[RandyW]

Originally Posted by UK SD455 MUSCLE CARS

Some great information on this thread.... makes an interesting read!
I am a little confused about just how strict the mule/prototype destroying/dismantling policy was though.
What about these 2 cars??

http://www.firebirdgallery.com/Downl...eArticlelr.pdf

http://www.firebirdtransamparts.com/...dithistory.htm

Both seem to have slipped through the net or am I wide of the mark?
If they did, then would it not be possible for others to have done the same??

Of course there were other cars from all manufacturers that either slipped or were sneaked past company policy. The Banshee, the AMX II were 2 famous ones, but who knows how many more "normal" style cars with special options slid past the crusher and got certificates of origin? Having been in and around dealerships my whole young life I saw a lot off the wall cars.
I know of one '66 GTO that had a 421/338 h.p./2speed auto combo. The car was very low option and sold as a 335 h.p. 389 to a man in his 40's at Roughton Pontiac. Nobody would have ever known if it had not piggy backed a bearing under warrenty and the mechanic realized it when he pulled the engine apart. Nobody would likely have intentionally used the 338 h.p. motor. If they were going to the trouble why not a 376 hp 4 speed car? Obviously a mistake, somebody that got a 2+2 or some other full size and thought they had 421 probably had the GTO's 389 under the hood.
I saw one of the 7 or 8 LS6 '71 Chevelles built(some say none were built), it was sold new at Colonial Chevrolet, a red bench seat, auto on the column, black interior car with cowl induction and the 425 h.p. decal on the open element air cleaner sitting on the Holley carb. My stepdad had a one off '65 Dodge pickup. It was a shortbed 2wd, dark blue and white. It had a 426 wedge, A-933 4 speed and a Dana 60 with 3.54 gears. It had a one off Hurst shifter built just for that truck, the truck was originally built for Cotten Owens to use as a pit crew truck/parts hauler for his Dodge NASCAR team and came from Dodge that way.
Remember that in the days before the assembly line was fully automated, a lot of strange things could, and did get built. Some on purpose, some by accident. Also a lot of test mules ended up with COO's and titles, even though they were "checked off" as crushed.

[myam]

Any person who ever worked on a assembly line knows how goofed up things get. Wrong parts,bad parts,different parts, I got a 73 Le Mans one time that had a 350 emblem on the grill and a 400 engine under the hood! Seems they ran short on 350's and dropped in some 400's to keep thr line from going down.
But as far as the 73 455SD that was owned by Roach we may never learn what happened there. Who in there right mind would tell if they had it?

[Brian Baker]

Fellow PY member Bill Morgan made a strange purchase within the last year...a '73 LeMans Sport Coupe sans the 1/4 louver windows (it has the large "collonade" windows that were on the base LeMans and the Luxury LeMans). The VIN checks out to be a legitimate Sport Coupe. Nearest I could figure is that Fisher Body ran out of the louvered window shells and had to ship the collonade window shells to finish that production run of Sport Coupes. Never saw one before or since. It would be worth saving just for posterity if no other reason, but the car is in rather rough shape. Bill posted pictures of it somehwhere on the board, probably the lobby.

[Brian Baker]

http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...=471183&page=5

Here it is...more pictures on following pages. I also see pictures of my old '73 in Scott W's garage (the green pieces).

[Rocky Rotella]

Brian, there was a option code (WX8/422) in 1973, that shows up in factory documentation as "LeMans Sport Option-less Louvers." Factory production info shows 3,872 such cars were built that way. Sounds like Bill's car is one of them.

[fiedlerh]

Far as I know you could get either window. Some people didn't like the reduced visibility of the louvered windows, so I believe Pontiac let you substitute the big windows. PHS might clear it up.

[Brian Baker]

Was never aware of that, Rocky. PHS documents would be interesting, but Bill pulled the engine from that car and put it up for sale, don't know if he still has it or not. If I had more garage room, more money, and more time, I would have liked to bring it home, but the Can Am and funny car eat up all of that.

[BAD2000TA]

Sooo..... I finally read through all the pages, hoping to see pictures or documentation of this 455SD Grand Am. I guess not.

There goes an hour of my time......

[Brian Baker]

Originally Posted by BAD2000TA

Sooo..... I finally read through all the pages, hoping to see pictures or documentation of this 455SD Grand Am. I guess not.

There goes an hour of my time......

Were you speaking of Phil Griffith's Grand Am? There has been pictures of it posted here in the past, by myself and by Scott W. Do a search. As for documenting it, it's been said over and over that is was not factory built. It's an original 400 4-speed car however. If you were speaking of something else, never mind.

[RandyW]

Originally Posted by BAD2000TA

Sooo..... I finally read through all the pages, hoping to see pictures or documentation of this 455SD Grand Am. I guess not.

There goes an hour of my time......

