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The prized golden 1965 Pontiac Hurst GeeTO Tiger is headed to auction

Once upon a time, a Pontiac advertising executive named Jim Wangers created a countrywide contest with this gorgeous 1965 Pontiac Hurst GTO serving as the grand prize. The contest was centered around "GeeTO Tiger," a song by musical artists The Tigers. A 19-year-old took home the golden muscle car at the time, but now anybody can buy the rare car through an upcoming Mecum auction.  As a way to boost sales and awareness of the Pontiac GTO and its performance parts, Wangers partnered up with Royal Pontiac, George Hurst, and Petersen Publishing in 1965 to create a contest. Royal provided the car, Hurst dressed it up, and Petersen distributed the contest in publications across the country.  In order to participate, people were asked to provide a reason why they wanted the car and identify how many times the word "tiger" was used in the promotional song "GeeTO Tiger" (pronounced G-Tee-Oh) by The Tigers. A 19 year-old kid named Alex Lampone from West Allis, Wisconsin, won the contest and took delivery of this jazzed-up GTO at the 1965 NHRA Indy Nationals.  This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. The Tigers - GeeTO Tiger The prize car was completely kitted out and described by Wangers as "the nicest GTO you could put your hands on." It had more than 28 factory options, including a black cordova top, power windows, power steering, power brakes, a tilt steering wheel, a power driver's seat, dual-speed windshield wipers, a custom sport steering wheel, a rally gauge cluster, a push-button AM/FM radio with power antenna, and a Verba phonic rear speaker. What makes it stand out is the Hurst-inspired gold theme, which includes gold paint, gold mag wheels, and a gold-plated Hurst Shifter. Under the hood, this GTO has a Tri-Power 389 V8 engine that pairs with a four-speed manual transmisison. It also has a 3.55 Safe-T-Track rear axle and dual exhaust. Throughout the years, this car has exchanged hands many times and has undergone a few changes. It's been repainted, and the engine has also been rebuilt, but Mecum says it's otherwise highly original. Ony 59,000 miles have turned over on the odometer.  The GeeTO Tiger Pontiac is scheduled to go up for auction in Indianapolis this June. Visit Mecum for more information. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Woodward Dream Cruise Time Lapse Video

German prosecutors have recorded calls between VW bigwigs talking dieselgate

It's barely possible to believe how poorly Volkswagen continues to handle dieselgate. Depending on which day you catch the news, the German carmaker embodies the corporate venality of "Michael Clayton," the comic blundering of the Coen Brothers' "Burn After Reading," and the every-man-for-himself vengeance of "Reservoir Dogs." Today is Tarantino day, with news that German prosecutors have recordings of phone calls between former Audi and Porsche development boss Wolfgang Hatz, ex-Volkswagen Group executive Matthias Muller, and current Porsche executives Oliver Blume and Michael Steiner. Hatz made the calls to the trio in November 2015, two months after Volkswagen admitted its diesel-particulate sins to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Hatz was still employed at the time, and in his company car. Who recorded the calls? His wife. Hatz and his missus apparently saw the storm coming and started stacking defenses early. Hatz's wife, who can be heard encouraging Hatz during at least one call, sent the recordings to Hatz's attorney from her mobile phone. According to a Google translation of the German newspaper Handelsblatt's report, she included the note, "Here is a very long, but quite informative conversation on the current situation with useful formulations." The report in Handelsblatt said that in Germany it is generally "not allowed" to record a conversation and pass it on to a third party. We don't know how the authorities will handle this matter, since prosecutors found the recordings in e-mail attachments on Mrs. Hatz's mobile phone. Remember, when the diesel scandal broke, VW spent months saying that only a small number of low-level personnel were behind it, and all of the higher-ups had been blindsided. Ex-CEO Martin Winterkorn claimed to be "stunned that misconduct on such a scale was possible in the Volkswagen Group." Winterkorn successor Matthias Muller said, "according to current information, a few developers interfered in the engine management." Former VW USA honcho Michael Horn told a congressional committee that "a couple of software engineers" programmed the software for reasons no one could understand. In the recorded conversations, Hatz apparently called Muller to find out how VW planned to treat him.

Junkyard Gem: 2009 Pontiac G3

Things weren't looking so rosy for Pontiac Division in late 2008, as The General had troubles of its own that culminated in Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June of 2009. Meanwhile, the Solstice and G8 had failed to revive Pontiac's youthful "excitement" image. Naturally, this seemed like the ideal time to put Pontiac badges and a new grille on the Chevrolet Aveo (itself a rebadged Daewoo Kalos) and call it the G3 (in the United States) or the G3 Wave (in Canada). Sales were not brisk, to put it mildly, and the 2009-only G3 has become one of the rarest modern Pontiacs in the junkyard world. The announcement of Pontiac's demise came in the spring of 2009, with the very last Pontiac-badged vehicle built being either a G3 or a Vibe (since those cars were really Daewoos and Toyotas, respectively, the true final Pontiac was the 2010 G6). The Aveo itself disappeared after the 2011 model year, replaced by an updated Kalos design known here as the Chevrolet Sonic. As a result of the GM bankruptcy, termination of the Pontiac brand, a nasty worldwide recession, and the preference of American vehicle shoppers for trucks or at least truck-shaped cars, few knew the G3 existed and fewer still thought to buy one. This is only the second G3 I've managed to find in a car graveyard, and I've been searching diligently.  So, it's a Junkyard Gem in the historical sense, not in the sense of being the kind of car you'd want to take to your 20th high school reunion. That said, it has power windows, air conditioning, and a CD player— pretty nice stuff for a dirt-cheap econobox from a decade back. And look! An AUX jack for your iPod or early-model smartphone. I drove dozens of cheap rental cars for my job with the 24 Hours of Lemons Traveling Circus during the late 2000s, and very few had this feature; until about 2013 or so, you had to travel with your own CDs or one of those horrible wireless FM modulators if you wanted to listen to anything other than the radio in a non-high-roller rental car. Under the hood, a 106-horse Daewoo Ecotec displacing 1.6 liters. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. If there were any television commercials for the G3, I guarantee that they weren't as fun as this one— set in the California high desert, of course— for the SKDM Kalos.