About
History of this Vehicle
This is a 1975 Pontiac Astre GT #00002. 1975 was the first year that the Astre was offered for the U.S. market, it had been produced for Canada since 1971. Also as I stated above, this car is the second Astre for the U.S. off of the production line.
Finding this car turned out to be just a “fluke” deal. I had spotted this car at a local “off-road” shop here in my home town and have been friends with the owner for some years now. I had never noticed this car behind his shop before, if I had I would have bought it a long time ago, I went ahead and inquired about the car and he told me that he would sell it to me. It had been his wife’s car when they met and after getting married she soon bought a new car and parked this one, so he was ready for it to be gone! I thought “great”, another hotrod project, several days later I went over and picked the car up, it had only been sitting in the same place for 19 years and was going to take a little work to get it out. After just a couple of hours later I had the car loaded on the trailer and headed for the car wash. After getting the car cleaned out and washed I began to start taking more pictures and made the discovery of what the car really was! This little gem only has 49,000 mile on it to boot! The engine needs a complete rebuild as it is seized up from sitting for 19 years, and yes this was one of those little 140 cid, 85 hp, all aluminum block with an iron head engine. Unfortunately this car never made it back to GM for the recall on the engine and was never replaced with a sleeved engine.
Plans for this Vehicle
I would eventually like to rebuild the original engine & transmission and put them back in the car, but for now I am going to replace the hood, a fender, a rear quarter panel and repaint it. I am also going to do a “bolt in” V-8 conversion with a mild 355 sbc & TH350 transmission. I will probably also replace the carpet since it is a little faded and have the drivers seat repaired also. This car really doesn’t need a whole lot of work to speak of.
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