1966 Pontiac GTO Hardtop Coupe in Red paint

Lou Costabile catches up with Dave OMalley and his red 1966 Pontiac GTO at a small car show in Batavia, Illinois, a car OMalley has owned since 2002. The taillights get singled out as the cars best feature, sparking a comment-section debate over whether the 66 or 67 GTO actually looks better. One viewers story about selling an almost identical car during the 1970s oil crisis says more about muscle car ownership than any spec sheet could. Watch to hear OMalley explain what has kept him holding on.

Some car show interviews are really about the car. This one is really about the fifty years since. Lou Costabile catches up with owner Dave OMalley at a small Illinois cruise-in, standing next to a red 1966 Pontiac GTO that OMalley has owned since 2002, but the story underneath goes back much further than that single purchase date. One commenter, describing an almost identical car he sold decades ago during the oil crisis, spends more words mourning that decision than most people spend on entire eulogies. Watch long enough and you start to understand why a taillight design choice from 1966 still gets people this worked up nearly six decades later.

A Red 66 GTO at a Local Cruise-In

The setting is unglamorous by design: Fast Eddies Hot Dogs and Hot Cars Classic Car Show in Batavia, Illinois, filmed on September 28th, 2014, one stop among countless small regional cruise-ins that happen every weekend across the country without much fanfare. Owner Dave OMalley has had this particular red 1966 GTO since 2002, more than a decade of ownership by the time this interview took place, giving him plenty of time to develop the kind of specific, personal opinions about the car that only come from years of actually living with it rather than admiring it from a distance.

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The Coke-Bottle Taillights That Define the 66

OMalley specifically calls out the coke bottle look of the 1966 GTOs taillights as a favorite detail, and it is a genuinely distinctive design element worth understanding on its own terms. The rounded, tapered rear-end treatment on the 1966 model year gave the GTO a visually flowing shape through the rear quarter panels and taillight housings that set it apart from both the 1965 model before it and the more angular 1967 redesign that followed. It is a subtle detail easy to miss in photos but immediately obvious once someone points it out in person, standing next to the actual car.

1966 vs. 1967: A Rivalry Even Fans Cannot Settle

The comments section reveals a genuine, ongoing rivalry between 1966 and 1967 GTO loyalists that never quite gets settled. One viewer states a preference for the 1967, while conceding the 1966 remains captivating in its own right, a diplomatic split that captures the broader debate reasonably well. Real differences separate the two model years beyond just the taillights: grille designs changed noticeably, available engine options shifted, and Pontiac made numerous smaller trim revisions between the two years that collectors and fans continue to weigh against each other whenever the comparison comes up.

Correct Rally I Wheels and Why They Matter

Wheel authenticity draws specific praise in the comments, with one viewer complimenting the cars correct Rally I wheels by name. That level of scrutiny is entirely typical among serious GTO collectors and judges, for whom factory-correct wheel styling represents one of the more visible and easily faked details on a restored or preserved muscle car. A car wearing the wrong wheels for its model year, even a genuinely excellent car otherwise, will draw immediate skepticism from anyone who actually knows what a 1966 GTO should look like rolling off the factory line.

The 389 Tri-Power Era

Underneath the red paint sits the 1966 GTOs standard configuration, and one detailed commenter describes owning a nearly identical example: the 389-cubic-inch V8 rated at 335 horsepower, paired in his case with Pontiacs own two-speed automatic transmission rather than the four-speed manual serious enthusiasts often preferred. That commenter specifically recalls how the car shined at the end of first gear, as revs climbed and acceleration built toward its peak, a detail that speaks directly to how these engines were tuned to deliver their strongest pull in exactly that range rather than low down off idle.

A Car Sold During the Oil Crisis, and Never Forgotten

That same commenter goes on to describe selling his own nearly identical GTO during the oil crisis of the early 1970s, when leaded premium gasoline these high-compression engines depended on became scarce and increasingly expensive almost overnight. That was a genuinely painful and common chapter for an entire generation of muscle car owners, forced to choose between an expensive-to-run performance car and the practical realities of a fuel crisis reshaping the entire American auto market around them in real time, with no guarantee things would ever go back to how they were before.

Why Just Start It Is the Only Request That Matters

Perhaps the most telling comment simply asks Costabile to start the car and let it idle on camera, nothing more, just the sound with stock-style mufflers doing the talking. That request captures something essential about why car story videos like this one resonate the way they do: the idle, the exhaust note, the specific mechanical character of a running engine, communicates something a spec sheet or even a walk-around simply cannot. For longtime GTO owners and former owners alike, that sound is often the most direct link back to memories a photograph alone could never fully recreate.

That is ultimately what separates a video like this from a straightforward car review: it is not really trying to inform anyone about horsepower figures or option codes they could easily look up elsewhere. It is trying to capture what a car like this actually means to the specific person standing next to it, and by extension what it means to everyone in the comments who owned, sold, or still dreams about owning one just like it. Fifty-eight years after this GTO left the factory, that emotional connection has clearly not faded even slightly. If anything, it has only gotten stronger with every passing year since. Ask anyone still chasing the exact color and engine combination they let go of decades ago. They will tell you the feeling never really leaves. OMalley clearly understands that better than most. That is why he still shows up to Fast Eddies every year the car will let him. Taillights included. Every single one of them. He would not have it any other way.

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