[War eagle]

How many produced? How many 6cyl and 8cyl. There seems to be a gap in real info on these plainer models when trying to determine even the simple things. Like is there a 326HO out there in a Tempest, maybe 4dr, maybe wagon, maybe convert? That bench seat shifter I am looking for, as an example of poor info, has been responded to with all sorts of shapes, designs and claims. The MPC shows a much different shape for the bench style, than what has been presented. In fact, the numbers on the handles seem to match other brand applications. If anyone has an untouched 4sp car, get us some info please. Also muncie or saginaw and 6 or 8. I guess if there might be the rarest 64 car out threre, it could be a 4dr. HO, 4sp. !!!!(No radio)

[klunker]

I have a relatively untouched 65 Tempest, 326 HO, 4 speed, bench seats, rally gages and posi. Only other option is Reverb Am Radio. No exterior mirrors, no back up lights.

[klunker]

here are some pictures I took when I took apart the shifter and cleaned it up, deburred it, greased it and reassembled it.
in the one picture you can see some numbers stamped into the handle.
You can see how bad the chrome was on the handle, I ended up painting it before I put it back in the car. I can get a picture of what it looks like in the car if you want.

[64woodwheel]

I remember seeing a 326HO/4sp Tempest Custom Coupe about 3-4 years ago on Ebay. It was cameo ivory w/ red interior.

[John V.]

Per the '66 MPC, the A body 4 spd bench seat shifter lever & bracket assembly was same '64-'66. Don't know about '67, might be same that year too. So klunker's pix are useful. The Hurst p/n stamped on the lever might not appear, seems to me, some of the stampings evolved from the earliest '64 shifters.

The MPC Illustration of the '64-'66 Shifter is accurate for the '64 w/ buckets and the '64-'66 with bench seat but of course, the '65-'66 lever & bracket assembly w/ buckets was revised with the "Hurst" stamping and new shape and not depicted correctly by the "universal" illustration.

War eagle, you got that right about rarity. Generally speaking, the most common models were GTOs. A very high percentage of Lemans', even in '64, were equipped with the GTO option.

Comparatively very few buyers opted for the base 6 cyl, the majority ordered the 2 bbl 326. This was true all thru the '60s and finally Pontiac stopped offering the 4 bbl small motor for '70 due to low demand.

Seems everybody that wanted more than the 2 bbl 326 went straight for the GTO 389.

I also think that a much higher percentage of 2 bbl 326 buyers opted for the auto trans compared with the percentage of GTO buyers that did.

326HO buyers may have been more likely to specify the 4 spd than 2 bbl 326 buyers since the HO moniker appealed to "car" guys more apt to want a 4 spd. But truthfully, there was very little "HO" about the 326HO except for the dual exhaust & 4 bbl. You did get higher compression (premium fuel, which probably scared a few potential buyers off) heads but not the biggest valves. And the cam was same as the 2 bbl cam plus same log type exhaust manifolds. Hardly the "HO" equipment that a big car HO received.

I don't know the price of the 326HO engine option, but I think a good bit more than the $108 (IIRC) for the 2 bbl 326 (at least partly for the dual exhausts). Didn't really cost a whole lot more to jump up to the GTO.

I believe the wagons were the very lowest production body style.

A couple years ago, a member here picked up a 326HO, 4 spd, '64 TC Wagon with A/C no less. That was a sweet find. I don't recall if he ever posted pix. But that was a car you'll not likely find a twin for.

http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...=592386&page=2

I don't know how many '64 A bodies were produced, but a good guess might be about 120,000, I'd say about 1/2 were Lemans and about 1/2 of those got the GTO option. Of the 90,000 or so that were not GTOs, I'd guess about 15,000 were 6 cyl and 65,000 were 2 bbl 326, leaving about 10,000 326HOs. Of those, I'd guess no more than 5000 got 4 spds, spread amongst 3 Model Series and 5 Body Styles. The rarest would likely be the Tempest Wagon, followed by the Tempest Custom Wagon, then maybe the Tempest 4 dr. Sedan. This is pure speculation and estimates. But fun to think about.

