[HotCat_63]

Pontiac Jack I second that, whats up with those cylinder heads??? are those early prototype round ports?

Did anyone else notice that. Just when I thought I've seen or heard about everything Pontiac exotic I stumble across this picture.

[Jack Gifford]

I guess it's possible that it has the plates that Mickey used to sell for the exhaust face of Pontiac heads. But the whole point of those plates was to allow milling the exhaust side of the heads to remove some of the nasty U-bend in the ports. The heads in the photo don't appear to be milled, though?

[GonicGM]

They're obviously iron heads based on the rust on the ehaust ports. As Jack states, the ports don't appear milled and the the casting does not appear to taper in towards the outlet as D-ports do. Is it possible that these are 2" tube? Is it even possible to butt two round pipes (1.75-2.00) together and catch the outer bolt holes on a D-port flange? Without an adapter plate that is ( which does not appear to be present). Even the old SBC guys would run header adapter plates to run big tubes even with the existing spread on the center SBC ports.

[Brian Baker]

Look closer at that Mickey pic...the spark plug holes appear to be angled. The plot thickens!

[GonicGM]

Definitely angle plug, good catch Brian!

[Brian Baker]

No doubt they are likely a "custom SD" head that were designed just for Mickey, or he actually requested Pontiac to cast them up in that fashion. There was a lot of interesting stuff going on with the SD program of the early 60's, some of it "under the radar". I imagine the Heck's or perhaps Tom Slauch can shed more light on what these heads were. Looking at that picture, I'd guess it was shot in '60 or '61.

[poison heart]

Was Mickey Thompson a Pontiac guy of just involved in this SD program? Seems like someone like Mickey Thompson would have made Pontiacs more popular if he was racing them.

[Brian Baker]

Originally Posted by poison heart

Was Mickey Thompson a Pontiac guy of just involved in this SD program? Seems like someone like Mickey Thompson would have made Pontiacs more popular if he was racing them.

Are you kidding me? How old are you? 17? Mickey Thompson was racing Pontiacs before anybody had ever heard of Arnie Beswick. He did not work for Pontiac, he was a privateer. He had two cars he raced early on at Bonneville, the Challenger I (which is currently on display at Don Garlits' museum in Ocala, FL) and the Challenger II streamliner (which was powered by 4 supercharged Pontiac engines and the first to record a speed of over 400 MPH on the salt flats). He also raced many a dragster in the 1/4 mile. He and Chrisman beat Don Garlits at Indy in '62 with a blown Hemi-head Pontiac (Hemi heads that were of his own design, "borrowed" from the 392 Hemi). Later on he had a series of different funny cars, but by then they were either Ford SOHC or Chrysler Hemi powered. Starting in 1973 he campaigned 3 seperate '73 Grand Am bodied funny cars, one of them driven by none other than Dale Pulde. He developed one of the largest aftermarket companies of its time that supplied "dress-up" parts. Ever heard of Mickey Thompson tires? They've been used on many a winning off road baja racers and drag racers. I could go on and on.

[poison heart]

I know Mickey Thompson tires and have seen the hemi heads and other old school parts but I didn't know he was into Pontiacs. As much as I wish I was alive back then, I wasn't. I'm 21 I was born in the 80s, give me a break...

[Brian Baker]

Originally Posted by poison heart

I know Mickey Thompson tires and have seen the hemi heads and other old school parts but I didn't know he was into Pontiacs. As much as I wish I was alive back then, I wasn't. I'm 21 I was born in the 80s, give me a break...

OK, that explains it...you're young. Please accept my apology for seeming to be a little rough on you. I don't know what Mickey got his start with, but he was very prominent with racing Pontiacs in the late 50's and early 60's. He's set many records with them and his Challenger II clocking 406-MPH at Bonneville stood for a long long time before anyone topped it. Google him and search the 'net, there is so much info out there to learn about him. He was a pioneer in the automotive community, right up to the day he was murdered.

[Brian Baker]

Mickey's "U.S. Marines" '73 Grand Am top fuel funny car, driven by Bob Pickett.

[Brian Baker]

Mickey's '73 "Revelleader" Grand Am. The body for this car still exists today, but is no longer sitting on its original chassis...it's sitting on the chassis of an earlier Maverick bodied car Mickey campaigned in '70-'71. His daughter owns it and has no intention of selling...or restoring.

[billygoatii]

Brian, do you have a pic of the Mickey's other GrandAm funny car?

[Brian Baker]

Super rare shot of one of Mickey's Grand Am's before it got shot with paint. This is probably the only race it made it to in primer before being painted, and given Mickey's presence in the racing community, was a rather odd site to see "naked". This one would eventually become another "Revelleader" car and be painted a candy red color. It was driven by Dale Pulde (who is the young skinny fellow with the rags in his hands on the far right in the shot). Dale's career racing funny cars started in the 60's at a very very young age. Before driving the Grand Am, he also pilotted a Pinto funny car for Mickey. They were short wheelbased and very ill handling and as such, didn't last long before racers moved onto something else. There was also a 4th Grand Am, which was also a "Revelleader" car and was painted black. All 4 of these cars were campaigned from '73 through '75.

