[PeterAllen]

Update: In the last few months the project has gone backwards to go forward. Coming back to earth after seeing all those GTOs at Pebble Beach and Laguna Seca I happened upon a body kit on eBay. It was no ordinary kit but a ‘Puckett’. Californian Charlie Puckett built very few of what is regarded as the crème de la crème of GTO kits and to find one in Oz was absolutely amazing. In the last 5 seconds I bid my life’s saving on it but thankfully got it at a very good price. That’s the good news.

The downside is that while it was never fitted to a car some clown had cut it up in an attempt to make a Spyder out of a Berlinetta kit. I have been trying to locate the parts in their correct positions and re-fibreglass them into a single rear section. Unfortunately all the work undertaken on my original body kit has now been time wasted but I'm hopeful the finished product will wipe away all that.

This kit has the option to stretch the wheelbase the 100mm needed to match an actual GTO. It’s fairly straight forward really; you move the front cross-member 100mm and then unpick the front shock towers (spot weld remover) and re-weld them 100mm forward. A little cutting and patching of the inner guards is required but no big deal. As exciting as that sounds I’m not doing it at this stage as I’ve already seam welded the towers and it would probably mean taking the project from a simple re-bodied approval to ICV.

About the only issue remaining with the body is the higher waistline but I’m still working on new doors and sills to help address this.

The Spyder in the photo is a long-wheelbase Puckett.