---
title: 'Jay Leno Drives the Ultimate 1967 Muscle Car Unicorn (With a 6-Speed Swap!) | Jay Leno''s Garage'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=-JDPCRkTQp4'
video_id: '-JDPCRkTQp4'
date: 2026-06-28
duration_sec: 1238
---

# Jay Leno Drives the Ultimate 1967 Muscle Car Unicorn (With a 6-Speed Swap!) | Jay Leno's Garage

> Source: [Jay Leno Drives the Ultimate 1967 Muscle Car Unicorn (With a 6-Speed Swap!) | Jay Leno's Garage](https://youtube.com/watch?v=-JDPCRkTQp4)

## Summary



## Transcript

Yeah, we didn't do any performance
modifications other than the six-speed
transmission.
But it does just change the car. It
really makes it drivable now. It's a
perfect day here in California.
There's something about a manual
transmission in a big tank like this
just makes me smile.
But just knowing that you're in control.
It's doing it because you want to do it,
not because the transmission thinks it
should do it. I mean, that's what I
like. And that's the hood tach, stroke
of genius.
I just think it's the greatest thing. I
like it even better than heads-up
display.
Makes you smile, goes good.
Welcome to the episode of Jay Leno's
Garage. The car featuring today, a true
unicorn. By that I mean, a very unique
muscle car, probably produced in smaller
numbers than almost any other muscle car
from the era. It is a 1967 Pontiac 2+2
HO with the 428 engine. Now, what that
means is it's basically the same size as
a Bonneville or a Catalina, but it is
neither of those. Those had the 421
engine. This is the 428. It's not even
quite a 428. They call it that because
Chevy and Ford had the 427, Chrysler had
the 426, so they just kind of fudge it
up the 428 to sound a little bit more
impressive than 421. It's got the hood
tach, came with a manual transmission,
rally wheel, you know, all the options
of the period. This car was $4,000 brand
new in 1967,
which was a lot of money at the time.
This was the car for the guy that
thought the GTO was too small or was
like the teenager's car, the young
person's car. This is what was
effectively called a banker's hot rod.
The equivalent might be the Buick GS.
This was a big Pontiac. See, not a lot
of people wanted a big Cadillac-sized
car with a manual transmission. They all
wanted the automatic, but there were a
few oddballs out there. I think they did
maybe about 187 of these, I think. How
many they did black convertibles? I
don't know. What we did in this one is
we took out the four-speed, we put in a
Tremec Magnum six-speed transmission,
cuz I wanted to get at least
double-digit mileage at some point.
Yeah, this thing just eats eats gas like
crazy. And luckily, our team, George and
Jimmy, did a great job. We went with our
favorite transmission, Tremec. You know,
boy, they make stuff that fits in just
about anything. It was a wonderful, easy
job to do. American Powertrain helped us
with all the ancillary stuff, the
hydraulic clutch switch from the to
hydraulic from manual. The guy had to do
a bit of trimming. This transmission is
like
a quarter of an inch, or maybe an eighth
of an inch higher than the standard
four-speed that was in here. So, we had
to do a little modification. Had to
modify the floor and the tunnel, so it
could take this six-speed. And it really
works out great, because your revs
dropped to about you know, at 70, 2,100,
something like that, rpm. It's It's a
great car to drive. To me, Pontiac was
always the best handling of all the GM
cars, I thought. The best suspension and
handling. I like the Firebird more than
a Camaro. I like the GTO more than some
of the other mid-Chevelles and stuff
like that. But, I mean, it was all good
stuff. I had never really seen one of
these. I found this at the Audrain
auction. It takes place every year, last
week of September, first week of October
in Newport, Rhode Island. It's a great
car show, and they always have kind of a
small auction auction, maybe
80 cars, 90 cars at best.
And this was there. Unfortunately, the
previous owner had heavily modified it.
He put big police spotlights here, you
know, the kind of fold down and they got
the handle. And he chromed this whole
front end, which
made it look kind of pimping to me. I
didn't like it. He did a nice job on the
paint and the chrome. You know, it's
funny, when you restore a car like this,
if you do it right, it's tough to get
your money out of it. Because these
things were built when technology was
expensive and labor was cheap. Now it's
the other way around. When I got it, it
looked pretty good until I went to drive
it at night and realized, "Wait, there's
no lights." We pulled the dashboard out
and all the wires had been just
zip tied off and in a bundle because it
was obviously way too much work, way too
much trouble for somebody to put it
right. And like with a lot of auction
cars, it looked perfect and it it drove
okay. It was fine. It just I didn't have
any lights, you know? And we finally got
the wiring down. That took a few hours
to do. So that was a little tricky. As I
said, George and Jimmy, our metal men,
they just did a terrific job.
>> What's that?
Only the
two real men here.
Good to see you.
Okay, shifter is there.
And that is
9/16 inch, right?
Let me get a pry bar.
Good to see you as well. Good to see