[gtoric]

Here's the engine log production numbers for 1964 A-cars.
80Z - 215, M.T. = 19,894
81Z - 215/CA PCV, M.T. = 1,019
88Y - 215, A.T. = 69,095
89Y - 215/CA PCV, A.T. = 2,560
82Z - 215/low comp (export), M.T. = 89
87Y - 215/low comp (export), A.T. = 30
84Z - 215/taxi, M.T. = 87
85Z - 215/taxi, M.T. = 6
925 - 326/2bbl, M.T. = 17,317
960 - 326/2bbl, A.T. = 68,242
945 - 326 H.O./4bbl, M.T. = 4,819
971 - 326 H.O./4bbl, A.T. = 3,207
78X - 389/4bbl, M.T. = 15,230
79J - 389/4bbl, A.T. = 6,712
76X - 389/6bbl, M.T. = 7,552
79J - 389/6bbl, A.T. = 693

Note the huge discrepancy between these engine production figures for the LeMans 389 4bbl and the long-published G.T.O. option production figures. According to these new figures, there were far fewer GTOs produced in 1964 than previously thought. Look at how rare the auto tri-powers were!

[88mosquito]

I have an untouched 65 Tempest Custom convertable.
326 2bbl, Muncie M 20 four speed, bench seats. Seats have been replaced with buckets.
The shifter looks like the shifter in klunker's post.

Not sure how rare my car is, but it would be interesting to find out.

[BOB VIDAN]

That 2316 number at the base of the stick is the correct number for 64 - 66 bench seat applications.

[gtoric]

Here are some production figures for 1964 A-body style:

Tempest 2-dr cpe (2027) 21,765 total -- 17,169 w/215; 4,596 w/326
Tempest 4-dr sdn (2069) 19,427 total -- 15,516 w/215; 3,911 w/326
Tempest 4-dr wgn (2035) 6,834 total -- 4,597 w/215; 2,237 w/326
Total = 48,026

Tempest Custom 2-dr cpe (2127) 25,833 total -- 12,598 w/215; 13,235 w/326
Tempest Custom 2-dr cvt (2167) 7,987 total -- 4,465 w/215; 3,522 w/326
Tempest Custom 4-dr sdn (2169) 29,948 total -- 15,851 w/215; 14,097 w/326
Tempest Custom 4-dr wgn (2135) 10,696 total -- 4,254 w/215; 6,442 w/326
Total = 74,464

LeMans 2-dr sdn (2227) 31,317 total -- 11,136 w/215; 20,181 w/326
LeMans 2-dr htp (2237) 31,310 total -- 7,409 w/215; 23,901 w/326
LeMans 2-dr cvt (2267) 17,559 total -- 5,786 w/215; 11,773 w/326
Total = 80,186

LeMans GTO 30,187 total

202,676
232,863 w/GTO

[64woodwheel]

http://ultimategto.com/cgi-bin/showc...964/64_00085_1

[John V.]

Eric, pretty awesome, never saw the Engine Production log before.

Looks like I was way low with my A body estimate. Especially in the no. of 6 cyl cars produced. I should have realized I was low since I know that '64 PMD A body Production at the 3 satellite Plants was over 90,000 and typically the Pontiac Plant produced about 60% of the total.

This reminds me that I have suggested a possible "flaw" in the published Production Nos. for GTOs in the past.

Although GM builds cars according to Model Year, it has been a practice to report Sales figures by Calendar Year.

It has never been clear to me where the published Prod. Nos. were taken from so I have been skeptical of them.

I figure Engine Log Nos. are for Model Year since they were by Engine Code, pretty hard to delineate by Calendar Year.

If the long published '64 GTO Prod. No. (32,450) was a Calendar Year no., that would be explained by the likely fact that there were more GTOs sold by PMD to Dealers from Aug thru Dec '64 (as '65s) than had been sold to Dealers from Sept thru Dec '63 (as '64s) despite the long strike at the beginning of the '65 MY. This would have the net effect of inflating the no. of GTOs reported as '64s since it missed those sold in '63 and added a larger no. of '65s sold in CY '64.

In your 2 tallies, I see where you report 30,187 GTO engines produced and 30,187 GTOs produced.

But for the rest of the line-up, I tally 186,365 A body engines produced, but 202,676 vehicles.

Assuming every car produced had an engine, something ain't right!

An alternate explanation for the shortfall in the no. of GTO engines vs. the no. reported as sold (32,450) is that your Engine Log is not the Final Tally.

It appears that ALL of the engine production tallies are short.

Is there a date on the Engine Log?

