Monterey Car Week is very nearly upon us, and with it comes copious opportunities to reminisce about the old days. Events like the Monterey Motorsports Reunion and Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance are the perfect gathering places for classic and antique automobiles, recreating the glory and beauty of the car world past for the car world now. Memories are in abundance this time of year, which got me thinking about my own automotive roots.

Although I’ve always had a fondness for cars, one of my favorite four-wheeled memories was when my father brought home a pristine 1967 Pontiac GTO. Finished in a perfect shade of Champagne paint on a black interior, it was like a vision of old school cool, a slab of RWD muscle just begging for a heavy right foot. I remember hearing it fire up for the first time, the lumpy idle of a big American V-8, the sound of fury emanating from the high-flow exhaust. I remember going for a ride in it, the smell of raw gasoline mixed with the upholstery, torque on demand from the long skinny pedal. Everywhere we went in that thing, people would look and stare. Complete strangers would approach us at gas stations to compliment the car. It was like we were celebrities.

Eventually, the GTO was sold, replaced by something more economical and sensible, and my own taste in cars expanded to the import scene, but my father’s ’67 Goat left a mark that’ll never fade.

So then – what’s your favorite automotive memory?

References

Read our full review on the Pontiac GTO.