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Pontiac Banshee coupe --what did GM sell it for to employee or ex-employee?


HistoryBuff

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I saw this car in person at the Mecum auction, don't know if that was the right auction, but I think why it didn't reach reserve was that no one knew about

it, I don't think it was shown at major auto shows like the Pininfarina Trans Am wagon and so forth. Almost a back yard project sponsored by DeLorean is the way I look at it. I am curious how much the then-current GM employee was about to buy it for,or maybe he was retired. Was it Bill Collins, who followed DeLorean to his new car company that owned it?

Anyhow like to hear views on whether this is a recognized GM show car or back door project?

Heres a story on it from another site

http://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/dealer/pontiac/banshee/1571619.html

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I thought everyone knew about the car. It had been listed in Hemmings for over a year, and from the looks of your link to Hemmings the asking price from over a year ago had dropped over 300K. As far as the car, two of them a white drop top was bought by Collins and the Hardtop silver Coupe was bought by GM master mechanic who worked on the project. The car is a legit GM car and like the Buick "Y" job was assigned a XP number just like Buicks XP 300 and the LeSabre. Also the Pontiac that followed the XP 833 ( a four place sports car ) called XP789 and this car was killed by Ed Cole because Cole didn't want any competition for his beloved Corvette even though the XP 789 was a 2+2.

Collins and Master mechanic Bill Killen hid the two cars from GM brass for quite a number of years, almost ten in fact. In 1973 or 74 Killen proposed that he and Collins buy the two cars, which they did.

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The same car sold at Barrett-Jackson in 2006 for $210,000. I don't think it's a lack of awareness that is keeping the price where it is, I think it's the fact that it looks so much like a '68 Corvette. I saw the convertible version recently at a Cars and Coffee event and it didn't seem to grab too much attention. People walked by it like it was just another C3 Vette.

I saw this car in person at the Mecum auction, don't know if that was the right auction, but I think why it didn't reach reserve was that no one knew about

it, I don't think it was shown at major auto shows like the Pininfarina Trans Am wagon and so forth. Almost a back yard project sponsored by DeLorean is the way I look at it. I am curious how much the then-current GM employee was about to buy it for,or maybe he was retired. Was it Bill Collins, who followed DeLorean to his new car company that owned it?

Anyhow like to hear views on whether this is a recognized GM show car or back door project?

Heres a story on it from another site

http://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/dealer/pontiac/banshee/1571619.html

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The same car sold at Barrett-Jackson in 2006 for $210,000. I don't think it's a lack of awareness that is keeping the price where it is, I think it's the fact that it looks so much like a '68 Corvette. I saw the convertible version recently at a Cars and Coffee event and it didn't seem to grab too much attention. People walked by it like it was just another C3 Vette.

I would like to revise your comment to " a 68 Corvette looks so much like the Banshee " After all it was finished in 1964. Where did you think Mitchell got the lines for the 1965 Mako Shark Vette?

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If I was going to write a story about it, I wouldn't say "hid" because that sounds like they were trying to deliberately obfuscate the location of the car to management, let's just say it's like in the Army where the sergeants gradually build up their own little empire by moving things around so that the things they want end up where they are. It's not hiding, it's just shuffling stuff around until it is of zero importance to management. I bet that happened to a lot of prototypes including the short wheelbase Mustang show car designed by Vince Gardner who went so far as to wall it into a hiding place, it took them almost a year to find it.

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If I was going to write a story about it, I wouldn't say "hid" because that sounds like they were trying to deliberately obfuscate the location of the car to management, let's just say it's like in the Army where the sergeants gradually build up their own little empire by moving things around so that the things they want end up where they are. It's not hiding, it's just shuffling stuff around until it is of zero importance to management. I bet that happened to a lot of prototypes including the short wheelbase Mustang show car designed by Vince Gardner who went so far as to wall it into a hiding place, it took them almost a year to find it.

I will just quote form October 2014 Hemmings classic car magazine who did the interview with Bill Collins.

" Ascending to Pontiac General Manager in 1965 when Pete Estes was promoted to run Chevrolet, DeLorean push to get the XP-833 into production for 1967, and Bill crafted and presented a compelling proposal to GM President James Roche. Management was not swayed, however and the head of GM Engineering Policy Group Ed Cole wouldn't have it. DeLorean explained in a 1998 interview with the Chicago tribune, " Cole thought the Banshee would be devastating to the Corvette and used his not-inconsiderable influence to have the car killed. The four seat XP 798 was then proposed, but it didn't fly either.

