[War eagle]

Kieth....3ft or 300 miles......makes NO difference. It is More likely that someone from engineering remembered the Deloreon Tempest test platform 389 BEFORE the GTO.

[Tom Vaught]

Originally Posted by Keith Seymore

I think you misinterpret his intent.

I never saw a wrench in Mr Wangers hand, not at Royal nor at the racetrack. As a contracted salaried resource to GM he wore a suit to work every day and delegated the dirty work. He normally was off making speeches and business presentations while the mechanical work was getting done.

He is saying “Yes – I AUTHORIZED that work to be done”. He gave the verbal direction (or wrote a paper work ticket) and Schornack, Rediker, Brumfield and the other mechanics at Royal did the physical work, just like always.

It’s just like if I said “Yes – I put that ZL1 engine in the shortbox pickup at Milford”. What that means is I wrote the work ticket, I went home and went to bed, and when I came in the next day it was ready for me to test drive.

K

X2!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
MUCH TRUTH AND WISDOM HERE

From an Actual Engineer working in the GM System for many years. F*** is no different.

We still get requests from suppliers occasionally wanting verification that "an Engineer from F*** wants a special boosted part for a project. Many times the requester is a Contracted Salaried Employee (like Mr Wangers was) and not an ACTUAL F*** EMPLOYEE. (Most are trying to get the special low dollar deal from the vendor).

Tom V.

[John V.]

W.E., not sure what you are thinking about the 421 in the Blue car.

For the time line, the Roger Proulx penned article in the March '64 C&D is useful. He says that one afternoon in OCTOBER, JW came by Proulx's office to say that they'd just finished "tuning" a new GTO at Royal and thought Proulx might like to take it to the drags to race it in actual competition, figuring it would make an interesting story for Proulx to write. That Sunday they went to Vets Ville Dragway in Toledo where neophyte Proulx ran a best practice run of 13.63 at 109.76 on cheater slicks. Then in competition beat a 421 HO Catalina, running 13.65 at 108.56 before getting eliminated by a '62 Ford Galaxie with a 406. Despite a poor start, he ran a 13.71 at 107.00 and got beat by less than a tenth.

There is no doubt in my mind that the car Proulx raced was the Blue car, same car that is seen in the PHR Bobcat How To article and also being driven by JW in the PHR test article (though PHR themselves tested a different GTO, one that had a Console and the standard Manual Steering box, not Handling Kit equipped complete with the Quick Ratio box that the Blue car was optioned with).

Was JW paid directly by PMD as a Contract Employee? Never heard that, I don't know the Ad Agency biz, but figured he was paid by McManus, John & Adams and was the ad exec responsible for the PMD account. In my limited experience working with advertising guys, the agency gets paid for the work they produce but the ad exec is paid by the agency, not directly by the account.

In the role of ad exec, JW would have asked for product (cars and stuff) that he could use in the promotion of PMD and its models. And likely pretty much gotten whatever he asked for with Delorean's approval.

Royal's involvement was undoubtedly to skirt the GM racing ban. Delorean could have plausible deniability but likely JW explained exactly what he was up to and Delorean approved the request for stuff that JW wanted.

The physical work may not have been done in the Engineering building but the Engineering Dept. may have been the conduit for the stuff that JW wanted, such as, say, a 421 engine. Or maybe Engineering did accomplish the engine swap for JW before delivering the GTO to Royal for them to Bobcat.

Your eyes are better than mine to see evidence in the mag pix that the 421 had been run before the Bobcat work. But if the swap was done within Engineering and driven to Royal, that could explain the limited run time.

Remember, I am talking only about the Blue car (Paint Code W on the firewall in the pix).

And the Bobcat work was done in OCTOBER if I am correct about the Proulx drag test. The Red car was produced in early November.

