My Pontiac Story

[Keith Seymore]

June 2011:

One of the PY forum members Bonneville Joe started a thread about taking his car back to it's original delivering dealer from some pictures and I thought "hey, I can do that, too!".

So - since this is Father's Day and I can do pretty much whatever I want, I drove the GTO over to 400 N Main Street in Royal Oak, formerly Royal Pontiac (and more recently formerly Jim Fresard Pontiac) for a photo shoot.

The building is actually being considered for a Kroger supermarket ( I have also heard they may tear it down), so I wanted to get some photos before that happened. These are intended to be primarily documentation of the existing buildings, but if one or two turned out to be somewhat artistic...well, that's a bonus I guess.

One other ironic thought: during my growing up years, when we were at Royal a couple times a week, it was a 50 mile ride. Now, as an adult, I live about 4 miles from this hallowed ground.

K

[Keith Seymore]

Ever gone into work on your day off, just to see what was going on?

K

[Keith Seymore]

Dad driving Pete Seaton's car (far lane) B/FX Final Round, Indy Nats 1963. Jim Wangers in the Swiss Cheese Cat in the near lane:



And here's how the day ended -



K

[Keith Seymore]

June 11, 2012:

Today marks the start of my 33rd year with General Motors; It was 33 years ago today I walked through the doors at Chevrolet Flint Assembly and the rest, as they say, is history (...except the stuff that hasn't happened yet. That wouldn't be history - lol).

So - I celebrated by going to the Widetrackers Dustoff yesterday. Beautiful weather and lots of nice cars.

First time in many years that it did not rain during the event. I had been waiting to do this, so it was my first opportunity to display the GTO hooked to the Grand Prix by using the old towbar. My brother in law also brought the Lemans convertible down making it the first time all the family Pontiacs had been in the same place since dad passed away.





Link to the full compliment of car show photos is here:

http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...d.php?t=700643

K

[Keith Seymore]

September 2012:

Fall means September, which is when a bunch of birthdays happen in my family including Dad's, my sister - and the GTO.

It was 48 years ago this month when Dad and I headed down to Royal to pick the car up. We've had a couple small outings, in the spirit of celebration -

My wife needed to go to the bank so (since I knew I had a captive audience) I busted the old goat out to run into town:



We also had a little local church car show last weekend and Eric White (gtoric) convinced me to bring one of the cars out for display. The GTO got called upon for that one, too, since it was so close by.



There was a guy there with a newly purchased black '73 Laguna so during the course of the conversation he convinced me that I should bring mine as well. I ran back to the house (...literally - like a mile, on foot...) and drove back in the Chevelle.



Some other notable Pontiacs:

Marc White - '67 GP convertible:





Eric White - '67 GTO:



One of the visitors said "hey, that's pretty cool that you were able to find a drawing that's just like your car...." - lol.














All in all I think there were just over 100 cars on the property. Pretty nice representation of Pontiacs, many of whom are in the Widetrackers Chapter of the POCI.

K

[Keith Seymore]

November 2012:

Thanks to Bill Nawrot (YNOBIL) for letting me know my GTO was in a new calendar -

This is the David Newhardt GTO calendar for 2013. There's a car from each year from '64 - '74 (two '65's - as there should be ) and a 2004.

In my case the photos were taken in November of 2007 and were from the same batch used in the big GTO book.

[Keith Seymore]

Crazy Story: June 2015:

I had another one of those really unusual, crazy "It's a small world" coincidences today....

My church is large enough to need a "traffic team", and we utilize help from the Oakland County Sheriff's deputies to assisting getting cars in and out of the parking lot off the main road.

Naturally, I help park (...where else could I get "paid" for standing in the road and watching cars go by?...) and was visiting with the Deputy assigned to the north lot. I had brought him his two-way radio and we were shooting the breeze when I noticed his nametag:

It said "P. Deesen".

I asked him "do you happen to know a fella named Paul Deesen?"

"Paul Deesen Sr?" he said. "I'm Paul Deesen Jr".

Unbelievable. For those of you not already familiar with Paul Deesen (Sr) - he's the guy that designed the GTO emblem. And invented the red line tire. And designed the '65 Gran Prix. Among other things.

At any rate, we had a really nice visit. Very pleasant young man and it sounds like he enjoys his father's antics as much as we do.

Hopefully, I don't get any other chance encounters with Officer Deesen while I'm out driving one of my Pontiacs.



K