I am putting together research on 1969 GTO Judge drag racers from 1969 and am trying to locate these individuals or anyone that remembers them or the cars
1. Fred Borcherdt -Lived in Deleware/ New Jersey 2. Gary Moore -Lived in Tulia , Texas 3. Colonial Pontiac -dealership was in Miami , Florida they all had orange 1969 Judges that raced in D/S. |
I am putting together research on 1969 GTO Judge drag racers from 1969 and am trying to locate these individuals or anyone that remembers them or the cars
1. Fred Borcherdt -Lived in Deleware/ New Jersey 2. Gary Moore -Lived in Tulia , Texas 3. Colonial Pontiac -dealership was in Miami , Florida they all had orange 1969 Judges that raced in D/S. |
Wow cool idea, good luck!
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Old '69 Judge Thread
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Wow ! While doing a search, I ran across this thread, which is nearly 20 years old.
Nobody offered any help to the OP. But, since I now have some, I'll post it. And, while I'm at it, I'll go ahead & post all the pics I have of '69 Judge class cars. Don't know of any in modern times, certainly not in this century. So, when was the last time you guys knew of a '69 Judge, running either Stock or Super Stock ? The OP mentioned Colonial Pontiac. I now have 4 pics related to Colonial Pontiac & the "Colonial Banshee" '69 Judge. He also mentioned Gary Moore. I'm not saying he never raced a Judge. But I've never run across any pics of one he raced. I have pics of a '61 he raced, a '71 Bird, & even a '68 Bird. Have probably mentioned it here, but he was div 4 Stock champ in '68 & set the F/S record @ the '69 Winter Nats, driving the '61. The OP also mentioned Fred Borcherdt. His name is on the famous John Thropp '57 Pontiac. Right now, I'm not aware of a '69 Judge he was connected to. But, if I run across his name in connection to one, I'll add it to this thread. |
5 Orange
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Here are 5 color pics I have of orange Judge Stockers.
Among these are race & class winners, as well as nat record holders. |
More Orange
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Not all my pics are in color. But, sometimes you can sorta tell that the car was orange, even tho it's a b&w pic of it.
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Other Colors
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Most Pontiac guys know that later in the '69 model year, the Judge was available in other colors.
Can't say which cars were real Judges. I suppose all a guy needed to do was put a rear deck spoiler on a reg GTO & call it a Judge. Don't think the inside or outside decals/emblems would be necessary. I did read that Royce Fowler bought his Judge new, & began to race it almost immediately. We saw him race it at Amarillo, back in around 1976. I suppose there were quite a few dealers who actually raced a new Judge, in '69, then sold it. |
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http://www.classracer.com/classforum...5&postcount=23 Can not verify, one way or the other. But, the '69 Judge "Rocky's Goat" did have "N.H.R.A. Record Holder" on the roof, just over the door. "...In May,1970 Fred set the NHRA E/SA National Record 12.10 @ 114.79 MPH..." George Cureton bought the car & ran it @ Indy, I think it was in 1970. For that race it had #17 on it. |
Love the vintage pics and amazing you dug up a 19 yr old thread!
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Did anyone notice that the first car in this thread (colonial banshee) has a power antenna?
I suspect it’s not a real Judge because of it, also in the very first pic you can just see the leading edge of the grille and it looks silver rather than black. Very nifty thread, love all these vintage photos. |
Incredible resurrection of an old post
Thanks Ponyakr , Great Stuff some of these pics i have never seen before |
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The Colonial Motors Judge (The Banshee) was a 69 super duty driven by Jess Jessen who wrenched at Colonial Motors. This car took part in the trials conducted by Milt Shornack and the crew from Ace Wilson's Royal Pontiac when they trailered to Florida for trials (this adventure is described in Milt's book). The car is still around and is in the hands of a well known Pontiac afficianado, Colonial Motors was a performance shop that reciprocated with Royal Pontiac. An interesting feature of this car is the placement of gauges in the vinyl portion of the dash that mirrored the factory mule created by Milt Shornack.While the 69 taken by Royal to Florida had some "problems". Jess Jessen's "Banshee" ran flawlessly in the trials.
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Thanks for the additional info on the Colonial Car being the Orange Car in Florida.
That whole original article was somewhat dissected/analyzed by SteveHoog / SteveD400 years and years ago on here. It was very interesting / informative. Not sure (but maybe it was, and i forgot) that the Orange Car was ever identified in/from the original article. So that is really cool - by its timeslips it was assumed to be a Ram4 car. The Royal GTO had a RamV TunnelPort engine , that car gave troubles there. Royal also had a Bird there. Those guys were living our dreams back then. I am guessing that calling it a 69 SuperDuty in the Colonial Car was a typo ? What type of engine is in it now ? |
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I am not sure the article they dissected about the Florida Testing was from Milt's Book - or if it was an actual article from a magazine of the day and time - or if it was an article from SmokeSignals or HPPontiac Magazine. Someone else will know more regarding all that. Mainly they were trying to find any microscopic evidence from old photos that if the Bird might have had a TunnelPort V engine in it at anytime , in Florida. But they sort of covered everything else in-between too. fwiw |
A picture of "The Banshee" appears on page 158 of Milt Shornack and the Royal Bobcat GTOs. As to the engine in the car now,I was given the impression that it is the same engine as was installed at the time trials. Now,I'm going out on a limb now, but the explanation given to me was that the engine is a 400 with Ram Air V heads. Maybe I've been reading too much Pete McCarthy!
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Colonial Car -very slim- that it could have had a RamV at the Winter Test.
more than likely it did not Would have been faster ET's It was however - turning peak Ram4 ET's iirc the Royal Boys were not allowed to touch the RamV in their car after it had problems, engine came straight from engineering - with strict prohibitions. Colonial could not have competed in D/S class with any RamV heads. Ponyakr might know if there was a modified class the RamV heads would run in, but definitely not allowed in the D/S class they ran when competing. Ram4's didn't start going out in "production line cars" until around March or April 69 So they were a new kind of thing too 69 Judges didn't hit public streets until Feb 69 (Ram3 cars only) |
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He was good at those type things, had a very sharpened inquiring mind.
i think some of it rubbed off on some of us. ;) i need to go back and dig that old thread back up, and re-read it. Had thought the GTO did have a 5 in it @ Florida, and the Bird was de-bunked. For 100% sure though, we found out the Turq/Wht GTO was a factory WT Base Engine car - As Built Which makes full sense, since Ram3 and Ram4 engines were not going into cars yet, when it was built. Probably a fair number of the Orange race cars were not factory built Judges on their PHS Invoices. We do know that some really are (today) by their Invoices |
Wondering if the OP has ever been made aware of all this excellent research?
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