Featured Vehicle
Thom Sherwood 1967 GTO with Jay Leno
Thom Sherwood's 1967 Pontiac
The Story
POCI member and Smoke Signals magazine contributor Thom Sherwood was recently invited along with his unique Pontiac to appear on an episode of "Jay Leno's Garage."
Featured is the wild 1967 GTO from the "xXx" movie series starring Vin Diesel as a secret agent. Thom's color-shifting ride, referred to as the Special Effects Flame Car, began life as a GTO hardtop but has been uniquely modified with all sorts of cool spy gadgets and weaponry as featured in the big-budget Hollywood film from 2002. The same car also makes an appearance in the 2017 sequel "xXx: Return of
Xander Cage."
After introducing his car to Jay inside the massive Burbank,
California garage, the pair takes the Pontiac 400 V8 powered xXx GTO out for a spin with Jay behind the wheel. Trading bits and pieces of Pontiac history along the way, Thom gives shout-outs to Pontiac legends Jim Wangers, Ronny & The Daytonas, John DeLorean, and retired Pontiac designer Jim Ewen.
"The entire episode, which is about 40 minutes long, actually took a total of five hours to produce. Since Jay's facility is right next to the Burbank airport, we had to pause at least three different times during taping due to jet noise from the commercial airliners taking off literally just a thousand feet away!
"None of the show was scripted," Thom continued. "It was all improvised, but in the end, I think it came out fairly well.
"The entire experience with Jay was fantastic, and I am quite grateful for the invitation. Jay is such a cool person... so "down-to-earth" and a real car guy. He was also proud to share the story of his recent acquisition of a 1968 Firebird OHC-6 Sprint convertible, something which we hope to feature in an upcoming issue of Smoke Signals."
Thom's episode has just been posted on YouTube (click on the link below). After being online for just three days, it has already been viewed over 300,000 times. Check it out!
Check out the Video on YouTube:
See Your Local Chapter Events
Our chapters often sponsor car shows and other events.
