Rarest of the rare ’77 Can Ams: This one’s Oldsmobile-powered

At the tender age of 19, Willie Kihle went in search of his second brand new car, looking for something special. He had worked hard as a teen, putting together enough money to buy a new, but fairly unremarkable Chevy Vega.

So he had his sights set a bit higher, looking for a Pontiac Grand Prix, when he walked into Nagel Motors in Caspar, Wyo., that day in 1977.

“The dealer showed me a picture of something else. He said Pontiac was doing a tribute to the GTO, but he didn’t know what it was going to be called,” Kihle recalled. It turned out it was more a tribute to the Trans Am and it would be called the Pontiac Can Am, in homage to the cross-border road racing series of the same name.

Kihle was interested in the new model and decided to hold off on the Grand Prix. He returned to the dealership about a week later and was told that the Can Ams had already sold out, with 5,000 ordered across the country.

He was crushed, but persistent. He learned the dealership had one showroom model allotted to it, so he put some money down and waited to see if it would be delivered.

Luckily for him, the car came in and he was able to finish the transaction. It turns out that Pontiac pulled the plug on the Can Am after only approximately 1,377 Grand Le Mans sport coupes rolled off the assembly and into Jim Wangers’ Motortown shop to be modified into Can Ams, making his new Pontiac a rare bird.

The word on the street was that Pontiac executives decided to kill off the Can Am model because they figured customers were buying it instead of the more expensive Grand Prix. With more than $2,500 worth of options on his car, including the Can Am package, Kihle’s window sticker totaled a fairly modest $7,047.

But things got even better. Since Kihle’s car was destined for a high altitude dealership, it was one of only 42 to be equipped with a 403 cubic inch Oldsmobile V-8 engine, making it even rarer.

But he didn’t buy it as a one-year-only collectible, he bought it to drive it.

“I was 20 years old and I drove the heck out of it. I was working in the drilling business and Montana had no speed limit and Wyoming had no cops. I’ll bet this thing has over 30,000 miles on it at over 100 miles an hour,” he confessed.

It became his family car after he was married and he installed a trailer hitch on the Can Am to pull his boat for fishing trips. With a growing family of three boys, he eventually parked the Can Am on some property he owned near Wichita with about 135,000 miles on its odometer.

But he vowed he would never sell his most memorable car, heeding his grandfather’s advice that everybody has a story about a car they shouldn’t have let get away.

“I’m the only guy who has ever owned it. I’ve had a 40-year love affair with it. There was just 25 years where I didn’t see it,” Kihle said.

Then one day, one of his sons, Kyle, had the old Pontiac towed to his parents house, fearing it would soon be beyond salvaging.

“My wife, Sondi, said, `You have got to be kidding.’ She thought it was a pile of junk,’ Willie Kihle said. At first, he just planned to have the drivetrain reworked so the Can Am could be driven. That assignment was offered to Mike Reiswig, who had done several full restorations, but had decided he wouldn’t take on another one.

He asked what kind of car Kihle had.

“He had never heard of it and he asked if he could go look at it,” Kihle said. “When he saw it … he started getting excited.”

“It’s one of 42 ever built,” said Reiswig, who was now hooked.

That was four years ago and the tune-up turned into a complete frame-off, nut and bolt restoration.

The Can Am was built with a Grand Prix wrap-around dashboard and center console, with full analog instrumentation including an in-dash tachometer. But the era of huge horsepower muscle cars was dimming and the Olds V-8 was only rated at 185 horsepower. The engine was overhauled and the TurboHydramatic 3-speed transmission checked out.

The most distinctive feature of the car is the shaker hood scoop borrowed from the 1976 Pontiac Trans Am, which mounts atop the 4-barrel intake manifold and protrudes through the hood. As one of the 42 Olds-powered cars, its hood scoop is marked “6.6 Litre” instead of the more common “T/A 6.6” found on Pontiac-powered Can Ams.

Reiswig had to remanufacture the aluminum adapter plate to keep the original carburetor on the car. He completely detailed the engine compartment, going so far as to cadmium plate nuts and bolts, rather than painting them.

“I don’t know how to do it halfway,” he said with a grin. He restored the original 15-inch Rally II wheels and chrome trim rings, painting the rims to match the Cameo White paint job that every Can Am received. Tires are BF Goodrich 225 /70R /15’s.

D & S Body Shop in Clearwater sprayed the new finish on the car and Reiswig sourced a new set of red/orange/yellow stripes for the hood and rear deck of the car, along with proper Can Am badging from Phoenix Graphix in Arizona.

In keeping the Can Am absolutely factory stock, it got a correct single exhaust system.

Morgan-Bulleigh answered the call for the interior refurbishing, covering the front bucket seats and bench rear seat in factory-correct red vinyl, touching up the door panels and installing a new headliner.

Kihle still has all kinds of original documentation on the car, which had been stored in the glove box.

He is looking forward to driving his prized Can Am to area car shows and possibly taking it to a national Pontiac gathering. And he said he owes his son a special thank you.

“If not for Tyler, it would still be sitting there, rotting away,” he said.

This story was originally published January 31, 2018 at 6:40 PM with the headline "Rarest of the rare ’77 Can Ams: This one’s Oldsmobile-powered."