GTO Featured In PPG Magazine
The 1964 Sabertooth GTO was recently honored by being featured in the PPG corporate magazine “Repaint Reporter”, as the car received the PPG Dream Car Award.
Sent to retail paint facilities, body shops and other friends of PPG throughout America, the magazine detailed how the GTO was selected as the Dream Car at the PPG Goodguys Nationals, held in Columbus, Ohio, in July 2013.
“Judges rated the winners best for their outstanding use of color, design, gloss and execution in a paint job,” the article explains.
“Penfound’s ’64 GTO is another shining example of what it takes to win Dream Car recognition.”
The story goes on to explain how PD worked with Frank Jemiola at the PPG Styling Studio in Cleveland for the one-of-a-kind, ultra-blue color called “PPGTO Blue”.
PD appreciates the recognition from PPG and thanks all the folks who helped make the GTO happen, including Randy Cremeans, Jennifer Boros, and Kylie Hubert.
Sabertooth GTO Featured In Goodguys Gazette
The Goodguys Gazette is the official magazine for members, chronicling the many events that cover the United States , and the Sabertooth GTO was honored to have a full page feature story in the November 2013 issue.
Entitled “Timeless Rendition”, the story highlighted the recent selection of the GTO as a 2013 “Dream Car” pick, and discussed the history of Penfound Design, stating that (PD) “… is making the middle of the country a little cooler one car at a time.”
In describing the Sabertooth GTO, the article discusses the many body modifications and mechanical tricks designed to transform the ’64 into a modern version of what Pontiac might have done with today’s technology.
“When the dust had settled, the Sabertooth was an accurate depiction of the original artwork. The car’s unique elements and features make it timeless and at home at a wide range of events.”
The story and photos give a great introduction of the GTO to Goodguys Gazette readers and expand on the idea of how much help the sponsor partners provide for the Penfound Design cars.
Thanks to the staff at Goodguys Gazette for the story and to PPG for the “Dream Car” Pick at the Goodguys Nationals event in Columbus, Ohio in July.
GTO Wins Best Of Show At 600+ Car Gillingham Event
The annual Bob Gillingham Ford Annual Classic Car Show has become a huge attraction with more than 600 cars in attendance, and this year the Sabertooth GTO was selected as Best Of Show at the September 14, 2013 event.
Each year the car show grows dramatically, and 2013 was no exception, with classic cars, hot rods, customs and modern musclecars packing the Parma, Ohio , location to capacity, making it necessary to bring busloads of onlookers from satellite parking lots to see the variety of vehicles on display.
The “free” status of the car show, with no charge for admission or food, brings cars from the Ohio and neighboring states together for a busy day of activities and awards. It also brings a colorful group of folks together, as the GTO supporter shown with the car confirms!
Thanks to Bob Gillingham Ford, Cruisin’ Times, and the other sponsors of the car show for a great event!
Summit Honors GTO With Top Award
Each year Summit Racing Equipment holds several special car shows at it’s headquarters, and this year the Sabertooth GTO won the Top Paint trophy at its Buick, Oldsmobile, Pontiac 2013 event, held in September.
The large parking area at the Talmadge, Ohio facility was packed with a broad range of ex-drag race cars, concourse level restorations and performance street machines vying for picks for the select few.
The GTO was a center of attention for the show and was well received by the large crowd of onlookers.
Penfound Design appreciates the Top Paint award and thanks the Summit team for a smooth and professional show!
Sabertooth GTO Wins Mayor’s Pick
What has custom cars, hot rods and motorized caskets at the same show? The 3rd Annual Cruisin’ Times Hillbilly Rod & Custom Nationals, held August 24 in Broadview Heights, Ohio.
The Sabertooth GTO joined more than 530 other vehicles at the huge event which has a fun time bringing together some of the best restored, customized and show cars with a bicycle-powered outhouse, ingenious rat rods and couples wearing t-shirts with “Just Married” hand drawn on the woman’s shirt and “She’s My Sister” on the man’s!
While the show has grown like the oil reserves in the Beverly Hillbillies back yard, it also raises funds for the Shriners Hospitals for Children, which is what the event is really all about.
There were 10 Hillbilly vehicle picks and 10 Show Car picks, while Sabertooth won the prestigious Mayor’s Pick, chosen by the mayor and staff of Broadview Heights city government.
Penfound Design would like to thank John Shapiro and the organizers of the Hillbilly Nationals for the special day. PD also thanks Doug Moulder for crew help at the event.
2013 Jeep Grand Cherokee Joins Penfound Design
The power of a Hemi engine and the style and function of one of the most respected SUVs on the planet, has made a 2013 Grand Cherokee the daily driver and chase vehicle for Penfound Design.
Much like the black 2011 and white 2012 Grand Cherokees that preceded the new Jeep, the 2013 version has lots of great features like backup camera, Sirius XM audio and sophisticated four wheel drive system. Of course it wouldn’t be a PD truck without some modifications that make it special.
