Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Cars

A sedan without the sedation

An enthusiast turns an old '65 two-door Pontiac Catalina into a silver bullet of style and speed.

By MARTY CLEAR
Published September 23, 2005

In the world of vintage cars, there's not a whole lot of demand for Pontiac sedans from the '60s.

For Jim Butcher, that's a good thing. It took him more than a year of searching before he found his 1965 two-door Catalina sedan, and he had to drive to Tennessee to get it. If he'd had competition from a lot of other buyers, he might not have landed the car. He might still be looking for a sedan, instead of looking at the prizes he has collected in car shows and drag races.

Butcher, who co-owns the Sound Exchange store in Brandon, says he has been a motorhead his whole life, starting when he was a kid growing up in Kansas City.

"Long before I had a driver's license I could take an engine apart and put it back together," he said.

But Butcher never had any special affinity for Pontiacs until about 12 years ago, when he caught the fever from his business partner, Ron Stoy, a collector who specializes in Pontiacs.

He has owned, driven and restored a few now, but he's especially proud of his '65 Catalina.

"A few years ago, I got the itch to do another Pontiac project." Butcher said. "I decided I wanted to build a big go-fast car. I decided on a two-door sedan just because I've had my fill of coupes; I've done enough of them."

After months of searching, he finally found exactly the car he wanted - on eBay, of all places. A man who lived outside Knoxville, Tenn., had it.

"They're hard to find because Pontiac at that time didn't make a lot of sedans," Butcher said. "They probably made twice as many convertibles as sedans. So they're kind of rare but not especially collectible."

The seller was the son of the original owners and had lots of the paperwork from the car's younger days, including a handwritten sales receipt. The car was 38 years old but had only 88,000 miles on it.

Butcher and his wife, Leslie, drove to Tennessee and bought the car for $3,550.

"His family had bought it new for $3,451," Butcher said. "He got a kick out the fact that he had the car for nearly 39 years and made $99 on it."

Butcher drove the car back to Tampa. His wife followed in the family car, with a tool kit and crossed fingers.

The car made it back to Brandon without incident and promptly became a father-and-son project.

Or actually a father-son-son's friend project. Butcher, his son Rob, and Rob's friend Kevin Doyle all worked on the Catalina together for the next two years.

They did almost all the work themselves, except for the engine and some interior stuff.

On the outside, they stripped off all the emblems and the trim except for the word Catalina in cursive letters on a rear quarter-panel. Doyle was in charge of the paint: four coats of silver, six clear coats, all hand rubbed, with a touch of ice pearl, which is sort of a subtler and more tasteful version of metal flake.

For the engine, they turned to Ken Keefer, a nationally known Pontiac man who lives just north of Tampa. He started with a big Pontiac engine, a 454, and turned it into a 469, a major increase from the original 389 two-barrel.

The car was finished in July.

"We literally trolled it out of the shop, put it on a trailer and brought it to the Pontiac convention in Greenville, S.C.," Butcher said.

The Butchers and Doyle spent most of their convention time racing and found - to their surprise and delight - that the car could do a quarter-mile in 13 seconds flat.

"We were expecting high 13s at best," Butcher said. "To give you a point of reference, a GTO will go about 14.5. So here's a car that weighs 700 to 800 pounds more and it's faster by a second and a half, and in drag racing a second and a half is like a century and a half."

The car's appearance didn't go unnoticed either. Even though it only spent a limited time on the show floor, and many people didn't get a chance to see it, Butcher's car came in third in voting by other Pontiac owners at the convention.

There was also a more significant byproduct of the project. Doyle and Rob Butcher had long been restoring cars at other people's shops, and on the side in the evenings on their own.

They'd talked about opening their own shop, and the '65 Catalina helped them achieve their goal. This summer they opened Metal Masters, a restoration and collision repair shop in Odessa.

"That kind of lit the fire under the business," Rob Butcher said. "That was the biggest job we had dome at that point. Once that car got near completion and we started showing it to people, we got a lot of people who wanted us to do their cars."

[Last modified September 22, 2005, 09:00:09]