52 Years, One Owner: Keith Sasich's 1967 Firebird Wins Goodguys Muscle Machine of the Year

Keith Sasich bought his 1967 Pontiac Firebird in 1974, when he was 14 years old, from a rancher in Reed Point, Montana. It had 78,000 miles on it. More than 50 years later he still has it, and on Oct. 3 at the 33rd Summit Racing Lone Star Nationals at Texas Motor Speedway, Goodguys named it the 2026 Griot's Garage Muscle Machine of the Year.

The car that won is not the car he bought. Dutchboys Hotrods rebuilt it into a 750-hp, supercharged, six-speed restomod. Fuel Curve's Dave Doucette laid out the details on Oct. 7, and on Oct. 23 Fuel Curve published its story on how the finalists were tested. But the reason it means something is the half century in between.

High school car, college racer

Sasich told Fuel Curve he is the second owner, and the car came with a factory 400, a four-speed and 3.73 gears. He drove it through high school. As a junior, it got dark blue paint with some pearl in the clear and a hot-rodded 400 with an Isky cam, headers, a 750-cfm Holley double pumper and a Torquer manifold.

He kept driving it through college, and his favorite memories, he told Fuel Curve, are racing all over Montana and Wyoming at local tracks and on the street. It ran high 12s in that form. After college it got a Pontiac 455 and a Turbo 400, and the best time slip was an 11.7. That is a full drag racing life before the current build even started.

Sharper lines, same Firebird

The brief to Dutchboys was a modern Firebird that still respected the classic design and feel. The shop started with the sheet metal: body lines sharpened, bumpers tucked, a custom front valance with running lights and a spoiler, and a rear valance notched for the exhaust tips. Joe Van Nus and Alex Provost at Dutchboys sprayed a custom-mixed BASF blue, so the car is blue again, as it was in his high school days.

The wheels are a clever piece of the puzzle. Evod made them 18x9.5 in front and 19x12 in the rear in a design that honors the Pontiac Rally II. Big modern sizes, period look.

LT4 power with a Pontiac twist

The Pontiac engine is gone. In its place is a 376-cubic-inch GM LT4 V8 making 750 hp, with Katech heads and a supercharger. Dutchboys made a custom supercharger lid and detailed the engine so it reads as a Pontiac rather than a Chevy, a smart move on a car whose owner raced Pontiac power for decades. A Bowler-built T56 Magnum six-speed sits behind it, worked by a one-off shifter.

A Roadster Shop Fast Track chassis brings independent front suspension and a four-link rear holding a 9-inch with 3.70 gears, almost the same ratio the car had from the factory. Baer disc brakes handle stopping.

OEM plus inside

Bohde Custom Auto Interiors redid the cabin in what Dutchboys calls an OEM-Plus look, vintage flavor with modern comfort. The updated dash carries Dakota Digital gauges and Vintage Air controls, and a Momo wheel sits on an Ididit column. The 3D-printed console has custom-machined parts, including parking brake and line lock switches, and yes, cup holders.

A line lock switch in a Muscle Machine of the Year winner is a nice detail. A car that spent its youth at Montana drag strips still has the hardware to do a burnout.

It had to prove it on the road

Muscle Machine of the Year is not won in a parking lot. Fuel Curve's Oct. 23 story explains that the category has always been about modified muscle cars and their performance, and for 2026 Goodguys gathered the finalists at the Lone Star Nationals for a Reliability Run and performance testing.

The day started with a driver's meeting on an overcast Friday morning at Texas Motor Speedway. Between 15 and 20 muscle machines then hit a mix of highway and Texas back roads, made a few collection stops and ran laps at Eagles Canyon Raceway in Decatur before heading back to the speedway for the autocross course, side-by-side drag runs down pit road and a couple of laps on the banked oval. On Saturday afternoon Goodguys announced five finalists, then named Sasich's Firebird the winner. Fuel Curve says the format worked well enough that Goodguys plans to keep it.

That is a tough test for a car with a fresh build and a show-quality paint job, and it is the right one. A Firebird whose owner used to race it all over Montana and Wyoming got judged, again, on what it does with the pedal down.

Why this one matters

Plenty of restomods start as somebody else's car bought at auction. This one carries the same owner through every version: the stock 400 four-speed, the high school hot rod, the 11-second 455 car and now a 750-hp LT4 with modern brakes and air conditioning. Dutchboys did beautiful work, but what makes the Firebird special is that the person who bought it as a teenager is the one who gets to drive the best version of it.

Fuel Curve's take is that this version will be around for a while. After 52 years, that seems like a safe bet.