To make the Grand Cherokee “smooth and clean” the side trim, chrome body logos and other ‘4X4’ badging was removed. In addition the existing bright rear taillight panel was removed, along with the grill and painted with PPG products to match the existing silver body color. A grill insert from an Overland model which matched the lower grill texture was added.
Adding trick wheels and tires to the Grand Cherokee was easy with KMC 672 20-inch black-centered wheels and Goodyear Eagle RS-A P235/50/20 tires. The overall look, as shown here, is low-key and aggressive, and Penfound Design would like to thank the sponsors who have helped make the look possible.
Partners in the project include: Goodyear Tire; Wheel Pro and KMC wheels; PPG Industries, Inc., automotive finishes; Presta Products; Jeep Corporation; Sliman’s Sales And Service, Amherst, Ohio ; XTreme Performance, North Ridgeville, OH; and John Lasky, painting and finishing.
LoSabre Re-visits Woodward Dream Cruise As A Different Car
The first car event the 1959 Buick LoSabre attended was Detroit’s Woodward Dream Cruise more than a decade ago. In a completely different skin it seemed the right time to re-visit the biggest car cruise in the world looking the way most people have seen the concept custom!
The 2013 Dream Cruise was the largest in the 19 year history of the show, and estimates were that more than 50,000 vehicles and ONE MILLION spectators took part in the beautiful weather August 17 and for several days before where impromptu cruise-ins take place for more than a week.
As regular attendees of the Dream Cruise have learned, the cruise-in begins at 8-Mile Road north of downtown Detroit, and moves to Pontiac, Michigan before returning to the starting point. For most of the cruise there are four lanes of solid cars, moving at just above idle speed. Along the way spectators cheer, jeer and even hold ‘rating cards’ to evaluate your vehicle from 1-10.
LoSabre performed like a champ for the near 16-mile cruise, while several other vehicles were overheating along the curb. Folks seemed to like the car and it received plenty of comments from the hardcore critics lining the sidewalks.
It was great to return to the event where LoSabre had once visited in red with flames, and again in its more familiar silver and white colors.
Thanks to everyone at the Woodward Dream Cruise for making 2013 a special event.
Double The Thanks From Sabertooth at Pontiac Show
It was a great day for the Sabertooth GTO as it met some new friends at the NCPC All Pontiac Show, August 14, 2013, at the Solon Commons in Solon, Ohio , and received two awards along the way.
The event presented by Jay Buick/GMC, brought nearly 150 Pontiac cars and GMC trucks to the Solon Commons site, with some amazing restorations and survivor cars mixed in with modified vehicles like the Sabertooth GTO.
The 1964 GTO was honored by winning a Top 5 People’s Choice pick and Best Modified award at the show, as well as getting lots of looks from the large crowd in attendance.
Thanks to the NCPC and show sponsors for the day and the recognition.
A Legendary GTO Racer Meets Sabertooth At Tri-Power Nationals
August 2-4, 2013
The Sabertooth GTO was honored to receive an award at the 21st Ames Performance Pontiac Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio, however it was equally amazing to spend an hour, and get an autographed inner fender, from legendary drag racer Arnie “The Farmer” Beswick. Beswick, who put on a near 200 mph incredible drag racing demonstration with his tiger-striped 1964 ‘Tameless Tiger’ nostalgia pro-stock Pontiac , liked Sabertooth and proved it by showing the car to his crew and signing the inner front fender. “Can I sign anything I want?” he asked, kiddingly as he leaned under the hood….and wrote: “Best of Luck to Penfound Design,” calling the GTO “A True Beauty”, and adding “Arnie, ‘The Farmer’, Beswick” at the bottom.
Beswick began his drag racing career in the 1950s and dominated the stock car classes, winning 10 consecutive world series class wins into the 1960s. While he has driven other car brands, he has been associated with Pontiac for decades and has continued to race into his 80s while bringing smiles to Pontiac enthusiasts everywhere.
Penfound Design would like to thank Ames Performance for the award at the Tri-Power Nationals held at Summit Raceway Park, AND Arnie “The Farmer” Beswick for making the show truly memorable, and fun!
Sabertooth GTO Honored With ‘Dream Car’ Award At Goodguys PPG Nationals
July 12-14, 2013
It’s great when a Penfound Design concept custom receives an award, and there is something special about recognition at the Goodguys Rod & Custom Nationals.
With more than 7,000 cars in attendance at the Columbus , Ohio event, the GTO was surrounded by some of the most outrageous hot rods, muscle machines and customs in the country, so it was a special moment when the car was picked by PPG Industries, Inc., as the ‘Dream Car’ recipient, for ‘outstanding use of color and design’.
