Ringbrothers Spent 5,500 Hours Making a 1965 GTO Convertible 5 Inches Wider Without Looking It

The best compliment you can pay Ringbrothers' newest car is that you might walk past it. From the side, Billie looks like a very clean 1965 Pontiac GTO convertible in dark blue. Then you notice the 345/30R20 Michelins on 20x13-inch wheels out back, and you start doing the math on how they fit. The answer, as HOT ROD laid out on Nov. 2 ahead of its SEMA debut, is 5,500 hours of work spent making a GTO 5 inches wider without anybody noticing.

Mike Ring summed up the challenge to HOT ROD during the build: "This is a lot of work to make the car look the same."

A tribute named Billie

The car started life as a 1965 Tempest convertible and has been built into a GTO as a tribute to a car the owner's mother once had. HOT ROD reports that when the owner suggested calling it GOAT, Ringbrothers countered with Billy, and the name became Billie. Custom badges in the style of the originals read Billie 6.2 Liter on the fenders, and a Raised by Ringbrothers badge goes on the dash.

The Wisconsin shop is bringing two cars to the SEMA Show in Las Vegas this week: Billie, in the Gentex booth, and its 1966 Chevelle Recoil, back 12 years after it was unveiled at the same show.

Five inches you cannot see

"These cars were always pretty but looked narrow for how big they were," Ring explained to HOT ROD. The fix was a signature Ringbrothers move: push each side of the car out 2.5 inches while keeping the stock profile.

The only obvious clue is on the hood. Machined billet inserts run down each side of a carbon-fiber hood, acting as spacers that let the original front fenders move outward while the hood keeps its stock dimensions. The new shoulder line carries into carbon-fiber doors and then the rear quarters, built with a mix of traditional panel beating and composite molding. The bumpers are wider, the grille and tail section are stretched, a carbon-fiber valance goes up front and a rear diffuser houses quad tailpipes.

The paint is a blue Ringbrothers calls Billiegoat Blue, offset with black details and acres of chromed trim. The wider body is what makes room for the HRE/Ringbrothers G-Code wheels, 19x11 in front and 20x13 out back, with gloss-black centers and polished barrels and spokes shaped to echo the chrome grille.

LT4 under a Pontiac hood

Pontiac purists will grumble, and HOT ROD said as much. The owner wanted reliable power, so the Rings chose a Chevrolet Performance LT4 supercharged crate engine rated at 650 hp at 6,400 rpm and 650 lb-ft at 3,600 rpm. The block is painted Pontiac blue, the accessories are anodized black and a Wegner Automotive supercharger cover and front runners dress it up. The coil packs were moved behind the firewall to clean up the bay.

A Bowler 10-speed automatic with a Speartech controller sits behind it. The custom exhaust is 2.5-inch stainless instead of 3-inch because it tucks closer to the body and keeps the tailpipes from rattling against the rear valance. "We're not after full power," Mike told HOT ROD. "This exhaust will make Billie a better cruiser, which is what the customer requested."

Underneath is a custom Roadster Shop Fast Track III chassis with independent rear suspension, and Brembo six-piston calipers and rotors handle stopping.

The espresso machine shifter

The interior is where Ringbrothers' habit of reworking every factory piece shows most. The dash was moved about 4 inches toward the driver and 2 inches lower to make room for Vintage Air behind it. The original top pad was integrated into the dash instead of sitting on top, and the multi-piece lower trim was replaced with a single machined aluminum piece that follows the original groove and sweeps up to a machined grab handle at the glove box.

"The original cars had a beautiful dash," Mike told HOT ROD. "We didn't want to cut it up, so we set about improving it where we could." Dakota Digital gauges fill the cluster, the original radio got a machined face and Bluetooth while still looking stock, and a Gentex auto-dimming mirror sits up top.

The front seats come from a 1965 Ford Galaxie, chosen for comfort and upholstered in blue and gray leather, with machined, chromed back inserts that carry GTO-style fins to echo the taillights. Rosewood shows up on the steering wheel and the dash. And the shifter has the best origin story on the car: Mike liked the tapered handle on the office EMC espresso machine, bought one separately, drilled it out and made a rosewood stem to fit it to the 10-speed.

Why the hidden work matters

Restomods have mostly gone one of two directions in recent years: obvious widebodies that shout about it, or near-stock cars with modern parts hidden underneath. Billie tries to do both at once. It has the stance and rubber of a widebody build and the side profile of a factory car, and the engineering went into making those two things agree.

The car will be in the Gentex booth, No. 23889 in the Central Hall at SEMA, with Recoil in Ringbrothers' own booth, No. 22967. Mike's line from the final push still says it best: "We're never really finished, but the GTO will be there, and we'll shake it down when we get home."