[John V.]

Just flipped thru the (in)famous '64 GTO test article and couple things jumped out for me.

Since the article is in B&W, it was never very obvious to me whether the pix in the article were of the Wangers Red car or the long lost Blue car.

The Red car made a name for itself on the street in Detroit after the testing.

But it was clearly the Blue car that the C&D staffers fell in love with, consequently the one that I always felt was most significant.

C&D put over 3000 miles on the Blue car, much of it by Managing Editor John Jerome when he drove with his wife & 3 kids from NYC to Daytona for the performance testing. The article notes that this car had the 20:1 Quick Ratio manual steering option and metallic brake linings.

The Red car had Power Steering and standard content manual brakes. It also was equipped with the door mounted outside LH mirror option.

A pic on the Contents page shows plate no. HJ-4471, this car lacks an outside mirror option, IMO must be the Blue car. An interior shot on pg. 28 shows pedal trim, indicative of Power Brakes. They aren't noted anywhere else in the article, but power brakes were recommended with the metallic linings. The photo could be a "stock" photo, but if it is either car, it would most likely be the Blue car and optioned with Power Brakes.

That would make the engine shot on pg. 30 the Red car since it shows PS & no power brake booster. The top pic on pg. 27 shows the outside mirror, so has to be the Red car.

The lower pic same page has the HJ-4471 tag, likely the Blue car. The pic of the tail end on pg. 25, same tag, likely the Blue car. The exterior photos on pgs. 28 & 29 are also almost certainly all of the Blue car (I seem to recall it is reportedly John Jerome's wife in those pix).

IMO, everything about the article says to me that the Blue car was the star attraction of the article and test.

Then I turned my attention to the separate article beginning on pg. 70, written by Roger Proulx. The story of how he went drag racing at Jim Wangers invite in a GTO they had "just finished tuning" at Royal. It was October, prior to the testing at Daytona.

Proulx describes the car in pretty good detail and it seems it must be the very same Blue car, 20:1 Quick Ratio manual steering and all.

One thing that has always bugged me about the C&D write-ups, both stories claim the car was equipped with the close ratio 4 spd. The Proulx article specifically mentions it being a Muncie close ratio. But the ratios are wrong for a Muncie close ratio. And the close ratio did not become available in the GTO until well after these cars were built.

So I always have believed the info came from Wangers and he was simply mistaken. And probably his confusion has had something to do with the long held but erroneous belief that the code 9 trans was a close ratio.

That aside, there has always been the debate as whether one or both cars at Daytona were equipped with the 421. A good many years ago, Wangers finally "came clean" and admitted to the 421 in the Red car. But there still has been this gnawing doubt in my mind. If the Blue car was 389 equipped, would C&D have been so blown away by its performance? The Red car Manifest shows that Wangers special ordered 3.23 gears for it (3.55 having been standard content with the Tri-Power option until mid year). Whether it also had a 421 at Daytona is almost immaterial. Given the hoped for match racing against a Ferrari GTO, I have always believed Wangers wanted the 3.23 gears for a higher top end speed. The Blue car's forte with the 3.90 gears would be on the drag strip.

And now contempating the results that Proulx obtained, I wonder if anybody can comment about the likelihood that the Blue car almost certainly had a 421 transplant.

Here are his results from his day at "Vets Ville Dragway" in Toledo:

Practice Runs
[email protected]
13.92@106
13.65@108
[email protected]

1st heat against a 421/370HP Catalina
[email protected] (the Cat went up in tire smoke did a [email protected]

2nd heat against a '62 Galaxie 406CID, 4.86 rear, etc.
Proulx made all kinds of mistakes, including per Wangers, unlocking the rear when he had to back up and because he didn't spin the tires again, didn't lock it up again (does that make any sense for a cone type locking diff?)
[email protected] (caught napping and beaten by the Ford's [email protected])

Now maybe I'm nuts, but do those times seem realistic for a '64 389 (on cheater slicks) even for a Royal Bobcat prepped GTO?

At Daytona, they claimed a 12.8@112 on slicks, a best of 13.1@115 on the stock red lines. Those were unbelievable enough but variously attributed to quick stopwatches or other uncontrolled factors.

But Proulx obtained his times as an apparent drag racing neophyte at an actual track, not by stopwatch.

Could a '64 GTO be that quick with same set-up and a 389? Or should Proulx times have made it obvious the Blue car was 421 powered?