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M A R K E T R E V I E W | Pricing Reference Classifieds Subscribe Advertise Exotics 1984-2018 |
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This is purely a subjective
observation, but when we think of classic late sixties muscle car styling,
the GTO immediately comes to mind. Pontiac designers brought it out of the
chrome and flash era of the early and mid-sixties right into the muted,
"euro" theme that was to become popular in the seventies. The optional
hideaway headlights screamed sixties, too.
The most coveted options start with, what else, more speed. The optional 400ci with Ram Air induction and the 4spd manual are very desirable. The automatic isn't a liability on the milder versions though, as it seems as many buyers today are looking for the same thing in this car as they did when new: powerful, smooth and effortless performance with a dose of civility thrown in. But these being muscle cars, naturally the more muscle the better. A 400 HO option rated at 360hp was the first tick up. Then the real action started. The Ram Air option, still rated at 360hp, got you functional ram air induction. Mid year, it replaced by the Ram Air-II motor, still officially rated at 360hp. In '69 this became the RA-III (now rated at 366hp) and a super hot RA-IV was another step up. The RA-IV is quite rare and its 370 underrated horses can bump prices another 25-30% on the coupe and 50% on the convertible all by itself. As it is on most cars from this era, air conditioning is a plus. By this time GM air conditioning in particular was so good it would cool your house if you hooked up some duct work! Indeed, it seems stronger than many of today's systems. The new bench seat hurts values just a bit, as does the column shift. The buckets and console are just more in line with the GTO image. All kinds of extras were
available: tilt wheel, rallye dash, even cornering lights. Except for
the rallye dash (two versions, depending on whether you had a hood tach or
not), these really don't make a measurable difference on value by
themselves, but together they can bump up prices. There was also an economy
engine option, 2bbl version of the 400 making 255/265hp. A few thousand were
produced, but we've only seen a couple. Most likely owners installed a 4bbl
intake and carb somewhere along the way. Values on these have been moving upward at a dizzying pace as of late. Nice hardtops are pushing, and sometimes surpassing, $40,000. And then you have the Judge convertibles. Extremely rare, you probably can't touch one for under $100,000, and they've approached $200,000 at the high profile auctions. This has all happened in an almost choreograph manner over the past year. Recent advertised prices have been seen with asking prices close to $1/2 million. That's simply absurd. While we have raised our price guidelines substantially, we're going to wait just a bit more until we see more than a handful of these transactions before we put anything like those numbers in our price guide.
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Sales Channel
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Supply |
Availability by Sales Channel |
There is a good supply of third generation GTO's available in the market. Classifieds announce the overwhelming majority of Goats for sale, with eBay pretty strong and traditional auctions far behind. Refreshingly, there are a lot of private offerings, too, which helps explain the large classified share. Looking at just The Judge models, the auction share increases, mostly at the expense of classifieds. | |||||||||||||||||||
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