[Baron Von Zeppelin]

Thanks for all the great info Rocky .

[napster]

Rocky

Great update. It is a shame Pontiac crushed that car. Do you know if it was one of the VIN #'s listed in Pete McCarthy's book?

I tried to get in the horsepower range you wrote with a 496 with cast iron SD heads. Fell far short of those numbers since the heads had a bad port job prior to my purchase and maybe a little under cammed.

Thanks,

Jim

[Baron Von Zeppelin]

The gold shaker may have been a flapper version , and the other perhaps a fully opened model for testing potential performance increases.
Just an additional thought

Would be great if pics of the red car and the black car surface someday too.

Supposing the inner metal rear body panel would have been slotted/drilled/cut/modified to go along with the venting holes in the fiberglass outer panel. Or the vents next to tail lights would have been useless.

Too used and modified to sell it out to Joe Public
But it would sure be extremely valuable if an insider had managed to tip their hat in time.
Not sure whether its Ram IV Inception would be worth more restored, or its test car configuration ?

[bird72]

"The Fabulous Firebird" (Michael Lamm) Has this car on P123. It has the Spyders front and rear in that shot.

Captioned:
"Herb Adams, as the head of Pontiac's special Projects adjunct, put together a raceable Trans Am in 1973, complete with SD-455, special wheels, and quick-fill fuel tank.

[jerry455]

It is too bad that it could not have been saved. That is the kind of car that belongs in the GM Heritage Museum. Early in the 90's, when Cadillac was scrapping old development and race support vehicles at their Clark Street Engineering Bldg., employees were hiding them in all kinds of places. Later, Cadillac had a museum at Mound road and 12 mile road in Warren Michigan, where they had a lot of these old cars on display. They are now with the other Heritage Center vehicles. GM has several hundred vehicles that are stored in several warehouses around the area.

[77 Canamman]

There was a lot of foolishness going on in this time frame-destroying such a car. I know, back then it was just another car. Even without the mule pedigree, this was a RAIV car!

Also, I think this was a very bittersweet time to work at Pontiac. Caserio was a fool who really could give a rats ass about performance. The government was out of control with the inane regulations. Pontiac was the best in this dark time, but with better leadership, it could have excelled.

[ponyakr]

"...You’ll see in one photo what appears to be other 1972 Pontiacs (possibly 1971?) near the starting line in the background..."

The car beside the track has to be either a '71 or '72 GP. The grill has the unmistakable appearance of a "cross" in it.

The pic of the car on the track is distorted. But, it MAY be a '73 GP. Or, might be same year as the other car. Might be a big car, with 4 headlights. I can't tell. Can any of ya'll ?

[keith k]

Originally Posted by Rocky Rotella

This car has intrigued me for years and I have been following the history of this car very closely for some time. I can say with absolute certainty that it was indeed a test bed for Pontiac’s SD-455. The car started life a R/A IV-powered ’70 Trans Am in Polar White. Pontiac’s Special Projects group began modifying it in an attempt to create Pontiac’s version of a Mark Donahue Javelin. It was painted gold, received body and interior modifications, and had various engines underhood during Super Duty development—including a SD-366.

I love this picture of it.
It's on the track at Waterford Hills Raceway just north of Pontiac, MI. Neat to see what the track looked like "back in the old days", too.

[Rocky Rotella]

Originally Posted by napster

Rocky

Great update. It is a shame Pontiac crushed that car. Do you know if it was one of the VIN #'s listed in Pete McCarthy's book?

Unfortunately, I don't have that answer, but I'm pretty certain that it wasn't a production vehicle. I'd guess that it was an engineering mule or pilot vehicle used for press events.

[ponyakr]

Here's some more stuff I found.

https://www.yenko.net/forum/showpost...3&postcount=15

[Rocky Rotella]

Originally Posted by ponyakr

"...You’ll see in one photo what appears to be other 1972 Pontiacs (possibly 1971?) near the starting line in the background..."

The car beside the track has to be either a '71 or '72 GP. The grill has the unmistakable appearance of a "cross" in it.

The pic of the car on the track is distorted. But, it MAY be a '73 GP. Or, might be same year as the other car. Might be a big car, with 4 headlights. I can't tell. Can any of ya'll ?

It's hard to tell, but I think we're looking at a 71-72 GP at the starting line and 71-72 full-size station wagon just off to the right.

[camerjeff]

Rocky I agree that it is a 71-72 GP on the starting Line, (probably a 72) and the wagon is a 72 as it does not have the grill extensions under the headlights that the 71's have.

Great thread, Thanks to everyone that added to it.

[necdb3]

Originally Posted by ponyakr

Here's some more stuff I found.

https://www.yenko.net/forum/showpost...3&postcount=15

Not that it confirms anything but in those pictures, It looks like 1970 exhaust tips.

[Douglas Willinger]

What cylinder heads were used on the SD 366?

If they used the SD 455 heads with the 11 cc chambers, they would have required domed pistons for any sort of decent compression ratio.

Did the SD 366 thus use the same SD 455 heads, or a smaller chamber version perhaps with a different casting number?

