[Dr. Eric M. Schiffer]

If you have been to any of the Drag Strip events Jim has been to over the years, you would know that Jim has not just brung a Pontiac. For years it had been the '74 Red T/A and the '78 white Monticarlo called "PontiCarlo". For years both cars ran a 440 cid engine. Jim even had a Chevy sububan that was converted from a light blue to a black and gold truck with a 455 cid with round port heads and a shaker hood. We used called it the Bandit. (after approx 300,000 mile the frame was very weak and the truck was sold)

In 1997 we showed up to Norwalk with three cars. Ed Dufrene driving the '74 red T/A that was running in the mid to high 9's. Robert Johnson driving the PontiCarlo running in the low to mid 10's and me with a LT-4 6 speed Firehawk SLP wanted Jim to test out. I ran what our group felt was a disappointing but consistant 13.99 while most of the stock LT-1 Firehawks ran 14.40's and slower. Ed broke the drive shaft of the red T/A during an exhibition run against the Bag Boys 8 second '63 Tempest Wagon. I broke the shifter in the fourth round of the street class after being thrown out of the Firehawk groups exhibiton rounds as being a ringer, a professional driver, out of the Wangers camp....LOL These Firehawk guys take themsleves much too seriously.....

Jim has had a......shall we say a real world street testing program for years. Jim, even though he took Dick Jess with him as the General mgr and opened Jim Wangers Chevrolet in Wisconsin he never really broke ties with the McMannis, John and Adams advertizing agency. Jim did have several limited products coming out of his dealership until the Federal Government had a crack down on dealerships building hot rods. Jim was put out as an example by the government. Jim got out of the dealership bussiness and moved perminately back to Detroit.

Jim Picked up where he left off by making some of the cars he had stored way into street terriors. He ordered a '75 Monza built for California. The California built cars had 350's while the rest of the country got 305's.

He had a driver named Fred Foreman who suggested an engine builder, Duncan Michael and his brother Gordon Michael. Duncan had worked with some of the Detroit areas best. Duncin worked with Bob Schafer build the engines that had gone into John Greenwoods corvettes. Bob was a genius with head porting and flow. You will see Bob Schafer's name on many Chevrolets of the day as the engine builder or head porter. The location of Bob Schafer's shop on Thunderbird in Troy, was like "hot rod" row in it's day. You had Richard Maskin with his Dart Heads, Jim Kinsler with his fuel injection systems, Jim Cornell engine building machine and balanceing shop, John Greenwood, and a company that specialized in nitrous oxide systems and many more automotive shops.

The Monza became the go to car if any one got by Jim's '74 red T/A or the little faster '77 Silver T/A. The Monza was in several magazines in the day. "Fast" Freddie Foreman calculated the Monza in it's peak was a very low 9 second high 8 second car with it's small block. Duncan and Fred continually up graded the car.

Jim also worked with Chrysler Marketing in the '80's on the Omni and Charger coined the name GLH..."Goes Like Hell". Jim thought that the supercharged 2.2 was going to be the next super car and built up a '86-87 Chrysler Charger. It never amounted to much. The car was scraped.

Jim also had a sence of humor. Jim had two white '77-78 Monticarlos. Both with a formal roof cap extensions built by a company he owned, Evan's Industies. One Monti was a small block Chevy powered and Nitrous and ran mid 10's. The Chevy powered one was gutted and had a '69 Camaro style cowl induction hood. After years being on the street of Detroit Jim took it to California and sold it to the current "PontiCarlo" driver Robert Johnson.

The other one was/is a Pontiac powered Monti with a Trans Am shaker hood that is known as the "PontiCarlo". With Robert Johnson behind the wheel and Duncan Michael still building the cars engines that car runs in the 8's. This is Jim's real pride and joy. This car always had a rear license plate frame that says, "Don't Worry It's Only A Pontiac". This car stared out as a nice 12 second chase car on the motor and high 10's on the bottle with power windows, locks air conditioning, headlight covers.....loaded. There was always slick on the cars....

The current '66 Geeto Tiger is a nice novelty car that gives Jim the excuse to travel the country with spomsorship money. Butler engine, Year One etc.

Back in the day Jim Wangers' Street Race/Testing program consisted of....'75 red Monza, '77-78 white Monticarlo, '77-78 white "PontiCarlo", '74 red T/A, '77 silver T/A, '87 black Grand National with a Kenny Bell 3.8 turbo, '87 blue Buick T-Type Skylark with a 4.2 liter block and turbo that Duncan Michael and Bob Schafer built. Both Buicks ran in the mid to low 12's.

Bob Schafer went out to California to build Jim's white Chevy Berreta into a high performance nitrous powered car.

In July 1997 my wife and I drove two ealy production 1998 Chevy's from Detroit to Vista, California for testing at Jim's company. Jim was going to meet us there when he came back from a presentation in Georgia. We droped off the Chevy's at Jim's company AMCI and drove off with Jim's modified '96 Impala SS to pick Jim up at LAX. That was Jim's daily driver then. Since Jim has had a red Grand Prix GTX and now drives a modified 8 cyl Grand Prix GTP.

One by one the cars made it out to California. red '74 T/A. '67 Firebird 400, '69 T/A, '79 T/A and '89 T/A. Then the Monti's '74 T/A, blue T-Type.
The silver '77 T/A made it's way to Nick Codova, one of Jim's drivers earlier. The '75 red Monza ended up with Ed Dufrene in Florida. About 5-6 years ago the '87 black Grand National went out there. Jim's '69 Detroit based Judge left here last year.

Jim also owns a right hand drive Callaway Holden Commodore.

In approx. January 2004 I picked up Jim's new red GTO and broke it in hard for the first 500 miles then shipped that car out to California about a month later.

To bad I'm not very good at figuring out how to down load some of the old pictures insde Jim's shop. The shop was in the back of Jim's Detroit/Warren offices back then.

Does this help?