[poison heart]

Found these on http://www.vaautoracing.org/Gallery2.html


Looks like a reverse cooled tri power Pontiac



Looking through the gallery I saw a '64 date and a '65 date. Pretty cool stuff

[triathlonx13]

Originally Posted by poison heart

Found these on http://www.vaautoracing.org/Gallery2.html


Looks like a reverse cooled tri power Pontiac



Looking through the gallery I saw a '64 date and a '65 date. Pretty cool stuff

Wow - Love those old photos !

.

[poison heart]

I wish there was another picture of that car that pontiac motor is in

[poison heart]

Looks like a 348 or 409 powered 28/29 model A. WOW I bet that thing hauled ass


Nailhead powered '32?


Hemi powered 30/31

[Jack Gifford]

Just read coverage of the 1958 Pikes Peak Hill Climb (36th annual running!). The picture is of Bob Korf taking second place in stock class with his '57 Pontiac. Stock class was won by Nick Sanborn Jr. in his '58 Pontiac. They beat out all three of the 348-powered cars entered by Chevrolet!

The caption under a "champ" car picture: "Potent Pontiac V8 powered the John Zink entry driven by Louie Unser. Car was hard to control but flew down the straighaways." Louie did have the quickest qualifying time, but finished fourth in the race.

[jess5780]

made a phone call today and found the history on the nemesis gto on page 36
this car was fred borcherdts it was rockys goat from rock hill pontiac in newark del.
it was a racecar its entire life. jerry stealy purchased the car from them changed the name to nemesis it held the E/S national record several times the last being at 11.93 and was set at dallas texas. the car was totaled when a car crossed the centerline and hit the wheels and fenders of the trailer down by eddyville iowa. the only remaining part is a door and that is in jeff stealys shop. sad ending to a great car.
as a side note the pontiac wagon on page 35 was also one of jerry stealys it was the car that replaced the gto and was an ahra superstocker the picture is when jerry heiser owned the car and ran it as a super/pro bracket car the car was also run as a super street 10.90 car and it always left with the front end that high or higher it is currently sitting in a garage in waterloo iowa as a rolling chassis the owner wants to put it on the street

[shiftydr]

Thanks Jess5780. I knew the local history of Rocky's Goat, Rockhill Pontiac was not far from my home. However, I didn't know how the car met it's fate. I had heard through a friend that it was destroyed in an accident but not sure if it was racing related or while being towed.
Thanks again, Shiftydr.

[Steve Barcak]

Steve

Hosting-
Thur-Sun April 8-11, 2010 12th annual Pontiac Heaven Phoenix www.pontiacheaven.org
Sunday April 11, 2010 8th annual Nostalgic Show & Go! Phoenix www.nostalgicshowandgo.org

[Brian Baker]

Steve, I presume that's one of the 4's that Mickey took to Indy in '62? What a treat it would be to locate the intake manifold for that today.

[poison heart]

Why did he like those 4 bangers so much?

[Steve Barcak]

Originally Posted by Brian Baker

Steve, I presume that's one of the 4's that Mickey took to Indy in '62? What a treat it would be to locate the intake manifold for that today.

I don't know if this one was there. Jack probably does. Found this on another board.

Steve


Hosting-
Thur-Sun April 8-11, 2010 12th annual Pontiac Heaven Phoenix www.pontiacheaven.org
Sunday April 11, 2010 8th annual Nostalgic Show & Go! Phoenix www.nostalgicshowandgo.org

[Steve Barcak]

Originally Posted by poison heart

Why did he like those 4 bangers so much?

During the time that the 4cyl Tempest was being manufacturered, Pontiac was officially racing. Mickey Thompson was Pontiacs primary paid aftermarket parts designer, manufacturer, promoter, racer, etc for Pontiac engines and automobiles pertaining to drag racing, land speed records, endurance, etc.
Pontiac also had its own paid group for the NASCAR wars during this time too.
This lasted until Jan 1963 when Pontiac was forbidden to race anymore, that included racing engine development, formal racing and having aftermarket paid hot rodders like M/T. This corporate edict was brought to Pontiac from GM headquarters and was the beginning of what I call "corporate nonsense".
more info on this here- http://pontiacheaven.org/about%20pontiac%20heaven.htm

After Jan 1963 only Ford, Mercury and Chrysler were officially racing (though chev was allowed to get away with some, Pontiac did not). After Jan 63, Pontiac had to redirect to street performance and not racing.