Originally Posted by Rocky Rotella

This car has intrigued me for years and I have been following the history of this car very closely for some time. I can say with absolute certainty that it was indeed a test bed for Pontiac’s SD-455. The car started life a R/A IV-powered ’70 Trans Am in Polar White. Pontiac’s Special Projects group began modifying it in an attempt to create Pontiac’s version of a Mark Donahue Javelin. It was painted gold, received body and interior modifications, and had various engines underhood during Super Duty development—including a SD-366.

Here’s what I wrote about it in my Definitive Firebird book:


Those present at Pontiac’s long-lead press preview in June 1972 seem to agree that there was a gold Trans Am was equipped with the 366-ci race engine that day. In a recent discussion with Herb Adams, he confirmed that the car was a rolling test bed for the SD-455 program and that several variations of that engine were installed during its tenure as an engineering mule. “We had a modified SD-455 in it for a while and blew it up during testing. We just took it down to the engineering garage and had the mechanics drop in another modified SD-455 and off we went. It was that easy back then!

Special Projects engineer Dan Hardin was intimately involved with assembling the vehicle. “The car was originally built as a proposal for a specialty model of the Firebird Trans Am Firebird, maybe even a Jerry Titus signature edition like the Mark Donohue Javelin,” he explained. “The base car was a 1970 Trans Am with the Ram Air IV and a 4-speed. I can’t recall its origin but we had access to press cars, engineering fleet cars, and mules for our proposals. The build started in 1970 after I returned from California where we were fine tuning the chassis on Jerry Titus’ 1970 race car at Willow Springs. We continued into 1971 and beyond as we were always changing things to keep the proposal cars fresh.”

The aftermarket wheels were produced by Motor Wheel Corporation. “They did OE work but was also were trying to diversify into the aftermarket. Its ‘Spyder’ wheel was a two-piece design that contained an aluminum center and chromed-steel rim that could be produced in a variety of rim widths and offsets to fit just about any car. We used 15 x 8-inch units for this project and flared the rear wheel wells much like Titus did on his race car.”
Hardin recalled front racing seats as part of the original build. “They were aftermarket blow-molded plastic and we ordered the optional covers. The car was equipped with racing belts and a tubular roll bar. We stripped most of the interior out to reduce weight and emulate the look of a real race car. At one point we explored mounting the spare tire in the back seat area, but getting it in and out with the roll bar proved almost impossible.”

In a letter Herb Adams penned during the late-1970s, he wrote about a weekend trip to North Carolina he made in the gold Trans Am with Tom Nell. They regularly traveled at speeds in excess of 100 mph when conditions allowed. “The car was one we used to test the SD-455,” he wrote. “I remember thinking ‘This is what it must feel like driving a Ferrari,’ because I hadn’t driven one at that point. I promised the car to John Schinella who was going to use it for some of his own design ideas, but they scrapped it without telling me.”



Since my Firebird book was published, I found a binder that Pontiac distributed to media outlets attending the 1972 Long Lead Press Preview. It contains details on all the vehicles that Pontiac had there—both stock and engineering mules. The Trans Ams Pontiac had there that day included black example with a production SD-455, a red example with a SD-366, and the gold Trans Am, which was described as “special offroad package” and an “offroad Super Duty 455.”

I’m certain the “offroad SD-455” was the high-compression example generating 575-600 hp that Pontiac engineering was so proud of. It was on hand to demonstrate the SD-455’s incredible potential. Joe Oldham told me that he remembered driving the Super Duty-powered Trans Am and said the high-compression version was unreal. He said his experience with the SD-455 test cars at the 1972 Press Preview is what led him to recommend the 1973 GTO with SD-455 as Cars Magazine’s car-of-the-year award.

In looking at the photos pontyakr posted, we clearly Herb Adams driving. You’ll see in one photo what appears to be other 1972 Pontiacs (possibly 1971?) near the starting line in the background. That suggests it may have been some sort of arranged press event. While I can’t explain why it wears a black hood scoop in some photos and body color in others, its possible that Pontiac may have attempted to make the shaker looked more pronounced. Maybe something like the argent or black colors MOPAR used on its shakers.

Regardless, what a time it must’ve been to work at Pontiac!

[Rocky Rotella]

Originally Posted by Douglas Willinger

What cylinder heads were used on the SD 366?

If they used the SD 455 heads with the 11 cc chambers, they would have required domed pistons for any sort of decent compression ratio.

Did the SD 366 thus use the same SD 455 heads, or a smaller chamber version perhaps with a different casting number?

Unfortunately, I don’t know if Pontiac ever assigned a part number to the SD-366 head, but a DS (developmental series) number would have been assigned by engineering if R&D samples were run. It’s certainly possible that some small-ish chamber castings were produced for testing.

What I do know is that when Herb Adams entered his ’73 Grand Am into NASCAR competition (and was booted at Daytona), he ran 1970 Ram Air IV number-614 heads on its 366. I don’t know if they as-cast or were ported, however.

[Rocky Rotella]

Concerning the black ’72 Trans Am at the 1972 Long Lead Press Preview, the documents I have from even shows it was equipped with a “production SD-455” and automatic transmission. I can confirm from other details in the listing that it indeed the car below (taken from Marty Schorr’s book).

I also believe that it was this car that Skip McCully drove as an engineering vehicle and then took it cross-country to the Desert Proving Grounds for durability and economy testing of the SD-455. Unfortunately, I have no additional info as it its lineage.