Vehicle Description
Original owner Mike Rutherford had planned to buy this GTO and have
his good friend Arnie Beswick replace the stock Ram Air 400 engine
with a 428/425hp unit. Because of his busy racing schedule, Beswick
advised Rutherford to order his new GTO from Ace Wilson's Royal
Pontiac, whose elite crew would handle the transformation. Word of
the project apparently spread, because the car's arrival at Royal
coincided with a visit from Popular Hot Rodding magazine
photographer Lee Kelley, who took the now-famous cover shot of
Royal's Milt Schornack and Dave Warren hoisting the 428 into the
car's engine bay. Rutherford, who owned the car until 1999, raced
it extensively on the street for the first couple of years, with
Beswick tuning the car for the occasional foray to the drag strip,
where the two shared turns at the wheel. Beswick's search for more
performance in the GTO began even before its arrival at Royal, when
he secured a pre-production set of Ram Air II cylinder heads, which
were bolted to the 428 short-block prior to its installation. He
took the car to JR Headers, who installed a custom-fabricated set
of tubes, and he modified the front and rear suspension for
improved launching, always respecting Rutherford's caveat that the
car not be cut. The Boss Man Royal Bobcat GTO was eventually
acquired by noted muscle-car collector Mike Guarise. A frame-off
restoration was performed using primarily refinished parts original
to the car, including the 4-speed manual transmission and the 428ci
engine that appeared in the Popular Hot Rodding cover photo.