The event was especially impressive this year, with the combination of excellent weather, a huge turnout and competition for awards in categories that included “Hot Rod Of The Year” and “Street Machine Of The Year”. The Sabertooth GTO was well received at the event and on the streets of Columbus as it visited host hotel cruise-ins and impromptu street ‘car shows’ around the city.
Penfound Design thanks PPG Industries for the special award. PD would also like to thank Grange Insurance in Columbus for providing support for the car and crew during the three-day 2013 event.
GTO Wins ‘Award Of Excellence’ at BOP Show
The Pontiac ‘Sabertooth’ GTO visited the 22nd Annual Buick, Oldsmobile Pontiac show on June 9, 2013 near Cleveland, Ohio, and was honored to receive an ‘Award Of Excellence’.
Some of the nicest restored and modified vehicles from the three General Motors divisions were in attendance at the northern Ohio show. With more than 20 years of experience, the display and the automobiles are an excellent chance to see the history of Buick, Pontiac and Oldsmobile, with cars ranging from the early 20th century well into the 21st.
Thanks to the organizers and the sponsors of the BOP display for the well-run event.
’59 LoSabre Takes Route 66 to Hot Rod’s 65th!
The rumors started several months ago that Hot Rod magazine was planning a one-time only 65th anniversary “Homecoming” show for cars that had been featured since 1948.
Those stories became fact as the magazine sent out invitations to the show to be held in Pomona, California, March 22-24, 2013. Since both the Penfound Design 1959 Buick LoSabre and 1964 Pontiac Sabertooth GTO had been featured in the magazine, the notion of making a California journey with one of them made perfect sense!
It was a special kind of “homecoming” for LoSabre, since Hot Rod was the first magazine to feature the car in 2002, followed by the car’s appearance in the Hot Rod annual calendar in 2004. Eventually the car was shown in more than a dozen publications in America, Europe and Japan, but it was Hot Rod that introduced the car, and Penfound Design, to the world.
Since the last of 2013’s winter storms were still in the mountains of Colorado and the Dakotas, PD and transportation manager Jeff Miller took the “Southern Route” of interstates 75, 44, 40 and 10 to reach Pomona, catching glimpses of old Route 66 as the team made its way West.
LoSabre got a warm welcome from the weather and the Hot Rod staff as it arrived at the Fairplex display area. There were several hundred invited cars on display inside the many buildings on the site, and many more vehicles outside which had not been featured in the magazine but wanted to be part of the show.
Some of the many special cars in attendance were the Pierson Brothers coupe, the SoCal belly tanker, the restored Tom McEwen “Mongoose” funny car and Dodge transporter, and dozens of other historically significant vehicles.
The LoSabre got lots of attention as well, and visitors had nice things to say about it and the other Penfound Design cars that have followed it. Ironically, right across the aisle from the Buick, was a special 1966 Pontiac GTO that Jim Wangers, marketing guru for the brand in the ‘60s, brought along for the show. He was kind enough to sign a magazine cover featuring the GTO and was very complimentary of Sabertooth and LoSabre.
Following the two-day event, the Buick began its trip back to Ohio, with a stop off at one of the most famous buildings on Route 66, the “U Drop Inn”. LoSabre fit in perfectly with the art deco style of the building and reminded us how cool the era must have been when the 1959 Buick was new.
Penfound Design thanks Hot Rod editor David Freiburger and everyone at the magazine for the invitation and the event. It was a truly special experience! More information can be found in the months ahead at www.hotrod.com … And check out the “Hot Rod Unlimited Episode 31” video at their site for a glimpse of LoSabre.
Some of the amazing vehicles at the show are featured here, plus a photo of LoSabre at the “U Drop Inn”.
Sabertooth Earns Smoke Signals Cover Story
Following in the tracks of a cover story in High Performance Pontiac magazine last October, the Sabertooth Pontiac GTO has been featured in Smoke Signals magazine, the “Voice of the Pontiac Oakland Club International”.
Beginning with a cover photo and a two-page spread featuring the car, editor Don Keefe says, “This Pro Touring ’64 GTO has the teeth to back up its looks!”
With nearly two dozen photos in the story, Keefe describes the GTO in glowing terms. “The finished product holds many subtle changes, such as the late-model Pontiac review mirrors, the Corvette C6 door handles, the custom badging and the engine-turned taillamp cover. Lower stance and 20-inch rubber add an aggressive and modern touch”.
Other highlights in the article include extensive descriptions of the motor, interior and frame. “The completed chassis is almost too pretty to cover up,” Keefe explains.
“(The) four bucket-seat interior is another feature that looks like something Pontiac might have done on a ‘60s-era showcar,” he says. “The look is clean and elegant, with the vintage diamond pattern set off with a modern color palette.”
Penfound Design thanks Keefe and the folks at Smoke Signals for the great cover story in the February, 2013 issue.
More information about the Pontiac Oakland Club International can be found at: www.poci.org