Frosty

I've been going to Woodward for over 12 years and this is the first year that I've ever heard of an accident. Unfortunately, notallthere and I got to witness this accident. Three people out of five went to the hospital. One in the Grand Prix and two from the truck. No one was wearing their seat belts in either car. Now I can understand if the Grand Prix has no seat belts in it, if it was built that way (it was in the 60s that seat belts became mandatory but I am not certain what year that was). The boys in the Ram pickup have no excuses. Neither were wearing their seat belts. The driver's steering wheel air bag did not deploy! Both guys hit the dash. The passenger side air bag did deploy but there was a massive crack in the dash like perhaps his head hit it. I am certain that if these two guys were wearing their selt belts, they would have walked away from this accident unscathed. It was a stupid and reckless accident on both drivers. I suspect both drivers were trying to make it through the intersection on the yellow light. Fortunately for them, EMT, Police, and Fire departments were there in less that 15 minutes. http://www.theoaklandpress.com/articles/20...03235066327.txt

I think Dk will say that windows are over rated. I may know tonight. I might meet up with him at the Back to Brings cruise.

Don't forget that Satan's Chariot will be on the road too. The body is painted and there is some upholestry in it too. So we will have to try to catch up with DK too.

That's pretty typical during WDC week. I try to be long gone before 10 pm on Saturday anyway. notallthere - I sent you the Saturday lunch plan to you and John. I covered the cost of the chicken for you guys.

Yup, I got it. Thanks.

I ain't impressed yet with Akerson. The fact that he's already worth $190M just reminds me of the old Mel Brook's movie - History of the World - Part I, and the line "it's good to be the king!". I am not too worried about quality slipping. Quality is a daily operating philosophy at the employee level. The poor fit and finish of the 70s and inability to keep paint on certain cars and trucks in the 80s are long gone. Fit and finish, quality, and performance are mandatory just to get a potential customer into the show room. Being able to differentiate yourself from the competition is where sales are won or lost. That said, it is not impossible for defects to appear. Clearly, Toyota is suffering from that right now. GM, Ford, Honda, etc. can all experience these things from time to time too. Right now it happens to be Toyota's turn in the hot seat.

Since the government took over, no internal GM employee has been picked since Fritz left. As long as the GM board is filled with government appointees on the board of directors, we will see a steady stream of outsider CEOs. Sadly, car guys like Bob Lutz are few and far between. Hope lies with the IPO and getting rid of the remaining government debt. Once GM is free from the government, then there is room for a car guy to rise to the top spot. Lastly, outside CEOs will concentrate on profitability and efficiency. Most CEOs have not managed a worldwide coroproation with the size and scale of GM. So I suspect many outsiders find managing all the various business sectors extremely challenging and stressful. Asia, Europe, and North America all have different issues, profitability, and labor issues to deal with. Whitacre and Akerson don't appear to have much international management skills. I might be wrong. Time will tell.

True, but they did advertise the Firehawk name recently in conjunction with the G8. I wonder if any got produced beyond the G8 prototype that was in their ads.

I have not heard a word from Tony. The club has been invited to dinner with the local GTO club for a modest cost though.

SLP is doing Mustangs, and the new Camaro, and they never dropped to the Corvette. Still it is still a kick in the butt for all Pontiac owners.

I can't wait to see you there buddy. I got my parking confimration too. Still not sure if I will have the convertible or the wife's Aztek there. Depends if I get my driving privledges back by then. Cruisng Woodward is very doable on Friday. Saturday late morning and all afternoon it becomes the Woodward Dream Crawl in certain areas - closer to 12 and 13 Mile Roads.

A buddy of mine just got back from the Tri Power Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio this past weekend. He was invited to dinner with the Firehawk club. Firehawks were specially modified Trans Ams and Formulas by SLP Engineering in the 90s and 2000s. They also went on to modify Camaros, Corvettes, and later G8s. They are now modifying Mustangs. At the dinner, the SLP rep stood up and said that SLP is dropping support of Pontiac cars. They will not be producing any more parts for Pontiacs and what inventory they have left is it. Also, SLP has not renewed the Firehawk trademark name, and it has now been picked up by Bridgestone Tires for a new line of performance tires. So SLP has dropped the Firehawk name completely. Needless to say this stunned the dinner attendees - nothing but bad news.

