest cars ever built in this country true power and sport luxury just glad to have experienced those cars myself .
ah those beautiful bubble tops. all that and an unfettered leash for mickey thompson to play with . an era that will never be duplicated.
this was the era where pontiac was truly the most powerful and a true force to be reckoned with. this is the era where some of pontiacs finest racers were stomping on everything and anything. in my opinion even more powerful than 1973-74 sd engines.
I believe this could turn out to be a good buy for someone. I have never seen a factory 4-speed in this model although three members in this thread alone owned/drove one.
sounds like the game 6 degrees of kevin bacon. or bacons law. huh… how about six degrees of the 74 gto.
Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon or “Bacon’s Law” is a parlour game based on the “six degrees of separation” concept, which posits that any two people on Earth are six or fewer acquaintance links apart. Movie buffs challenge each other to find the shortest path between an arbitrary actor and prolific actor Kevin Bacon. Wikipedia
I guess I’m a sucker for a stick shift. I like it.
i think in todays technology i think its impossible to have 1 country build a car of all parts made in its own country. id like to see something that has a uniform building platform like something on the order of UL LABORATORIES in the car building buisness. the world is so wasteful in its parts building. like starters and alternators engine mounts tran mounts and all individual parts like said. you dont need 300 different starters to do the same thing and its wastefull to do so. i think there is an impossibility for anything to be built within any country. and those days are completely gone and its a true folley to even think its possible. the only way we will save this planet is through uniformity of individual parts for all things manmade. and the sooner that is done the sooner our children will have a clean environment to live in. the fate of this world will rely on these manufacturing decisions. our children deserve better than we our doing right now. look at cuba in there parts adaptation for there vehicles because of the inability to import for numbers of years . they in affect adapted what they had in order to keep there economy going. if anything we can learn somthing from there ingenuity. as far as enticing someone to a show room i dont think that will happen till most parts are made of plastic. then the unique adaptations of parts will begin to happen at an alarming rate . the technology is there. we just need good engineers to follow through on these ideas. could you imagine a plastic ferrari, cadillac, camaro z28, or trans am, or el camino…just think a plastic 55 chevy 1500 pounds lighter than original. how about a plastic ZL1 engine. we are so close to making these engines for real. if we do not completely go electric first.
Twice?
like…..
In the minority on this one. 1974 is my fav. GTO! I actually think it represents the original spirit of the package really well.
I agree it is in the spirit of the ’64. I’d they had just plopped in the stock 1974 Pontiac 400 and 455 engines, the power to weight ratio would have been even slightly better than the original 389 4 barrel and tri-power GTOs of 1964. I think they should have gone to the X-body for ’72 when the redesigned A-body was originally supposed to come out before it was delayed to ’73 by the UAW strike. Pontiac even had a ’72 455 HO powered Ventura Sprint prototype running around….a real stormer.
Well, of course. It is whatever you like–that is the right car! I was in high school with my ’66 GTO 389/3 deuce/four speed set-up and no ps, no pb, no a/c. All power went straight to the drivetrain. So I am partial to the ’66-67. Ended up selling it in 1974 for grad school. Went out and bought a ’68 goat convertible in 1985 which I still have and enjoy once in awhile along with a host of other 60’s GM muscle. It’ll probably end up on Barn Finds in the future when I’m too old to drive it. Haha.
30 years ago this month I moved from O’Fallon IL to O’Fallon MO where this car is. MO and IL liked to copycat each other for city names.
Pontiac’s Nova Clone.
Hagerty says 16,000 bucks in good condition. These are low production and not seen very often
Bidding at almost 13 now. Do not think that it will go much higher
ill do some monday morning quarter backing. it should have gone to 16,000 with better pics. the ones they have are not good enough. plus what condition the seats. seller left to many questions unanswered. its a shame cause overall i think if you invested in a stripe kit, if found NOS and it went with the car who knows. these kind are low valued sleepers yet to be discovered. its a sweet looking car. advertise in 3 different venues maybe?????????????? retry in barn finds and ebay again.
Ended:Oct 07, 2019 , 3:47PM
Current bid:US $12,300.00
Reserve not met
[ 7 bids ]
Scott S Hayes, when I mention about engine swap I was basically referring to the engine transmission bolt up as being the same. (Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Cadillac and Buick now had the same block bolt pattern starting in 1965.) Having swapped many of Pontiac engines in ’60s and ’70s cars I never had an engine mount problem. I do know however that the motor mount brackets were way different on several of the cars. So possibly you had the wrong brackets for the installation. (Frame brackets, engine brackets (if required) and motor mounts have to be all the ones required for that particular car.)
Boy do I miss old Pontiacs.