Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith Seymore
The beginning of the end....
For another perspective, Dad was inside the Pontiac Engineering building some time after the news came down. There was a wire bin/fenced in area where they kept all of the special "one off" engineering parts. Dad was walking throught the building one day and there was a guy in that area scrapping all of those parts.
Dad said "...what are you doing?!?"
Guy: "...they said get rid of all this."
Dad: "Can I take some out?"
Guy: "Take what you want, but it will all be gone by the end of the day".
So - Dad loaded up the trunk of his Lemans with everything he could grab in one trip. I recall he said that there were two blocks, a couple sets of cylinder heads, at least one tripower and at least one Armasteel crank - all marked with red paint as "scrap".
There was a little dip in the driveway where the cars went through the Security gate - Dad said the back bumper of the Lemans drug the pavement in that spot on his way out!
K
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Your dad was lucky that he got things out of the factory as they were getting thrown out. Royal cleaned out their old stuff too. John Politizer and Brian Ballish said they throw out tons of heads intakes etc.in to a dumpster. The newer stuff they had to pull for pick up and could not take anything. They lined it on the floor for pick up to go back to engineering or on to George Delorean's Leader Automotive.
Unlike when everything was in full swing and the guys at Royal, Stan Long and Packer just headed over to engineering and picked out as many items and anything they needed. The special fabricated stuff no longer was made for them.
The back door slamed shut! With only a breif peek now and then. Like the stuff used on the Black Bird. Some of which had been abandoned projects while other stuff was in particial development.
Doug Nash, helped the Pontiac guys for a while too. There is a 455 X engineering block with ram air IV heads and a Doug Nash PMD engineering X Tunnel ram dual quad set up on it. Last time I saw the engine it was in Flushing, MI along with a '68 GTO Royal Bobcat, a '73 SD455 Brewster green T/A. That however was approx. 1989