The Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA) held its annual Zenith Award show in Hershey, Pennsylvania this weekend and crowned a winner for 2025. The overall winner was a 1970 Pontiac GTO Judge owned by Debra and Gil Powell of Denver, North Carolina.
The Judge arrived in December of 1969 at Thomas Pontiac in Parkersburg, West Verginia where Gil worked as service manager. It originally sold to his friend, but came into Gil’s possession about four years later. In 1978, the car was parked with 65,000 miles on the odometer. Gil wanted to restore it, but his health wouldn’t cooperate. So his daughter Deb took the reigns and had it professionally restored. But made sure that Gil’s initials under the hood from his original service check in 1969 remained intact.
The Powells’ 1970 GTO Judge includes an L74 400cid/366 horsepower Ram Air III with driver control. The V8 has a three-speed manual transmission with Hurst T-handle and 3.55 rear gears. The black grille, grille surrounds, hood scoop, tri-color eyebrow stripes, Rally II wheels (sans trim rings), and “Here Comes the Judge” isnignia were original packaging. Only 162 Judge Convertible models were build for the 1970 model year and had a factory price of $3,492. Restoration on the Powells’ Judge was done by Brunker’s Vintage Garage and Barnes Classic Restoration.
The 1970 Pontiac GTO Judge won against 18 other restored antiques in this year’s competition. Each entry is chosen from AACA Grand National events around the country. Gil’s Judge won the Dayton, Ohio Grand Nationals this year to move on to this Zenith event.
The runner up award for the 2025 AACA Zenith Award went to a 1938 Packard Twelve 1608 owned by Bob and Judy Tiffin of Red Bay, Alabama.