The Blue car was sent to NYC because that is where C&D's main office was. It spent 10 days there, then John Jerome, the managing editor, drove his wife and 3 kids to Fla for a combo work/vacation trip. The testing was conducted in Daytona from Dec. 26 thru Dec. 29. As the article stated, C&D put over 3000 miles on the Blue car, the most it had ever logged in a test car. In the Jan '75 C&D, David E. Davis, Jr. reflected on the test and subsequent article. He mentions that the Tech Ed. at the time, Jan P. Norbye, was the only staff member that was not completely smitten by the GTO.

The Blue car flat towed the crippled Red car back to Detroit, getting hammered by a major southern snow storm en route (you can google that storm to confirm).

I assume both cars were fitted with 421s in part because the Blue car is documented to have a 421 as early as October. It is possible that the 421 in the Blue car was swapped into the Red car after it was delivered to Royal. But if so, seems to me there would have been a significant difference in performance between the two cars at Daytona.

No performance difference was hinted at in the original article or in Davis, Jr.'s retrospective appearing in the Jan '75 C&D, or anywhere else for that matter. JW claimed somewhere that the Blue car had a peg leg 3.55. All of the original mag articles indicate it had the 3.90 with metallic brakes, no doubt in my mind which is correct. The mag articles also consistently claim the cars got a close ratio Muncie. I believe this was borne of JW's mistaken belief that a 3.90 GTO would get the close ratio, similar to how it had been done with the big Pontiacs. As I have long ago explained, this was not the case with the GTO. There is some chance that the close ratio gears had been swapped in, Keith has explained that his dad did many such conversions for Royal. But I do not believe that was the case for the two cars that went to Daytona. IMO, more likely they both went to Daytona with Code 9 wide ratio Muncies.

In the PHR test story complete with pix of JW demonstrating the performance of the Blue car (wearing the same license plate that it wore in Daytona), PHR mentions that this same car had run 13.21 at 109.10 at a drag strip with open exhaust and cheater slicks.

What became of the two cars when they returned to Detroit is less clear to me.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Blue car was a production build and a PHS record of it would exist. Calling it a pilot build is a canard. IMO.

Whether the engine in the Red car was repaired or replaced, don't see how that matters.

One thing that has intrigued me, who would have owned the two cars when they went to Daytona? Were they simply given to JW or Royal or did Royal pay for everything?

Before the Red car was sold off, was JW's name on the Title? Royal's? PMD's? Years ago, the story was that the Blue car was destroyed in a fire, was an insurance claim made? By whom? More recently, and the story that I think was told in Glory Days was that the Blue car was returned to PMD and crushed. That story (that it was crushed) makes no sense to me and Tom Vaught has indicated that he heard long ago from a credible source that the Blue car was not destroyed.

Perhaps it was returned to PMD if it was their property. And perhaps the 421 in it was removed and a 389 reinstalled. Perhaps the 421 in it was swapped over by Royal to the Red car when they got back to Detroit. All kinds of possibilities. But there does not seem any plausible reason for the Blue car to have been crushed by PMD. That story doesn't pass the smell test IMO.

I am certain that the PHS manifest record for the Blue car could be found if somebody cared to spend the time looking for it. JMO.

[Keith Seymore]

John - thank you; incredible amount of detail presented there.

Mr Wangers, as a MJ&A employee would have been paid by them (not PMD). In fact, dad also received some payments directly from MJ&A. He also had a Shell credit card to use for fuel. I do not know who supported that, only that it was "free" for us. Parts were also "free", either from PMD (and tagged as "scrap") and picked up directly by him from the Engineering Building or shipped to the Greyhound bus depot in Flint.

The blue car was still owned by PMD during all these magazine tests. GM provides the vehicles to the ad agencies for them to photograph or dynamically evaluate as they see fit. Tenney can correct me but my recollection is the red car went from PMD to Mr Wangers, then from Wangers to Bill Sherman. I believe the paper trail supports this.

