Pfeil

The room was humming harder as the ceiling flew away🕊️

Yes, they would just be another navy vehicle; my my, the new shore patrol sure is different than when I was in the navy!

What’s perhaps most interesting here is that starting with the 1987 model year, Pontiac dealers began to officially offer a 308-style body kit for the Fiero. Vehicles that had this bodykit were known as the ‘Fiero Mera’. A company called Corporate Concepts completed the conversion, and none were sold as kits; all Feiro Meras were converted by Corporate Concepts and sold through dealers. Pontiac considered this to be a specific model of the Fiero, and only 247 were made in total, before Ferrari brought legal action against Corporate Concepts.

Factory Norman Gray & goes with red leather.

Those are out of sight colors. People who purposely drive fast on the HWY and FWY like those colors because at a distance they fade into the HWY.

This invitation to look at Charles 53 Pontiac is worth a look. Charles is doing something that Pontiac division was going to do but was stopped by the corporate 14th floor of GM. GM blocked so many of Pontiac's projects it's a wonder Pontiac lasted as long as it did.

One of the things Chevrolet should have known and would have really taken down the sails of Nader was something Porsche/VW and Pontiac division knew about the swing axle systems. The Corvairs 13" wheels really put the swing axle design at a disadvantage- also combined was weight bias. Originally the "Y" body Tempest was to have a trans axle and engine in the back and Knudsen rejected this outright. The very early VW Beetle and 356 Porsche were equipped with 16" wheels, later revised to 15" wheels. DeLorean knew the reason why such small cars had such large diameter wheels and so equipped the Tempest (the only "Y" body car) with 15" wheels instead of 13's. Corvairs problem with wheel tuck under certain cornering conditions was reduced in the Tempest transaxle by just increasing the wheel diameter. By doing this the tuck angle is reduced by forcing the incidence to happen in the most severe condition, certainly a compromise that worked for VW, Porsche, and Tempest. When it became time to promote Pontiacs general manager Bunkie Knudsen from General Manager of Pontiac to General Manager of Chevrolet, Knudsen said that he would not take the job unless he was able to fix Corvair. After he became GM of Chevrolet at the end of the 1961 production, he had suspension changes made to the swing axle and was determined to make Corvair have a double-jointed axel system which is what finally happened. VW and Porsche also went to double jointed system and while Chevrolet used universal joints (like Corvette) Porsche and VW chose to use constant velocity joints.

Although Corvette cannot be described as a high-volume car from the C5 on until the midship car, the concept of engine in the front and transaxle in the rear could not be described as conventional but is considered successful. At least the concept survives today in Corvette, and some Porsche and Mercedes cars along with turbochargers in those same cars and more. Chevrolet, Pontiac, and Oldsmobile brought those realities to the public at a very low price. And who can forget this 1963 Tempest at the Daytona 250-mile Challenge cup anything goes invitational where this Tempest with its transaxle in the rear competed against Ferraris, Porsches, Corvettes etc. The Tempest won the race by 5 miles of its nearest competitor! Shown passing a Ferrari 250GTO

And from somewhere out of our generation " whiter shade of pale"

A great many cars and trucks here in Arizona are white. There is a reason Also, Pewter, silver, metallic gray from afar blends into the HWY especially at distance. 😉

Yes. Interestingly enough, this engine used an alcohol, methanol type mixture, engine made 335hp on 215 cu in.

As far as ram jet fuel injection goes, Chevrolet stayed with it more than most and I have a few friends with it on a 65 and 66 and they seem well sorted. 1957-1958 Fuel injection Pontiacs on the other hand could be sorted but most people opted out and dealers either swapped a 4bbl. or Tri-Power for free to the customer. A friend of my dads who did our racing valve jobs on our Catalina had a whole bunch of intakes and injection units for Pontiacs on storage shelves at the back of his shop. What a waste!

This 1951 Aluminum 215 Buick engine was what Buick didn't offer because of cost in 1953. All Buick Nail Head V-8's come from this engine, and you will notice the familiarity with this engine and the production Buick on the intake side of the head. For cost reasons the production engine moved the exhaust side of the head up next to the intake (creating a 1/2 "Hemi" head. By doing this the exhaust port suffers in size and heat because of the extreme bend of the port, also limits the valve diameter size which was also the problem when racing nail heads. This 1951 design is better than the Chrysler Hemi because the lifter gallery bores are at different angles for intake pushrod and exhaust pushrod. Too bad this engine was compromised for production. Production Nail Head below.

Olds (left) and Buick combustion chambers differ significantly. The Olds head also requires an extra head bolt, so it won't bolt onto Buick blocks. Rare Olds "turbocharged engine" blocks had taller, beefier main caps retained by 12-point fasteners.

As far as the 215 Buick engine in the Tempest is concerned consider this. In 1961 Pontiac sold 98,779 Tempest, and of those only 2,004 had the Buick engine, and that figure tells you a lot about the engine being a huge part of the brand. Pontiac Tempest standard engine was 1/2 of the 389 V-8 cut in half or 195.5, I-4. It used the same pistons, rods, valves, pushrods, head, as the 389 V-8. The 4bbl version of the I-4 made the same HP as the Buick V-8 at 155HP. So, look at those sales figures 98,779 and only 2004 with the V-8. Now in 1963 the Buick V-8 is gone and Pontiac de bores the 389 for the Tempest and makes it a 336. How many 1963 V-8 Pontiac Tempest with a REAL Pontiac V-8? 56,569 !

