1967 Pontiac GTO Coupe - Retirement Renegade

Bill Lorenzen's Alcohol-Burning 9-second '67 GTOLike many of our feathered friends, a large number of retirees venture south during the winter months to bask in warm sunlight, but not 70-year-old Bill Lorenzen, who calls sometimes-frigid Lincoln, Nebraska, home year-round. Though currently employed on a part-time basis as a courier for a local medical laboratory, this retired telephone-company troubleshooter still has a full-time job-and the office he reports to is a '67 GTO.

The Early Days
Bill found an interest in anything mechanical early on and developed a love of racing after graduating high school, a time when muscle cars were an integral part of pop culture. His first new car was a Fontaine Blue '65 GTO post coupe, and he immediately went racing with it. "It had a 389, four-barrel carburetor, and four-speed manual transmission," he recalls. "I added Tri-Power, a more aggressive factory cam, and headers, and raced in the B-Stock and FX classes. It consistently turned the quarter in the high 13s."

Racing took a back seat when Bill sold the GTO and joined the Army in 1970. Once back in civilian life, he enrolled in vocational school, married, and purchased a '69 LeMans that served as family transportation for the next few years. Though racing wasn't completely out of his system, time and funding for such an activity was sparse. It wasn't until his son-in-law Bill Krause purchased a '67 GTO in 1994 that the racing flame rekindled, and Bill picked up where he had left off years before.inline_mediumwraptextrightOriginally purchased in 1994 by his son-in-law as a drag-racing project, Bill Lorenzen took ownership of this '67 GTO in 1996 and quickly turned it into a consistent 12-second performer. Since retiring from his full time job in 2001, he has transformed it into a monster that's capable of running in the low 9s. Launching at 3,800 rpm and shifting near 7,000 rpm, the 2,680-pound GTO has produced a quarter-mile best of 9.21 at 142 mph. A Biondo Mega 85 delay box is employed to enhance consistency, while peak power occurs with 36 degrees of total spark lead. According to builder and crew chief Randy Moore, trap-speed calculations indicate that the mill is churning out roughly 715 hp at the crankshaft.32181195/features/hppp_1005_1967_pontiac_gto_coupehppp_1005_01_o+196 7_pontiac_gto_coupe+drag_racing_project.jpgTrue


Photo Gallery: 1967 Pontiac GTO Coupe - High Performance Pontiac Magazine

Photo Gallery: 1967 Pontiac GTO Coupe - High Performance Pontiac Magazine


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