you. Good to see
>> Okay?
This is heavy.
>> [snorts]
>> They're all grade eight bolts in there.
>> Yeah.
George had the transmission out in the
day and the new transmission out the
same day. And the next couple of days
were spent modifying and cutting a
little bit bigger hole for the
transmission to do a few other things,
but for the most part, it was pretty
straightforward. The company American
Powertrain, as I said, boy, they come It
comes with a kit how to do this whole
deal. It really makes it a really nice
car to drive. And the six-speed really
helps you because before, I think it had
about 390s in it at 70. I'm
You know, I'm turning like four grand
and it's just It was just too much. So,
now it's like 2,100 and it's just just a
lot of fun to drive. You know, it's like
being in a toboggan. You're outside in
the great open air in this thing. It's
like driving your living room. It's so
funny. But it it It's addictive. It's
comfortable. It's got all the silly
options, the hood tach, which I love,
the simulated wood grain steering wheel,
which always makes me laugh, and of
course the manual transmission, AM/FM
radio, no air conditioning, no power
windows. And when you want to put the
windows you actually have to stop, get
out, walk around the car, and roll down
the windows. This one car should have
had electric windows. It should have
been this. But the the previous owner,
the original owner, didn't spring for
it. This is not the original color. I
think it was blue and white cuz I think
I found an ad somewhere that had this
car for sale when it was blue and white.
The previous owner, as I said, did a
nice job. I mean, the paint is flawless,
the trim, the chrome.
When we replaced the side uh the big
spotlights that were here, we got new
new pieces here and new windshield
pieces. You know, you get spoiled with
American stuff like this cuz almost all
parts are available. When you're doing
Duesenbergs and all these rare European
cars,
you're not finding parts and when you
do, they're crazy expensive and they
don't fit or they're rusted, but that's
the one you have to use because there
aren't any other parts available.
Interior, you can get a brand new
interior and which which this did, it
was a white interior which I never liked
in a convertible, it just gets too
dirty. So, cuz it's a little hot in
California summer time, but that's okay.
But, as you can see, it it's in really
nice shape. The chrome is good. I like
the wheels. This is exactly as it left
the factory, the red line tires. It is
so much fun to drive. Before we take it
for a drive, let's take a look under the
hood, show you what we're talking about.
Kind of have to get down on one knee
like you're proposing to this thing
every time you
open the hood.
Now,
we had to put new springs in.
I think we put a new pad in, too. This
the original motor, 428. Now, normally
this would have been 360 horse. The 376
horsepower had the forged steel crank, a
few other high performance pieces,
different carburetor. That's the
original motor, kind of factory headers
for lack of a better term. Yeah, it's
all as she left the factory. There's a
lot of room in here. You can actually
stand in this thing and work on it. You
got the dual master cylinder. I think
'67 was the first year that became
mandatory on all cars. Power steering,
power brake. We got one of those. We
take our Optima battery, we cover it
with one of those vintage looking fake
battery so it looks period correct. You
know, it's funny, I thought the previous
owner stuck this as 428 here. I thought
the previous owner just stuck that in
there for whatever reason, but that's
the way it came. They wanted everybody
to know, no matter where you were,
whether you're being hit by this car,
run over by this car, stuck under the
hood, they wanted you to see 428. You'll
see it, it's in the driver's
compartment, too. 428 428, that was
their big number. Very straightforward,
easy to work on.
Plugs are accessible, you know, engine
coolant, all this kind of stuff. It runs
really good. Runs really good. Let's
shut this.
Come on, let's take it for a ride.
Suddenly it's 1967.
You know, I mentioned before, when you
restore these kind of American cars, a
lot of new old stock still available.
When I got this, it did not have air
conditioning, which I didn't put in, but
it didn't have a clock, but it had the
space for the clock, like they used to
do in American cars. They leave the
space blank, so people know how cheap
you are.
So, I looked on eBay, found a brand new
Pontiac 2+2 clock,
you know, the same one that goes in the
Bonneville or Catalina, and I I bought
it for a couple bucks, and I put it and
it works fine. So, it's kind of cool.
This thing is so hilarious to drive. As
I mentioned, it's like driving the great
outdoors. You know, when you get in
modern cars, they have all kinds of
safety features, you know, and key tops
and all this kind of stuff. This thing,
you're just out you're on your own.
Just a big 428.
Still forged crank, 376 horsepower.
I think it's 452 foot pounds of torque.
It's pretty good. Especially if it's
This actually They wanted to make sure
that the
power rating was the same as the GTO.
So, this turned about the same time,
