1966 Pontiac GTO "Monkeemobile"

I bought this car in 1991 to work on and restore while I was in High School. I was supposed to sell it for college tuition. I drove it my first few years of college but the commute really took a toll on it's condition so I parked it. In 1997 I brought it out of storage and began driving it again. In 2002 began a complete chassis restoration correcting all the things I did to it when I was younger. It's basically had a frame-off restoration without actually having had the frame removed.

Technically this is my wife's car. We bought it in July of 2002 and got a great deal on it after going through 4 or 5 sales people during an 8 hour stint at the VW dealer. Like my '04 GTO, this car had been sitting on the lot for quite a while which is why we were able to get a good deal on it. Life was good with the car for about 6 months.

First the driver's side window fell into the door. It was a recall item. Two weeks later the passenger side window fell into the door. The same recall, but hey, why fix BOTH sides when it's in the shop for only one? That might actually save the customer some trouble down the road.

One morning a few months later my wife called from the Bart station to tell me the oil light had come on in her car. Puzzled, I stopped by the station to investigate. I found the oil level alarmingly low. So low that it didn't even read on the dipstick. It took nearly two quarts to get it a reading on the stick. Little did I know that I would be opening a can of worms.

Long story short, thanks to VW's "precision engineering"* on their 2.0 L 4 cylinders I have to add about a quart and a half of oil every 1000-1500 miles. According to VW and several dealers in the area, this is within VW's acceptable range. I have never, I repeat, NEVER owned a car that gratuitously used so much oil. I am not alone here, this is a well-documented issue with the 2.0L engines.

Fast forward another couple of months. My wife goes to leave in the morning after a rain storm and find 2" of water in the driver's side floor pan. We bail the water, take a to a dealer who diagnoses the leak and "solves" the problem. Apparently the windshield was not sealed properly. VW wouldn't cover the replacement of the carpet in the car even though it was soaked. As a matter of fact, the dealer didn't even try to dry it out.

Fast forward yet another few months and two or three quarts of oil. My wife calls me from the Bart parking lot again. This time it's because her car won't go into gear. I'm confused as I haven't noticed a leak and this is usually a sign of low fluid. Strangely I couldn't find a transmission dipstick. That's because VW uses a sealed automatic tranny with a special break-off dipstick that only allows a VW tech to add or check fluid.

That was beside the point anyway, because this thing was locked up beyond all hope. It wouldn't even roll in neutral. I had to call three different tow companies to find one that would literally drag it from it's parking spot. Never did find out what went wrong with the old transmission, but we got a new one under warranty.

The latest drama happened a couple of months ago. The car had developed a musty smell inside and we were having trouble tracing the origin. I happened to notice the floor on the passenger side was damp so I took it into the dealer and mentioned the past history we had with leaks.

This time it turns out that there are some small drain tubes in the corners of the sunroof recess that need to be periodically cleaned or else they will overflow...INTO THE PASSENGER COMPARTMENT. Note that it doesn't say anything about cleaning these drain tubes anywhere in the factory literature. Design flaw anyone? Never. Not on a German car. We found out the hard way it's a $250 fee to clean the drains. We're still puzzled as to how these tubes got clogged when the sunroof had not been opened or used in months.

Anyway, that's our story. Thanks for sticking it out with me, I'm sure you can see how it earned it's nickname. Hopefully it helps someone out that's thinking of picking up one of these cars. I think it pretty much goes without saying that this will be our first and last VW. I can't wait to scrape this one off my shoe.

*One service advisor did actually use "high precision German engineering" as an excuse for the oil usage.

If I had unlimited funds, this is the car I would track down and buy. The Jersey Rattler was my uncle's old gasser in the late '60s. It was a Holman-Moody built car, one of approximately 10 they built. I believe they ran the car primarily on the East Coast as my dad's family was from a small New Jersey town. The car ran the exotic and legendary Ford SOHC 427 and a Chrysler clutch-flite transmission. By the pics it looks like it had fuel injection on it. I believe they ran low 10 second passes with it - possibly high 9s. I'd like to think someone knew what they had and saved this car, but the reality is it was probably raced into the ground. I can only imagine what it would be worth today.

I spotted this '65 GTO convertible at the same car show I saw the Monkeemobile. I belongs to someone in the Northern California GTO Club. It's definitely the quintessential Goat. In addition to being a convertible, it was a 389 tri power 4 speed car with a 3.23 posi rear and rally gauges. It doesn't get much better than that.