WE ARE NOCTURN BLUE!

"A Tribute to Jim Wangers' 1964 GTO 'Test Car' built for Car and Driver March 1964"

CHAPTER 16 Greg Raymond

Every once in a while, it’s important to pause and look back at where you started, especially when the journey began nearly two years ago. The Blue Car was delivered to Patterson’s Kustoms on January 26, 2024, and as I write this installment of A Tribute to Jim Wangers’ 1964 GTO “Test Car”, we’re putting the final touches on the last of the body panels.

The photo above shows the Pontiac stripped to bare steel, being loaded onto a flatbed to begin its transformation. Over the past 21 months, not a single complaint has been uttered. The Patterson team elevated this project to a level I never imagined, and I’m deeply grateful for their dedication.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I’ll let the archive speak for itself. The body was taken completely down to metal. Remarkably rust‑free, it required only a new trunk floor. But the level of detail throughout the process was astonishing. Every panel was stripped, the backside of each one coated in POR‑15, and the entire car was acid‑washed, primed, sanded, sealed, re‑sanded, primed again, and sealed once more.

Only after all of that was the color applied—to what is now the straightest GM A‑body I’ve ever restored.

When my father saw the restoration of his own 1964 GTO convertible, he said, “The car never looked that good even when it was new.” I wish he were here to see this one.