Most of that innovative experimentation was over at the dawn of the muscle car pony car, except the OHC Pontiac six. The beginning of the emission period did start in 1961 for California and exhaust emission standards started with 1966, but real emission standards began in earnest in the early 70's and by the mid 70's most car makers had to put most of their money in Emissions and Safety regulations. As far as G.M. engines go you have to remember back in those days the "engine WAS the brand". It's true most internal parts on G.M.'s 350 engines were not interchangeable but accessories like P/S pumps, carburetors depending on brand of car, A/C compressors, alternators were. As far as Pontiac is concerned, the 350 (really a 354 and change) is dimensionally the same as a 400, 428, 455 and they can use the same intake manifolds, exhaust manifolds, in some cases heads. (I have large valve 400 heads on my 455). distributors and all accessories, timing cover etc. Dimensionally the Pontiac V-8 from 1955- 1981 is the same and use the same bore center. The 1955 287 connecting rod will interchange with a 455! The 336, 326, 350,389, 400 all use the same crankshaft. So, you can see from Pontiac's point of view it's easier to do it the way they did.

Well Larry, I've got them under a 1962 Pontiac Catalina (3700lbs) and have no problems moving about.

I use these and they are a lot cheaper than Go-jacks. Just use your floor jack to get on.

Sanding/ or stripping, epoxy primer, primer, sanding and filling, primer sealer, paint.

My dad let me move the car out of the garage and down the driveway at 9 years. At 12 I was learning drag racing off the line techniques in shopping center parking lots with my dad. Note, the stores were closed, and the parking lots were empty. At 14 I got my drag racing license racing in FS/A stock class in a 13 second 100+mph Pontiac Catalina. At 15 I still raced the Catalina but also raced a mid 8 second, 160+ mph Blown altered 421 Pontiac Tempest in AFX and when we altered the wheelbase and put a glass tilt front end it became a "funny car".

Funny you should mention that Jon. I just finished a carburetor overhaul including shaft bushings on a 1964 VW beetle of mine. The carb has SOLEX and VW logos cast into it. It's a 28PICT that was made for this engine in 1966. The engine is a KD 1966 1200 40HP replacement engine.

How many of us use a calculator while working at a computer? NO How many still carry Atlas maps in your truck? YES How many use a calculator in your old truck while planning your route and gas mileage from old maps while in your antique vehicle? YES, it's attached to my neck, and it's called a BRAIN! It's the best computer ever designed and ever will be designed.

Apparently, Henry didn't learn the lesson either. After WW2 Henry was offered the whole of VW and he turned it down.

I've got one of those phones too, plus some of my friends have them as well. I see a lot of them in town too. Us old timers in Prescott are very stubborn!

Interesting article appeared today; There Is Nothing ‘Green’ About Ethanol A new study shows that the corn lobby’s favorite fuel is worse for the environment than gasoline. A study released this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) revealed that corn-based ethanol is likely doing more damage to the environment than if we used straight gasoline. “Even without considering likely international land use effects,” researchers said, “we find that the production of corn-based ethanol in the United States has failed to meet the policy’s own greenhouse gas emissions targets and negatively affected water quality, the area of land used for conservation, and other ecosystem processes.” In other words, ethanol is a failure. But that’s not what we’re supposed to hear. We have been told since the government forced us to use alternative fuel blends — the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) — in 2005 that ethanol is grand. Putting corn in our gas tanks would reduce our dependency on foreign oil, reduce our carbon emissions, and just make us all around better people. So said the environmentalists. With few exceptions, so said the Republican and Democrat presidential candidates who wander through Iowa every few years. And, of course, so said the media. We were treated to a completely different set of outcomes, the most obvious being that ethanol did not save us any money at the pump. The PNAS study lists several others, obtained from a thorough examination of the RFS in its totality, from the planting of the corn to the processing of the fuel to the pumping of your gas. According to the study, in the years 2008-2016, the RFS led to a 30% increase in corn prices. Prices of other crops rose by 20%, along with a multitude of grocery items that rely on corn. Cereal, anyone? Corn cultivation in the U.S. expanded by 8.7%. And to be clear, this expansion, along with the outsized impact corn has had on food prices, was driven overwhelmingly by the need for corn as a biofuel, not as a food source. Along with all this corn came fertilizers, and there was a nationwide annual increase of up to 8%. Overuse of the land depleted the soil, caused soil erosion, polluted natural water sources, and diverted water from other crops. It takes three gallons of water to produce a gallon of ethanol. When taking all factors into account, even the use of gasoline to run the tractors that till the soil (which releases carbon into the atmosphere), the PNAS study found that ethanol-treated gasoline is 24% more carbon intensive than conventional gasoline. This finding totally contradicts what the Department of Agriculture had to say about ethanol in its own 2019 study, which found that ethanol was 39% less carbon intensive than gas. Gee, a government study that found a government program was working perfectly. Imagine that. To be fair, the Agriculture Department study did not perform a holistic analysis of the entire RFS program, so its numbers may depend on the context. Or at least, that is probably the argument that ethanol’s staunch defenders will use when asked about the disparity. The Renewable Fuels Association, the ethanol lobby group, was more direct in its response to the PNAS study. “Completely fictional and erroneous,” said Geoff Cooper, the group’s president and CEO. Naturally, many who stand to lose something from the disappearance of ethanol will fight to keep it. It’s the law of government inertia. Failure alone does not kill a bad policy. Only enough people accepting the truth can do that. If we truly are serious about creating effective biofuels that will not harm the environment, then we need to be honest about the performance of ethanol. The technology isn’t there yet, but it may be soon. America is by far the world’s largest producer of biofuels, responsible for 47% of global output in the last decade. This is a market we can dominate, if we produce a quality product that does what it says it does. It’s time to admit the failure that ethanol has become, learn from it, and move on.