Quote:
Originally Posted by Scott M
... If some other car company had offered Mickey more money in the late 50s-early 60s, he'd have taken their deal in a heartbeat...
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I believe that's quite a crass over-simplification. No argument about Mickey being a businessman; but that simple statement ignores the fact that he was the "ultimate hotrodder", an impressive innovator, and truly loved motorsports [example: a magazine photo from about 1961 shows a spectator (Mickey Thompson) ripping his T-shirt off and tossing it to a driver to use to dry his distributor cap after drowning the engine in an off-road event water crossing!]. Another thing you're ignoring (since you weren't into hotrodding back then, I assume?) is that no engine was more desirable than the Pontiac V8 in those years. Mickey used the potential of that great engine design to good advantage- by 1964 he held 146 national/international speed records (if I counted right), all but a couple of them with Pontiac power.
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Anybody else on this planet campaign a M/T hemi Pontiac for eleven seasons?
... or has built a
record breaking DOHC hemi four cylinder Pontiac?
... or has driven a couple laps of Nuerburgring with Tri-Power Pontiac power?(back in 1967)
... or has a Pontiac born the same year as Jim Wangers? (1926}