If the ban wouldn't have happened, Pontiac would have been an absolute leader in the HP wars of the 60s and we wouldn't be dicking with round port and tunnel port stuff and trying to play catch up as it ended up. We would have wild, high hp stuff like this Pontiac M/T HEMI (shown below from my collection) that made 760 hp on gas in 1962... and over 1,100 hp on nitro.



And much wilder stuff too like SOHC, DOHC, 3 valve per cyl, etc. Despite all the handicaps and restrictions after Jan 63, Pontiac held its own and still built great cars and great motors. Still, it could have been much better and they were so close.

Steve
Hosting-
Thur-Sun April 8-11, 2010 12th annual Pontiac Heaven Phoenix www.pontiacheaven.org
Sunday April 11, 2010 8th annual Nostalgic Show & Go! Phoenix www.nostalgicshowandgo.org

[Jack Gifford]

Originally Posted by Brian Baker

... I presume that's one of the 4's that Mickey took to Indy in '62?...

I don't think so- I didn't see it there (nor in '61 or '63). From what I've read by Mickey in his "Challenger" book, it seems that Attempt and Assault dragsters were intended more for national/international record attempts (such as his sessions at March AFB) than for general competition.

[Jack Gifford]

Originally Posted by poison heart

Why did he like those 4 bangers so much?

He didn't particularly favor four cylinder engines. He simply used Pontiacs as the basis for the wide variety of engine sizes he needed for various purposes during the '58 - '62 period. V8s of many displacements, 4-cyl, 2-cyl, whatever! The dyno session on the blown 2-cyl (94 c.i.?) was aborted at 5,000 RPM due to excessive vibration- but it still made 257 HP and earned him a couple of international records (FIM) at Bonneville!

[poison heart]

I see thanks

[wreckmastr]

[Bill Eveland]

Jack, interesting that a hill climber was prepared by John Zink. I knew he did nascar in 57 as well but never knew about the hill climber deal. I wonder if he used a similar engine set up to the nascar cars?

Here's was some info on the John Zink specials

http://starchief57.tripod.com/articles.htm#zin



.

Originally Posted by pontiac jack

Just read coverage of the 1958 Pikes Peak Hill Climb (36th annual running!). The picture is of Bob Korf taking second place in stock class with his '57 Pontiac. Stock class was won by Nick Sanborn Jr. in his '58 Pontiac. They beat out all three of the 348-powered cars entered by Chevrolet!

The caption under a "champ" car picture: "Potent Pontiac V8 powered the John Zink entry driven by Louie Unser. Car was hard to control but flew down the straighaways." Louie did have the quickest qualifying time, but finished fourth in the race.

[Scott M]

Dale Pulde, who teamed up with M/T much later as a driver, told me that Mickey was a businessman, pure and simple. He had no allegiance to Pontiac or anything else but the almighty dollar.

If some other car company had offered Mickey more money in the late 50s-early 60s, he'd have taken their deal in a heartbeat. Just so happens Pontiac had the bigger checkbook at the time.

At least that's how I heard it.

[Jack Gifford]

Originally Posted by Bill Eveland

... I wonder if he used a similar engine set up to the nascar cars?...

The article I quoted didn't have any more details about the Zink "champ" car or engine.

Thanks for the link- interesting stuff. I wish I could read the casting number of the head of that "late '56 Tri-Power" engine.

[Jack Gifford]

Originally Posted by Scott M

... If some other car company had offered Mickey more money in the late 50s-early 60s, he'd have taken their deal in a heartbeat...

I believe that's quite a crass over-simplification. No argument about Mickey being a businessman; but that simple statement ignores the fact that he was the "ultimate hotrodder", an impressive innovator, and truly loved motorsports [example: a magazine photo from about 1961 shows a spectator (Mickey Thompson) ripping his T-shirt off and tossing it to a driver to use to dry his distributor cap after drowning the engine in an off-road event water crossing!]. Another thing you're ignoring (since you weren't into hotrodding back then, I assume?) is that no engine was more desirable than the Pontiac V8 in those years. Mickey used the potential of that great engine design to good advantage- by 1964 he held 146 national/international speed records (if I counted right), all but a couple of them with Pontiac power.