you know, low 13s in the quarter mile as
the GTO.
Just the idea of low 13s was considered
blisteringly fast back in the early
days.
Yeah, we didn't do any performance
modifications other than the six-speed
transmission.
But it does just change the car.
It really makes it drivable now. And let
me tell you something, these Tremecs are
just unbreakable. They're just a great,
great transmission.
I even put one in my Maserati, you know,
the ZF is very nice, but parts for that
are more expensive than the entire
transmission like the Tremec. And the
Tremec is bulletproof. You can't break
it. Certainly not with the torque of a
six-cylinder Maserati. So, yeah, it's
it's always been a a smart choice. Bolts
right up. And the guys did a heck of a
job putting it in.
And it's a perfect day here in
California.
There's something about a manual
transmission in a big tank like this
just makes me smile.
Obviously,
you know, the new 10-speeds and all
these kind of transmissions are much
faster.
But just knowing that you're in control,
it's doing it because you want to do it,
not because the transmission thinks that
you do it. I mean, that's what I like. I
I this era of American cars. This is
when they really started to get good.
Disc brakes in the front, got serious
about handling.
And you think this car was would be
heavy, it's not. It's between 3,800 and
4,000 lb. You know why?
Because the complete absence of any
safety equipment. No steel door guard
beams, no airbag, no airbag actuators,
no absorbing bumpers, nothing. Nothing.
You You know, you die by your own hand
in this
And that's the hood tach, Stroker
genius.
I just think it's the greatest thing. I
like it even better than heads-up
display.
Makes you smile, goes good.
For younger people who don't know,
Pontiac was the performance arm of
General Motors.
Uh you had Buicks and Oldsmobiles,
Chevrolet was the sort of middle America
everyday car.
Uh Buick was luxury, Oldsmobile was
luxury, and of course Cadillac, the
ultimate luxury car.
And everybody had their own motor. John
DeLorean, before he kind of disgraced
himself, just a brilliant engineer.
Father of the GTO.
Ed Cole was president in the '60s. Ed
Cole was the guy who developed the
Corvair, which I think is probably the
greatest European American car. Just a
brilliant design.
It's so funny, it got beat by Mustang.
It was considered a failure cuz they
only sold 1.8 million of them. I guess
Mustang by that time had sold like two
or three million. So it was deemed not
successful. But I love mine. I think
it's a great looking car.
There was some great GM designs by the
mid-'60s.
I don't think Pontiac sold anywhere near
the numbers that Buick or or certainly
Chevrolet did. But, they were unique. As
I said, I think the Firebird was the
best looking of those mid-size cars. I
thought it was better looking than the
equivalent Ferrari, which it shared the
same body with. The Fiero
was not really good when it first came
out. It had that iron duke four-cylinder
engine. But, by the end, it had a little
V6 and it turned into quite a
performance car. They mistakenly sort of
marketed initially
as a uh
import fighter, you know, just economy
secretary's car. When it was actually a
pretty good little sports car. And by
the final generation of it, I think it
had a five-speed manual and and a and a
V6.
And
it goes fantastic.
'67 Pontiac was riding high. When they
introduced the GTO, they thought they
might sell
15 to 20,000. I think they sold
something like 80 I I some huge amount.
I mean, it was a huge huge success. It
made them rethink the whole marketing
thing. Cuz prior to that,
they only allowed us see, for every 10
lbs of car, you so much cubic whatever.
You couldn't put the big engine in the
smaller car. Big engine only went in big
car, you know, that kind of thing. Once
they saw how much people clamored for it
and how popular it was, boy, that whole
formula changed real quick.
It's hard to believe this is the
standard suspension. I mean, it really
handles good for what it is. You can't
help but have a smile on your face when
you drive in this.
Driving in six, what am I turning?
1,700 rpm. That's not bad, 70 miles an
hour.
And it's got the torque to pull it, so.
I love the massive shifter with the big
cue ball on it. That Hurst shifter, that
was a magic name back in the '60s. When
you had a manual transmission, you just
got a Hurst shifter. It was just
something you did. And they really were
good. They really were such an
improvement over the factory.
Hey, if you've got one of these cars,
I'd love to hear from you in the
comments section.
Uh got a guy named Jack Anderson. He
does the uh 2+2 club. He's got all the
information. If you're into these cars,
join the Pontiac club. It's it's really
good. I mean, they have access to every
factory thing, every bit of uh build
sheets, whatever you need, you can get
it through them. So, it's kind of a
a fun group of guys. I met them a few
times when I got my Firebird. And now I
got this one and I got the Grand Prix,
so I've gone from
not having any to being a three-time
Pontiac guy. So,
uh so, check it out. Join the Pontiac
club. Hey, listen. Well, I'll see you
guys next week or on something totally
different from this. See you then.