Curtis Turner Smokey Yunick Chevelle

[W Humble]

FYI: I worked of-and-on as a lot-bot in our local Pontiac-Buick-GMC (and Rambler!) dealership, because the partners had houses across the street from ours, and one of thier kids was my of-and-on best friend in high school, c. 1959-63,   PMD was riding high at NASCAR, as well as NHRA in those days, and the dealer received a large faux-oil-painting of Fireball Roberts winning the '62 Daytona 500 race in his '62 Cataline, Smokey Yunick's #22 car.  Ken, my pal, somehow acquired it when we were roomies in J.C., and though I plied him with every inducement, the more I wanted the thing, the more he had to hang onto it!  It showed a '61 coming around the banking right behind him, so some of them were still competitive after the 421 SD debuted. 

Such hardware was readily available until '64, when GM Corporate suddenly withdrew from racing/autosports, period.   They were being investigated by Congress 9in their infinite partisan wisdom) at the time for their dominance of the domestic market -- Chevy was riding high, one division outselling all of FoMoCo put together! -- and the threat was a forced sale of Chevrolet as contributing to a monopoly in restraint of trade.  No kidding!  This was well before the Nader/Corvair scandals, etc.    The sad thing for GM marque partisans was that not only did they end factory support of racing teams, they shut off the supply of competition parts and technology to everyone (except for a few leaks like the new Chevy big block ("Mystery Mark IV V-8", 'Porcupine-head', 'rat motor' or BBC), and later the Pontiac GTO, etc.  But, when MoPar and Ford got seriously in the act, there was no GM challenge at all, whch left us GM guys bereft.  Yes, the hemi and various big Fords were potent, but without the biggest engineering staff in the world in the mix -- their victories were easily earned, after all.  Pontiac, Chevy, and even Oldsmobile had monstrous racing engines under test (32-valves, DOHC and SOHC, and sized upwards of 500 inches!  THAT would have been a race!  The big 455 Olds W-43 was on the cover of Hemmings Muscle Machines this month, and another mag (HRM?) had a Repco SOHC V-8 Pontiac commissioned for Trans-Am series last year, to show a few.

'What might have been...!"  Well, as a PMD buff, I would like to get my licks in!  So, I'd better get started on my #22 car, even if it's wrong!  Q: did those Robert's decals come back on the market?  Last time I checked, they were sold out.  I think I'll make my inaccurate modification a streetable racer, with Tri-Power and 8-lug Kelsey-Hayes wheels, etc.  I have 'my version' of a '63 SuperDuty 421 Tempest (or 'Powershift', as PMD Engineering called them) from '63, and a '61 Tempest "Monte Carlo' two-seat roadster show car with M/T GMC blown 195-in. slant four, and am building a '62 replica of my own LeMans ragtop.  Probably another '63, as coupe, also.  The 1961-63 Tempests never built a pillarless-hardtop body, though Buick and Olds did so on the shared Y-body.  I need a '62-64 GM coupe roof to convert to do this, if anyone can find me such.  Well, good luck!  Thx!  Ole' Wick

[Safire6]

“If yer not first, yer last” and you are first Hobbyguy. Beautiful build!

[Johnny Canuck]

Thank you, Wick, for posted those scanned pages of the '60 Pontiac build. Very informative.

[Zippi]

That's a good looking Chevelle Todd.  Nice build.  I'm diggin it.