K

[Keith Seymore]

One additional thought about Pontiac Engineering:

Per Steven O. Darling, the youngest PMD engineering technician at the time of it's closing (and - official Saturn Historian, FWIW) - the Pontiac engineering garage was not like the others. Larger shops, like the Chevrolet Engineering Center, were used to dealing with higher production volumes and more management scrutiny and therefore had much more formalized processes.

Steve describes the engineering garage (and Pontiac as a whole) as more like a "family", where employees were much less formal and, coupled with PMD's "maverick" management style were encouraged to try unorthodox technologies or processes. Also - as a result of the smaller production volumes - the engineering shop was regularly used to supplement production in low volume runs. Vehicles like taxi cabs, limos and/or police cars would be shipped from the production line to the engineering building to be retrofit with updated springs, wiring or other special equipment, in small quantities (less than 50 units, say). The vast majority of the "memos" we so love to look for on the build documentation (written by G.W. "Bill" Cumberworth, in Car Distribution) have to do with this more mundate activity rather than the "cool" performance stuff.

We also know the '63 Super Duty cars (Tempest and Lemans) and Swiss Cheese cars were built with some amount of production content (engines and or steel sheet metal) and then shipped to the engineering building for retrofit of SD engines and aluminum body components.

So - doing an engine swap in Engineering on one GM owned vehicle would not be entirely out of the realm of possibility, given the precedent. It's what they do.

K

['ol Pinion head]

Keith, in the late 60's-early 70's, was a Pontiac engineer assigned to the Milford Proving Grounds? Or were vehicles shipped to Milford and then several from Pontiac Engr drove to Milford for evaluation of vehicle(s)? Still like to find out what was going on @ Milford with the HO post T-37 in Jan & Feb of '71.

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by 'ol Pinion head

Keith, in the late 60's-early 70's, was a Pontiac engineer assigned to the Milford Proving Grounds? Or were vehicles shipped to Milford and then several from Pontiac Engr drove to Milford for evaluation of vehicle(s)? Still like to find out what was going on @ Milford with the HO post T-37 in Jan & Feb of '71.

All of the above.

The divisions had engineers who were resident at Milford (or at the DPG), in full vehicle development or powertrain development.

Additionally, program management and engineers who were stationed in Pontiac or at the Tech Center would come out for specific activies, meetings, reviews or ride events.

I've been both during the portion of my career away from the assembly plant: I was resident at MPG from '86-'89 and at the DPG from '90 to '94.

The rest of my time I've either been in Pontiac or at the Tech Center.

K

[Old Goat Racer]

This history is AWESOME!! The statue of limitations is long gone. Keep talking Gentleman.
Is JW going to take the truth to his grave?

[John V.]

Keith, awesome insider stuff!

Do you know Bill Cumberworth?

Any interest in reaching out to him about Memos and such?

I had no idea that the guy had a name.

Don't know if he is alive but as of his 50th HS reunion in 2006 he was, retired after 35 years with GM. His wife passed away in 2011.

I'll shoot you his email address and phone no. in case you care to say hello to him.

[Tom Vaught]

Originally Posted by Keith Seymore

All of the above.

The divisions had engineers who were resident at Milford (or at the DPG), in full vehicle development or powertrain development.

Additionally, program management and engineers who were stationed in Pontiac or at the Tech Center would come out for specific activies, meetings, reviews or ride events.

I've been both during the portion of my career away from the assembly plant: I was resident at MPG from '86-'89 and at the DPG from '90 to '94.

The rest of my time I've either been in Pontiac or at the Tech Center.

K

Same applied to Ford, Except we have a Dearborn Proving Ground (next to Greenfield Village) and we have a Michigan Proving Ground located in Romeo, Michigan.

The Dearborn Proving Ground was at one time an airport for Airplanes like the Ford Tri-Motor Plane. The first 7 years of my career at Ford were spent working on this Proving Ground. As Keith said, I also traveled to the Michigan Proving Ground and observed testing as well as relieved Resident Engineers at that location when one of them would travel to a third or fourth Proving Ground: Arizona Proving Ground or the Florida Evaluation Center (near Naples, Florida). So an actual Ford or GM Engineer could have worked at several locations beside the "Mother" location in his career.