To save the two XP833 prototypes from the crusher, Bill { HID } them at GM storage containers. In 1973 or 1974, Pontiac master mechanic Bill Killen, who had been involved with the project, proposed that he and Collins purchase them. Collins bought the white convertible from GM and Killen bought the silver coupe."

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And I think you're right, but am I right in thinking Collins sold his roadster because he was working on the DeLorean by then? Or is my timeline off? And has the white roadster showed up at any auction or is it in the Bortz collection. By the way I was a copywriter on the Chevy account around '67-69 and I remember how disgusted the fat old GM brass were with DeLorean's shenanigans, going out with movie actresses, and driving a Maserati Ghibli and having his picture in FORTUNE bare chested ,pumping iron. He made the other brass look like old fogies and made a lot of enemies. For that alone, I think conservative guys like Roche shot down anything proposed by DeLorean.

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And I think you're right, but am I right in thinking Collins sold his roadster because he was working on the DeLorean by then? Or is my timeline off? And has the white roadster showed up at any auction or is it in the Bortz collection. By the way I was a copywriter on the Chevy account around '67-69 and I remember how disgusted the fat old GM brass were with DeLorean's shenanigans, going out with movie actresses, and driving a Maserati Ghibli and having his picture in FORTUNE bare chested ,pumping iron. He made the other brass look like old fogies and made a lot of enemies. For that alone, I think conservative guys like Roche shot down anything proposed by DeLorean.

HistoryBuff, your timeline is al little off. Collins left DMC around 1979, then went to AMC as head of product planning. Left AMC in 1981 and founded the Vixen Motor Company. He still owned the white Banshee when he built the Vixen prototype. There is a picture in Hemmings of the Vixen type one known as "DASH-One" and the Banshee together. I don't know where the white car is, but it's running gear is different than the silver car. The silver car has the 1bbl car OHC six and the white drop top has a 421 V-8. I wonder if that 421 is a OHC like the 1963 G/P Mac Mckellar had in until his death. Click on the link for a picture of Mac's 421 OHC Grand Prix;

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And I think you're right, but am I right in thinking Collins sold his roadster because he was working on the DeLorean by then? Or is my timeline off? And has the white roadster showed up at any auction or is it in the Bortz collection. By the way I was a copywriter on the Chevy account around '67-69 and I remember how disgusted the fat old GM brass were with DeLorean's shenanigans, going out with movie actresses, and driving a Maserati Ghibli and having his picture in FORTUNE bare chested ,pumping iron. He made the other brass look like old fogies and made a lot of enemies. For that alone, I think conservative guys like Roche shot down anything proposed by DeLorean.

The guy who had it in for Pontiac and the team trio of Knudsen, Estes, and DeLorean was Ed Cole. But let's start at the beginning of Pontiac being screwed over by other divisions and the 14th floor. In 1953 Pontiac was going to release it's first V-8 engine since 1932. The engine had been in development since right after the war, and by 1953 had over five million test miles on it. Olds division, but more importantly Buick division protested the release of the engine, most likely because Buick was releasing the new Nail Head V-8 for 53 and didn't want any competition from a underling division. A FYI, look at the frame and steering for 1953 and 54 Pontiac's...They are modified for the V-8 they never got. Back to Cole. The 1964 GTO was supposed to come with disc brakes, Cole killed that even though Kelsey Hayes did the tooling for free. GTO was supposed to get Radial tires, Cole killed that. We all know Cole was the father of the SBC engine. In development the engine had problems with designing a proper valve train. As you probably know in GM each division has a one year exclusivity on new products or inventions, Cole cried to Corporate to lift that ban so that he could use Pontiac's independent ball rocker arm valve train technology in the new chevy V-8. We all know Cole is the father of the Corvette and the Corvair, and we know the Pontiac XP-833 and the XP798 were killed by Cole because they would be competition for his beloved Corvette. As you know Oldsmobile had a J-2 option in 1957 and 58, and it was resurrected for 1966 in the 442. Pontiac called it's version Tri-Power and was offered from 1957-1966 on full and intermediate size cars. For the 1967 model year Cole at corporate banned multiple carburetion on Olds, Buick and Pontiac. Ironically Cole's baby's, the Corvette and the Corvair were allowed to keep multiple carburetion. Pontiac division could have been so much more if the corporation would have just GOTTEN OUT OF THE WAY!

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