No way!!!! It took you an hour??
J/K

[UK SD455 MUSCLE CARS]

[QUOTE=Brian Baker]Were you speaking of Phil Griffith's Grand Am? There has been pictures of it posted here in the past, by myself and by Scott W. Do a search. As for documenting it, it's been said over and over that is was not factory built. It's an original 400 4-speed car however. If you were speaking of something else, never mind.[/QUOTE

Just in case anybody wants a look:

http://www.grandamregistry.com/new/sdga.cfm

[Alvin]

Originally Posted by Brian Baker

Was never aware of that, Rocky. PHS documents would be interesting, but Bill pulled the engine from that car and put it up for sale, don't know if he still has it or not. If I had more garage room, more money, and more time, I would have liked to bring it home, but the Can Am and funny car eat up all of that.

OK - Now I Have to Admit it - it's in our garage repainted white with a 428 Cobra Jet!!!! NOT!!!!

[brandon brady]

Dave Bethauser from Witchita bought a new 73 gto with no louvers. You could delete them.

[RandyW]

Originally Posted by brandon brady

Dave Bethauser from Witchita bought a new 73 gto with no louvers. You could delete them.

The GTO was available as a LeMans Coupe or a Sport Coupe, the base coupe car didn't have the louvers, the Sport Coupe did.

[Brian Baker]

Originally Posted by brandon brady

Dave Bethauser from Witchita bought a new 73 gto with no louvers. You could delete them.

Well aware of that (see post by RandyW preceeding this one). The issue with the car Bill Morgan presented is that it is a legitimate LeMans Sport Coupe (per VIN and cowl tag), but it lacks the louvered 1/4 windows, and has the large 1/4 windows that were on the standard LeMans (and Luxury LeMans). Was never aware you could order the Sport Coupe sans the louvered windows...I mean, what's the point if you can order the base LeMans if you don't want the louvered windows?

[BAD2000TA]

Originally Posted by RandyW

No way!!!! It took you an hour??
J/K

Well, it's like when I "read" a magazine. I'm mainly looking at the pictures. Of course, like everybody, I "read" Playboy for the articles!!!

Actually, I did read through most all of it. Interesting for sure. It would have been nice if there really was a documented SD Grand Am. I remember reading about some of the factory 4-door Hemi cars and Hemi wagons Chrysler made in the mid-sixties. Pretty cool. Too bad you can't get stuff "special" today. I really hoped that there would have been a few factory LS6 Trans Ams and Camaros in 2002.

[citydesk175]

There was a Grand Am SD with TA suspension and TA Steering Gear made as a probable press car at 895 Joslyn AKA Pontiac Engineering Bldg and now AKA Powertrain Engineering (one of several). I remember seeing it several times in the tunnel that lead through the Eng Bldg. Sadly it lived its last months or years in that tunnel because of its other feature: The Sun Roof Which had been blown out of the track early in its life and was never fixed.

So, there sat a fabulous car with a hole in the roof.

There was a placard somewhere on the dashboard that enumerated the features and accessories of the car.

BUT here is my question: when is a car official?
1. If it is put together at the engineering building?
2. If it is built on the pilot line?
3. If it is built at an assembly plant at normal speed?

I vote against #1 because it is not necessarily made to any official specs other than "Do these parts fit together?"

Yet I think the GA SD was probably put together at 895 Joslyn by the "Experimental Garage" mechanics

I never saw any other GA SD's but I did see the final report on the roof...
Blamed it on an assembler at Fisher Body.

Anyway despite the Urban Legend spell on strange cars at Pontiac, I actually saw this car on a daily basis for almost a year.

KTF
citydesk175

[pontiacjeff]

cool first-hand info!

I have been keeping up with this thread, but can;t rememeber if anyone has brought up the Grand Am station wagon built by Engineering fo then manager Tom Goad? And how they converted it back to Lemans specs before Tom purchased it and put it all back together. Does this count as a Grand Am wagon 1-of-1? Or is it just a cool Lemans?

I agree with KTF scenario #1. Pontiac built it, just because it was never offered to the public doesn;t mean it's not real!

[citydesk175]

Thanks for the comment and interest


I rembember a mechanic at 895 bragging that his really important job was to create next years model out of this years model. An official real current car was placed in his workspace along with racks full of next years parts.

CHALLENGE: Remove the obsolete parts, keep the carryover parts and somehow make the "future" parts fit.

When by a miracle, the NEW car works and looks like it can be manufactured, maintained and repaired, explain to all the engineers and draftsmen who visit to find out how you managed to make it all fit and work.... Because it might not have been all that obvious on the drafting board.

Some of this fitting and engineering process may be obvious in retrospect but some is not and I don't know if it is done this way anymore.

The next time you wonder what genius caused all the chaos inside your car, blame it on a mechanic at 895 Joslyn in Pontiac MI.

So, I think the GA SD in question started life as a real car and someone wrote an engineering work order to change it.

BTW KTF = "Keep the Faith"

citydesk175

[myam]

I'd like to buy in to the idea of the SD as a created idea in the lab project.But,if it was just a dream,how did an actual list of parts along with part numbers,diagrams of these parts,descriptions, and a inventory of parts that were tossed in the trash?
I feel it had to be more than just a simple mock-up idea. You have to admit that if a guy in Wisconsin could manage to collect a group of original manufactured parts with part nos. on them they had to go further into this idea than just a idea?