That is my thinking, exactly.
A Sprint/Ventura II with the OHC would have been an outstanding small car that was "more Pontiac than it wasn't" versus the rebadged Nova reputation that got hung around its neck.
An OHC 4-door with a stick and some Herbie Adams chassis magic would have been perfectly timed for the fuel crisis, Pontiac would have come out smelling like a rose instead of sweating harder than Mike Tyson at a spelling bee.
I'm really surprised at Jeff Hamilin's shot of the SecondGen F-Body with the Sprint, thought the reason they speared the Sprint was that it wouldn't go under the hood of the Firebird. Sure looks like that one closes. Shoot, wasn't that the reason for the "Ironing Board" styling feature on the hood of the firstgen Firebird and A-Cars from '68 on?
Sounds to me like that gutless Jim McDonald was tired of all that crazy DeLorean stuff like a dozen ratios of posi axles and Ram Air engines tying up his precious factory space. (Who's gonna know?)
Same asshole that drove GM into the ground in the '80's... "We don't know how high is up with the "A" (c. 1983-4) body"
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