Point being, there were "prototypes" being tested at all of those locations constantly.
There is the famous "GTO test at the Proving Ground" (that was a bit of a stretch in marketing) once you actually worked at a Proving Ground, but it sure did make me want to try to work at the Proving Ground for a bit of my career.

Tom V.

ps the BLUE CAR is Alive, was not crushed, and is still in the possession of the person it was given to many years ago by VERY High up GM/ PONTIAC Management.

[Tom Vaught]

HAND-WRITTEN LETTER
FROM GEORGE HURST,
TRANSCRIBED AND PUBLISHED
IN THE THUNDER & LIGHTNING
MAY, 1985:

"It is common knowledge around
Detroit and Lansing that our first
OEM customer was the Pontiac.
We started with Pontiac in about
1961-much of this took place
because of the efforts and
enterprise of Jim Wangers “Mr.
Pontiac” in those days.
We had a very close
relationship with the Pontiac
Division in those days because of
people like Bunky Knudsen, Pete
Estes and John DeLorean. During
those days this team took Pontiac
from a very remote position in the
market place to #3- I still
remember Pete pinning a #3 pin
on my lapel at the Detroit Athletic
Club. I believe the occasion was
the “Car of the Year” award for
the GTO, with which I was very
much involved along with Jim
Wangers of course.
As the roaring 60’s started to
draw to a close, that team at
Pontiac broke up and some how
things just seemed to settle down
at the “wide track circle”.
Coincidentally a high-flying
team was grouping together in
Lansing which included Johnny
Beltz, John Flemming, Bill
Buxton, Ted Louckes and Bob
Dorshimer. They had set out to
change the Olds image to attract
a younger market. The timing
could not have been better. Our
“Shifty Dr. Watson” made the
presentation and it was no holds
barred from there on."

More History:

"In 1960, Hurst made the smartest hiring decision of his life, bringing Jack “Doc” Watson, aka “The Shifty Doctor,” on board with the company. Watson would be a fixture at Hurst for decades. Soon after being hired, Watson made contact with Pontiac through a friend of his mothers. Pontiac was getting ready to introduce the infamous 1961 “Swiss Cheese” Catalina model in several months and it just so happened that they were looking for a shifter for the car. After inspecting and testing the Hurst unit, it became factory equipment and the Hurst meteor was launched. The shifters, being factory equipment in the most serious race oriented cars that Detroit had ever churned out, meant instant credibility to the hot rodding public. In short, they couldn’t build the suckers fast enough.

Putting on his promoter hat, Hurst traversed the country and struck deals sponsoring race cars, races, hiring Linda Vaughn, and paying out contingency money to racers running a Hurst stick. The guy from Pennsylvania with an 8th grade education was a daily topic of conversation among hot rodders across the country."

From the Book:

http://books.google.com/books?id=Gcq...Motors&f=false

More Info:

"He's worked with some of the greatest automotive engineers, and although his name is not on the car he developed, it is one of the most instantly recognizable muscle cars. And his mechanical prowess helped many a drag racer, because he had all the answers to their four-speed shifting problems. A determined man still today, he has had a reputation to make things work. More importantly, he cut through the red tape to get things done right the first time.

Jack Watson, known in drag racing circles simply as "Doc" Watson, the man who was George Hurst's right-hand man, is credited with being the creator of the first Hurst/Oldsmobile in 1968.

Before his Hurst days, Doc worked with fabled Corvette engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov who, along with Ed Cole, was called the father of the small-block Chevrolet, and Castelletto Dolza, better known as John Dolza, who developed the thinwall, rocker-ball rocker-arm assembly for the small-block Chevrolet. Doc worked with GM and developed "Super Duty" groups within each division.

