According to Pontiac historian Diego Rosenberg, the company built only 51 GTO Judges with black finished rear deck lid spoilers for model year 1970. All of those cars were white, the only color officially offered with a black spoiler. That’s some wonderful, highly detailed historical information, but it doesn’t explain why Ken Doubek’s ’70 Judge was originally delivered with a black spoiler, since his car is painted a silver blue color called Bermuda Blue.
The car has been in Ken’s family for 47 years. Ken says he has maintained the car as a “driver,” but it is a very nice driver. The car was originally purchased new from H+R Pontiac-Olds, Inc., in Waupaca, WI. The buyer was Ken’s father. This car is reported to be the second 1970 Judge delivered in Wisconsin. Apparently, it was such an early ’70 Judge that it came with the rear deck airfoil painted flat black and the front air dam missing.
Today, the spoiler on the rear of the car is Bermuda Blue, but it had been repainted at one point when a little touch-up work was done to the car. However, Doubek has snapshots showing the car with the black airfoil. The front air dam was later shipped to and installed by Waupaca Pontiac dealer Kerm Hansen.
Ken’s Judge is true time capsule car with a rarely seen color. It has about 90 percent original factory paint. The car was carefully driven as an everyday car for approximately three years and was used that way for approximately the first 48,925 miles. Today, it has 55,097 original miles. The car carries a decal from the selling dealer on the left rear corner of the trunk. It has an oil change sticker dated October 8, 1976 that shows it had gone 48,925 miles at that point.
Ken has found that certain parts of the car were “touched up” around 1976. At that point, it was taken to a local body shop to have the doors repainted because they had several small nicks. The silver blue paint on the driver’s door was not perfectly matched back then. The rear airfoil was also painted in the body color then, since Ken’s father felt that was the correct style of finish. When he bought the car, he bought a second spoiler in case the first one was ever stolen. The primer gray replacement spoiler was never used and Ken still has it.
Because the car was touched up, some finish on the inside edge of the door has flaked off over time. There are minor nicks on the hood, doors and rear deck that would qualify as “normal wear.” When the doors were painted, the body shop worked around the original striping that remains intact. The car’s right rear lower quarter panel was clipped by something in the garage and was also repaired and repainted. There is one dent in the right-hand corner of the rear bumper. There are light dings in the bright metal underscores below the doors.
The car’s blue interior was so well cared for that everything but the carpets and the headliner are original. This Judge has never been totally apart, but work has been done to it over the years. The engine was rebuilt by General Motors years ago, while the car was still under warranty. This was done to replace bad rod bearings. The motor has not been apart since that time. Some hoses have been replaced with factory reproduction style hoses. The engine is not detailed.
The car rides on like-new B.F. Goodrich Radial T/A tires and a set of correct, like-new replacement Rally wheels. Ken has the factory G70-14 Goodyear Polyglas tires, which are still mounted on the car’s original rally wheels. He also has a spare set of new OEM tires with the stickers still on them.
Doubek doesn’t know why his car came with a black spoiler. He only knows it wasn’t supposed to have one. Unfortunately, he has not been able to find the car’s build sheet to verify that it’s the only non-white car sold with a black spoiler. He hopes to sell the GTO for around its appraised value of $73,000. If he could locate the build sheet and verify that the spoiler was originally black, collectors would probably line up for a shot at owning the car. Morale of this car story: don’t throw anything from your car away. You never know when you’ll need it.
Article courtesy Speedville.