Look again boys and girls. A couple of very unique Pontiac cars were captured in notallthere's photos. The '69 Trans Am is an original Pontiac Historical Services-verified, one-of-only-669 Trans Ams built! It is a survivor, totally unrestored. The owner bought it in 1983 for $6000. Add to it that is a 4-speed car with.....drum roll please.....an original Ram Air IV 400 engine!!!! This makes this car so unique that it is one of less than 50 built (uber rare). The owner has twice been offered (and turned down) $125K for the car - as is!!!! The Grand Am / El Camino is one of two Pontiac Engineering cars built. It was a design study to look at the feasibility of building a Pontiac Elky!! It was built in '79 and then had the '80 Grand Am sheet metal added on a year later. It was close to going into production according to the documentation the owner had. It's twin sister is in the GM Heritage Collection!!! During the awards ceremony, the dude naming the winners thanked a lot of the participants and which car clubs they were from. He even mentioned Forever Pontiac! So I figured he talked to notallthere at some point. I was probably in the john at the time.

True, hindsight is always 20/20 vision though.We have history on our side now. Still the industry did a lot of self-imposed limits and other silly decisions in those days....like the ban on corporate sponsored racing. Let's not forget that GM was about 50% of car sales in the US market at the time. Congress was starting to grumble that GM was really a monopoly and there was a real fear, within and outside GM, that the government might sue them under anti-trust laws and break the company up. So GM management had to walk some fine public relations tight ropes in those days, so as not to be seen as a monopoly. Also, the other Big 4 companies did similar things too. GM was not alone in this arena.

DId I adeqautely answer the question?

It was a cool show. Heck, during the awards ceremony, the guy thanked the participants and mentioned all the car clubs that showed up. He even mentioned ForeverPontiac.com!!! So I figured he talked to Notallthere. Can't wait to see the pics from the show with that new fangeled camera you had - one you get that STD fixed. Some cars that stood out for me were: 1. The 1979/80 Grand Am El Camino - this is one of two that Pontiac Engineering actually built. This guys owns it!!! Black and gold. 2. A goregous black '63 Bonneville convertible. It took three awards, including best of show. 3. A '34 Pontiac with a straight 8 4. A '38 Pontiac 5. A '57 Pontiac that was made to re-create a Pontiac Nascar from the 50s for a TV commercial. 6. A '89 Trans Am SCCA race car 7. A true flamed airbrushed hood on a '79 Trans Am 8. An original '69 Trans Am (one of 669) with a 4-speed and a Ram Air IV engine (makes this one of 48)!!! The owner told me he has been twice offered $125k (as is) for it. 9. A '74 Ventura Sprint (the Pontiac version of the Nova). No FWD cars except a '85 J2000 were there. An '09 G8 GT and an '09 Solstice were there. Lots of GTOs, Firebirds and Trans Am. Lots of the big cars, Bonnevilles, Catalinas, and one 2+2. Lots of A-bodies, Lemans, Tempest, GT-37, T-37, etc.

This show is this Saturday! Is anyone going - besides me and Notallthere?

Been driving the TA since Tuesday since the Avalanche is in the shop with a bad fuel pump and a corroded main fuel line. It's been a hoot to drive to work but I am going to dread cleaning it. Black car and 2 days of rain...not a good combination!

Knowing Jim, these are drivers and not uber-valueable, low mileage, ultra-restored cars. It would be uncharacteristic for Jim to sell his most desirable cars. This is not to say these cars are slouches, and I would love to own any of the Trans Am (especially the '69), or any Judge. Still if Jim owned these cars, the price of the cars will be slightly higher since his name is associated with them. It's like a Cadillac that was owned by Elvis. It will cost more simple because he owned it versus Joe Schmo. The red '65 is listed as a tribute to the original red '65 GTO that Jim had built at Royal Pontiac for the infamous Motor Trend test. It had a ringer motor in it for the press to drive plus it terrorized Woodward pretty good too. Jim talks about it in Glory Days. The original red GTO still exists but Jim has not own it in nearly 45 years.

I know this is still no consellation for the lose of our favorite brand, but a Pontiac dealer general manager told me that GM has said that Pontiac signs, the advertising of "new" Pontiacs, etc. do not have to stop until October 31st. I guess that is GM's official end to the 2010 model year. The fact there are virtually no new 2010 Pontiacs to sell makes some of this somewhat of a mute point. Still the signs will be around for a little while longer.

I love the Lemans especially. Yeah, 350 Pontiacs just don't get the same love as the Chevy 350s do. