A beauty! I had a 68 Pontiac GTO triple gold, and a red 69 Olds 442 convertible. The GTO was an aberration, as it was faster than any of the others of the same year and model. Nobody knew why. I had a couple of friends who had good ones too. A Hemi Cuda, and a Plymouth Super Bird. That Cuda would sit at a stoplight, rumbling and shaking.....those were the days.
I heard a story many moons ago that it was not uncommon for Pontiac guys on the assembly line to slip in the oddball camshaft or a pair of thinner shim head gaskets to boost the compression on the random GTO passing by, your Triple-Gold Goat might have been one of those, they were all terrific cars!
My ‘66 Catalina had a pretty ‘box stock’ 389, but I goosed it up with the usual Edelbrock intake, Holley 780, 4-tube headers, etc. I tried running 4.10 gears on the street bu it was too much, so had to opt for a 3.55:1 gearset, even with that, the TH400 didn’t appreciate it, lol