And did you (or somebody) assume 30,187 GTOs to match the Engine Log or were these two totally independent tallies that just happened to be exactly the same?

[64woodwheel]

These engine production numbers are on the last page of my PHS for my 64 Tempest.

[gtoric]

The engine log figures came from PHS about 8 years ago. There is no date on the documents. I have not verified the veracity of the figures listed in these sheets as compared to other production figures, because I had always thought that there was a small variance to account for SR assemblies produced. There may be something more going on here.

Strangely, the GTO engine figures work out exactly for the tri-power units and all of the shortfall comes from the 4bbl production totals.

The source for the figures in post #9 came from the Standard Catalog of American Cars 1946-1975.

[Peter Serio]

64 was the only year that the chrome stick does not say "HURST."

NOTE: this shifter was modified for the addition of stop bolts, no car with a Hurst shifter from GM ever had stop bolts as supplied.

[Pontirag]

I have a 65 le mans convert.that had an HO 326 and a 4 spd. the car came off the line in the first week of dec 1964 and was sold on the 12th of dec. Gilroy Pontiac. gilroy Calif.

other than the engine, I have the complete rest of the origional drive train and my hurst shifter ...does not say hurst on it. so never say never

[klunker]

As you can see in the photos I attached my 65 does not say Hurst either.

[John V.]

Peter, I'm curious if you know of '65 or '66 O.E. bench seat interior Levers that were stamped with the Hurst logo?

The only difference between the shifter in the '64 Lemans (with the standard bucket seat interior) and the shifter in the '64 Tempest or Tempest Custom with their standard bench seat interiors was the Lever, at least to my knowledge. The same Muncie trannies were supplied with the 6 and V8, code W with all O.E. rear axle ratios except 3.90, code 9 with 3.90 gears (and yes, there was an application of the 3.90 axle with the 6 cyl in '64). The code W and code 9 Muncies were both same wide ratio gearboxes, only the internal speedo drive gear was changed for the code 9 box.

The '64 O.E. shifter bracket (or body if you prefer) was a Hurst Competition Plus unit, and those words were stamped on the unit (bucket or bench assemblies). A "real" aftermarket Hurst Competition Plus shifter included feature(s) not found in the O.E. Pontiac shifters (I think that stop bolt was such a feature), but it was accurate to call the O.E. shifter a "Hurst" shifter.

Neither '64 Lever had the Hurst logo stamped on them as the '65 Lever for the bucket seat interior did. However, the '65 bench seat interior continued to use the '64 Lever and the Hurst logo was never stamped on that Lever, even in '65/'66, at least to my knowledge.

Pontirag, I'm not so conversant with the '65.

Recently I was asked about the early use of the '64 bucket seat shifter in '65 production.

I've heard of such a thing but always seemed odd to me.

I assume your '65 Lemans was bucket seat interior? Is it a Fremont build? Is the Lever the '64 style (single bend about the middle of the Lever)?

In reply to the guy who asked me about it, I suggested that it was unlikely that the Pontiac Plant would have installed leftover '64 bucket seat shifters in '65s, more likely returning leftovers to the Parts Warehouse for Service Replacement use. But I suggested perhaps the satellite Plants were more likely to use up leftover inventory. Since I really do not know, I couldn't really answer his question.

Another possibility now occurs to me. Is it possible that only the '65 GTOs got the Hurst logo stamped bucket seat Lever while the '65 Lemans continued to get the '64 bucket seat Lever?

I'm told there is evidence that some '65 GTOs got the '64 Lever too but that may have been by mistake if the intent was to use the Hurst logo stamped Lever in the GTO and the unstamped Lever in the Lemans, perhaps sometimes they got crossed up on the line?

[bigpop]

Peter, I thought that on some early 65's the 64 shifter was still used,i.e. no Hurst labeling??? Wrong? Larry B.

[60sstuff]

I acquired this version of the Pontiac engine logs for 1964 thru 1970 back in the early 80's and some of the numbers are questionable but still makes for some great info. Jim Mattison said he has this same info as I'm sure others do.
The bench seats and their stick shifts are cool!

[3 Deuce 64]

John, Original owner 65 Tempest vert 4 speed only picture I have of the shifter and you can't really see the shifter . He is a local guy though and started showing up at the Sat night cruise ins last summer. Maybe I can track him down