1964 Pontiac GTO Post Coupe that was Found in a Farmers Field

This 1964 Pontiac GTO Post Coupe was pulled out of an open farmer’s field, not a barn, and somehow made it back to red-paint condition in time for the 25th Annual Indian Uprising All Pontiac Weekend. Owner Dick Boneske shares the surprisingly simple story behind the find directly from the farmer who wanted it gone. As a first-year GTO, this car carries more historical weight than its rough backstory suggests. Watch the full story.

Most barn finds at least have the decency to be found in a barn. This 1964 Pontiac GTO Post Coupe was pulled out of an open farmer’s field, exposed to whatever fifty-some Midwestern seasons could throw at it, and somehow still made it back to a Pontiac show looking like a real car again. The farmer who owned the land had one thing to say when its current owner hauled it away. It was not what you would expect.

A Barn Find, Except It Was a Field

Lou Costabile’s My Car Story series has documented plenty of barn finds over the years, but this one skips the barn entirely. The 1964 GTO Post Coupe featured here spent an unknown stretch of time sitting exposed in an actual farmer’s field, without the basic shelter a barn or garage would have provided against rain, sun, and temperature swings. That kind of exposure usually means a car is closer to a parts donor than a restoration candidate by the time it is found. This one beat those odds, resurfacing in red paint at the 25th Annual Indian Uprising All Pontiac Weekend in St. Charles, Illinois, looking far better than a field car has any right to. Whoever restored it back to red paint had to work around whatever the field left behind, which is a different and often harder challenge than restoring a car that spent its downtime under a roof.

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Why the Post Coupe Divides GTO Fans

One commenter made a point of calling out this specific body style, noting that 1964 is the only year they actually prefer the Post Coupe over the hardtop. That is a meaningful distinction for GTO collectors. The Post Coupe, with its fixed B-pillar, was generally considered the less glamorous option compared to the pillarless hardtop, and it typically commands less attention and lower values as a result. A GTO enthusiast singling out 1964 specifically as the exception says something about how that first model year’s proportions worked differently than later years, where the hardtop’s cleaner lines pulled further ahead in most collectors’ preferences.

Dick Boneske’s Farmer’s Field Story

The car’s current owner, Dick Boneske, shared the story behind the find directly on camera. The car had been sitting in a farmer’s field, and when Dick came to take it away, the farmer’s response was simple gratitude: thanks for taking this out of my field. It is a small, almost funny exchange, but it captures something true about how a lot of genuine barn, or field, finds actually get discovered. Nobody involved necessarily saw a future collector car sitting there. One person saw an obstacle in a field, and another saw a first-year GTO worth saving, and both of them walked away happy with the outcome.

The 1964 GTO’s First-Year Significance

Every GTO built after 1964 exists because of what this specific model year proved: that a mid-size Pontiac Tempest with a big-inch V8 dropped in could outsell anyone’s expectations and effectively launch the muscle car era as a marketing category. Pontiac’s engineers built the original GTO as an option package rather than its own model, working somewhat around General Motors’ internal displacement rules for mid-size cars, and it worked well enough that the GTO became its own nameplate within a couple of years. That history is part of why Pontiac enthusiasts treat any surviving 1964 GTO, regardless of options or condition, with a level of respect not automatically extended to later, more common model years. A surviving 1964 example, regardless of condition history, carries that first-year significance in a way later, more numerous GTO model years simply cannot claim.

Red Paint and What Survived the Field

Video of the car at the Pontiac show shows it wearing red paint and looking largely presentable, which raises the obvious question of how much restoration work happened between the field and the show field. Cars that spend extended time exposed outdoors typically suffer the worst damage in the floor pans, trunk area, and anywhere water can pool and sit against sheet metal, damage that is not always visible in a quick walk-around at a car show. Whatever combination of a relatively dry storage spot and careful restoration work got this GTO back to red-paint condition, it represents a meaningfully harder recovery than a typical dry, covered barn find would have required.

A Community That Remembers Every Trim Level

The comments on this video read like a small oral history of Pontiac ownership. One person recalled a turquoise 389-cubic-inch, stick-shift GTO with Rallye wheels a local buyer bought new, remembered in enough detail decades later to describe the exact color and wheel option. Another shared a personal story about a 1966 LeMans Sport Coupe, a California car with a 326 and just 45,000 original miles, bought for twenty-five hundred dollars in 1992 and eventually sold off when storage ran out. Neither story is about this specific 1964 GTO, but together they show exactly the kind of community this footage draws: people who remember Pontiacs the way other people remember relatives.

From Forgotten Field Car to Pontiac Weekend Star

It is a meaningful distance from sitting abandoned in a Midwest field to being filmed and discussed at a dedicated all-Pontiac show, and this GTO covered that distance without the benefit of barn-find protection along the way. Dick Boneske’s decision to take the car off the farmer’s hands, whatever condition it was actually in at the time, is the reason this particular first-year GTO still exists to be photographed, discussed, and enjoyed by other Pontiac owners today. Not every field car gets a second chance like this one did.

Why All-Marque Shows Matter for Finds Like This

Shows built around a single brand, like the Indian Uprising All Pontiac Weekend, do more than gather similar cars in one parking lot. They gather the exact kind of owners and enthusiasts who can look at a car with a rough history, recognize what it actually is, and appreciate the work that went into saving it. A first-year GTO pulled out of a farmer’s field would draw a shrug at a general car show. At an all-Pontiac event surrounded by people who know the model’s full history, it draws a crowd, a camera, and a genuine appreciation for exactly how close this particular car came to being lost. That is exactly the audience a car like this needed to find.

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