In 1960, Doc was given an O.K. by GM brass to take a few Tempests, Skylarks and Cutlasses and put bigger engines in them for weight evaluation. When Hurst Performance was in its infancy in Glenside, Pennsylvania, Doc released the Hurst three-speed shifter to the Pontiac Super Duty program, and a relationship began that grew to proportions nobody had expected. Through his relationship with Hurst Performance, Doc eventually became president of Hurst Performance Research, based in Michigan."

So here you have a guy who was a GM Engineer at one time, Worked with the highest level GM Brass, and did (in 1960) some of the first work on the Pontiac Super Duty Engine, the Shifter, and already had lots of experience in "swapping in" 'BIGGER ENGINES' in Tempests, Skylarks and Cutlasses. AND HE WAS "BUDS" WITH JW, DELOREAN, AND DUNTOV.

So the point being, where do you think the expertise to drop a 389 or 421 engine in a Tempest came from? Just saying.

Tom V.

[Tom Vaught]

http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2...ding-to-mcacn/

Food For Thought: (Not all GM "Mules" were crushed) If one was not crushed, there were more not crushed and sold to dealers/companies outside of GM.

The Blue car was not even a "Mule" really, it was a Plant Built GTO with a "Cheater" engine in the engine bay. Just like the Red Car sold to Wangers and later to Bill Sherman.

Tom V.

[Jeff Hamlin]

[Tom Vaught]

Great Picture Jeff!

When some friends of mine were working with Milt on the 64 GTO Revival Tour, Doc was around for that deal too. Doc had a "Consulting Business" off of North River Road in Mt Clemens, Mi at the time. So we were talking about the Red Car and a comment came up from a unnamed source that the Blue Car was still alive. No reason to lie at that point in time.

The Lies were with the Red Car which had a Lot of tricks done to it. Very Special Lumati "744" camshaft (with a lot more duration and lift) that Milt was calling a 744 cam. The Larger Engine, Heads Ported by "Birdie" in Livonia (as well as the manifold). Many Mods to that Red Car really before it went on the 'Tour'.

Tom V.

[Dick Boneske]

I've mentioned in an earlier thread that I helped Milt Shornack with the red car at the POCI Convention drag races in Wichita in 1988. He was running mid 12's and said it was running lean--not pulling hard at all--bogging slightly when end carbs were opened. We changed the end carb jets to .073"---I don't remember what size I took out. In any case, the next run was 12.19. I have no idea how quick it ran at other tracks during that era.

The red car had '63 Super Duty "980" heads on it at that time, not "716" heads! It was a 421 block.

[Tenney]

Originally Posted by Keith Seymore

Tenney can correct me but my recollection is the red car went from PMD to Mr Wangers, then from Wangers to Bill Sherman.

That's how I understand it, as well, Keith. It became Jim's company car post-Daytona until his '65 came in.

[Jeff Hamlin]

Good stuff guy's really enjoying this post.

My 1st introduction to Milt & I presume the RED car...

Saw both again at this past GM Nats...
http://vid412.photobucket.com/albums...HAT/RINGER.mp4
Regardless of current drive-line configuration it was good to see this little peice of Pontiac's History.

[Tenney]

Cool, Jeff - thanks for sharing!

[John V.]

Tom, you've made my day. Multiple interesting posts. Another book on my list to hunt for. I won't ask who possesses it, but can you divulge anything about the condition of the Blue car? Did/does it retain the 421 that was seen in it during the PHR Bobcat How To article? Was it kept as a collectible or used as an ordinary transportation car? Has it purposely been kept out of public view or just for lack of interest?

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by Tom Vaught

Point being, there were "prototypes" being tested at all of those locations constantly.
There is the famous "GTO test at the Proving Ground" (that was a bit of a stretch in marketing) once you actually worked at a Proving Ground, but it sure did make me want to try to work at the Proving Ground for a bit of my career.

I suppose that record had a little bit to do with me wanting to work at the Milford Proving Ground, too...

K