[KEN CROCIE]

Did I miss it?? No comments on the original GTO--the SIXTY TWO Le Mans that was homogolated with the FAI with 389 engine?
Was it possible the maual steering car had the 20:1 box and at the time considered more desireable for a road course?

[Tom Vaught]

You ask TOO MANY GOOD questions, Mr Crocie! (:>)

Tom Vaught

[Tenney]

Great stuff, Keith - thanks for sharing!

[John V.]

Ken, the Blue car DID have the Special Equipment Option Sales Code 612 Rally Handling Kit, a package that included the Quick Ratio 20:1 Manual Steering Box.

In the '64 article, C&D (presumably Davis' and/or Jerome's opinion) comments that this still "wasn't fast enough" and they preferred the Power Steering which the Red car (the back-up car) was equipped with.

There are a number of factual errors in the C&D article. For example, the car was claimed to have the "standard GTO suspension". Presumably to imply standard Springs & Shocks. As I have related numerous times, there were NO optional Spring choices for the GTO.

But in '64, for a non-GTO, the Rally Handling Kit option included HD Shocks, HD Springs, larger stabilizer bar, and the Quick Ratio Manual Steering Box. With the GTO option, the base GTO already provided the larger stabilizer bar and the heaviest Springs possible, but you DID get the same HD Shocks that you would have gotten if you ordered the Regular Production option Sales Code 621 Heavy Duty Springs & Shocks. So C&D was mistaken to state the Blue Car got the "standard GTO suspension".

The Q.R. box was certainly better on the road course than the standard way slow manual box. But based on the opinion stated in the article, regardless of any preconceived notion, I get the sense the P.S. car was preferred in actual testing.

And if Wangers consciously thought to specify one car for acceleration testing and one for better handling, it is hard to imagine why he specified the Red car with PS and 3.23 gears if he intended THAT car for acceleration testing.

Since it was claimed to have been brought along as a "back-up", maybe it was not expected to be involved for any testing unless necessary and was run only because it was there and they had the opportunity.

I just wish Davis and Jerome were available to relate their own recollections of the actual testing.

I know NOTHING about a '62 Lemans homologated with the FIA. Please elaborate. I do not know the homologation rules that would have been in effect at the time, but something like 500 cars had to be produced, no? Are you suggesting Pontiac actually produced a large quantity of 389 equipped '62 Lemans' that were professionally raced? I'd like to know more for sure.

[KEN CROCIE]

Some time ago, i came across an article in one of the mags. that showed the FIA papers for the 62. Don't know where it is now-but I have it somewhere. Possibly it was the application, or the conditional approval. I any case, my point was that the idea was not new and engineering (as well as guys on the street) new it was an easy swap. and not something dreamed up for the 64 model year. Any help from the folks that keep the mag. collection organized would be helpfull. As far as 500 cars, did Ferrari produce 500 GTOs

[John V.]

Ken, good question. I recall reading once that Ferrari got around the rules by claiming the GTO was simply a variant of the 250GT, a model that apparently was already homologated for GT class racing. However, I also found this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_250_GTO

that claims 100 examples were required for GT class racing and Ferrari skirted the rules by claiming production of GTOs that didn't actually exist and by numbering the chassis' out of sequence so as to appear to indicate more built than actually were. Only 39 GTOs were actually produced in total between '62 & '64.

I have also recognized (in this thread I think) that one would have had to have been brain dead not to realize a 389 would readily adapt to a chassis that accommodated the 326.

But IIRC, Pontiac did not install their own V8 into the Tempest chassis until '63 (and at that, it was the 337 CID configuration, only called a 326 to pass Corp. muster).

I'm certain PMD Engineering would have been developing the Tempest chassis during the '62 Model Year for the planned '63 small displacement Pontiac V8 offering.

It just seems they would have been getting ahead of themselves to pursue FIA homologation for the Tempest with 389 in '62.

Of course, we know they actually built a small handful of '63 Tempests with the 421SD engines. So contemplating a '62 389 Tempest would not have been out of the question.

I've just never come across that story before.

I hope somebody can dig up more of the story. Perhaps the topic needs to be pursued in the '61-'63 Tempest Forum?

As far as what guys on the street knew, one can easily suppose that if the GTO option had not been offered, quite a few '64 Lemans' would have gotten a transplanted 389 or 421 anyway. No question, lots of folks inside and outside PMD would have understood what an easy swap this would be. One thing that might have thwarted them a bit, had the factory not planned for it, in '64 the big car was still using the bellhousing mounted starter and Borg Warner 4 speed. The A body used the block mounted starter and the Muncie 4 speed. Since the A body was planned to receive the 389, the '64 389 blocks were designed to accept the block mounted starter even though the vast majority went into big Pontiacs. Had they not had that accommodation, the swap might have been a little more complicated I suppose.

[Geeto-Tiger]

What ever happened to Bill Collins? I remember going to his home (a couple miles from me) and he showed me his Firebird 'Banshee' that he had sitting in his garage. Interesting guy.

[John V.]

I was going to comment what I knew about Collins' history, but then found this. Pretty well covers it.

http://www.dmctalk.com/showthread.php?t=8692

Toward the end, he lists the cars he would like to put in his garage to represent a "career retrospective". Interesting that he doesn't include the '64 GTO on the list.

He sold the Banshee to Bortz in the late '80s.

[KEN CROCIE]

I actually met Bill in a bar in Hermosa Beach. I had just finished my 64 and he came out to have a look. His first comment was "not too original is it ?" He noticed the Cibie headlights and the 16" wheels with 4 wheel disc brakes.