[Brian Baker]

Originally Posted by billygoatii

Brian, do you have a pic of the Mickey's other GrandAm funny car?

I've got shots of all 4 of them buried in my computer somewhere. I even have outline sketches that show the difference in profiles of the bodies, as I believe the yellow and red one were "1st gen" Grand Am's and the black one and the Marine car were "2nd gen" and had slightly different nose angles and rooflines. To my knowledge only the yellow body is survived. There is only one other Grand Am funny car survivor that I know of, and it is owned and raced by Dave Sano here on the east coast. Dave's "Screamin' Insanity" Grand Am to me is one of the most beautiful funny car bodies to ever have color laid on it.

[dedsleds]

[Brian Baker]

Hopefully this will load...the outline sketch showing the difference in bodies.

[poison heart]

No big deal Brian. At least I'm not on a Chevy forum

[Steve Barcak]

Poison Heart-
I think you may be interested in some Pontiac history here-
While I was not around at that time, I have studied and researched this subject extensively. Some of the senior gents here may wish to add as they were there...

Thompsons involvement with Pontiac went from 1959 ( possibly late '58) until Jan '63.
I say that because I have never seen or heard of anything with Thompson and '58 Pontiacs though he may have been involved in '58 for the '59 models. Prior to that, he was well known as a hot rodder, innovator and track manager. As an example, he is recognized as the first man to have a 'slingshot' dragster ( putting the driver behind the rear axle for better weight transfer and allowing better control because of position). Also, when the very famous LIONS drag strip in Long Beach opened in '55, Mickey was the track manager as well as a racer. I do not remember how long he managed Lions, I think about 5 years.
Prior to his involvement with Pontiac he ran several types of cars in drags and bonneville and probably more. he had a twin engine Hemi bonneville car around '56-'57.

Back at that time many automotive manufactures built and ran specially prepped cars for racing to promote sales. This included Nascar racing on the Daytona beaches ( this was prior to the super speedways), drags, land speed, endurance, etc. Pontiac was known as a dull but, reliable old mans car when Semon 'Bunkie' Knudson took over control at Pontiac in the summer of '56. He changed the direction of Pontiac that, generally, remains to this day.
Bunkie and Mickey were friends and he had a lot of respect for Mickey. At this time, M/T enterprises became the primary performance outlet for the performance/racing section of Pontiac. They worked closely together for those few years developing and testing performance and racing parts for Pontiac. Mickey was contracted by Pontiac and much money flowed ( my understanding is the amount was in the millions of $$) in his direction for racing and development. That was a period in Pontiac performance history that will never be equalled. At that time, Pontiac practially owned NASCAR winning well over half of all the races over all the over makes (Ford, Merc, chev, Dodge, Plymouth, etc ) COMBINED. By this time "59-'63, there were Nascar superspeedways. Pontiac and M/T also went for the absolute land speed record and clocked a 406 mph pass in 1960 using 4 blown Pontiac engines. M/T also smashed many standing kilometer and mile speed records with Pontiacs.
This wonderful relationship (Pontiac and M/T) lasted until Jan 1963 when General Motors corporation officially banned Pontiac from any and all racing involvement. This not only included building and designing parts and offering complete race cars ( SD Catalinas and Tempests) but, any involvent with racing at all, including contracting with the aftermarket including Thompson. The $$$ faucet was literally closed overnight. That was the end of involvement and all development or racing parts, offically anyway. Thompson did not remain loyal to Pontiac, he was a business man and went with Ford and stayed there.
There is more Pontiac history info on my site, with pictures, if interested and I encourage you to go there and read a bit. Look up 'history' page.
I hope this helps you understand why M/T was involved with racing Pontiacs and why it stopped.
Note, you will never hear of a factory 1964 Pontiac Race car or related engines or parts. Pontiac had enough sharp enterprising people to steer this performance 'roll' so to speak and restruture their direction and changed marketing direction to build and advertise cars from racing to high performance street (enter GTO) and it stayed that way until the end of the era.
as a side note- Arnie Beswick started racing Pontiacs just before M/T in 1958 and continued to race them after the 'ban' in '63 until 1972. This 'underdog' reputation contributed greatly to his popularity by staying with Pontiac while most all others abandoned and went to Ford and Chrysler who continued officially racing through the '60s.
The Jan '63 racing ban officially effected all GM divisions though chevy got their way for the most part. After Jan '63 the only teams that had official racing was Ford, Merc, Dodge and Plymouth. that is why you may hear of 'factory" race cars after '63....they were only Fomoco and Mopar.

[poison heart]

That's great stuff. Did Pontiac get back into the factory racing stuff in the '60s? I read about the "swiss cheese cars." Were those factory or aftermarket? What year were those?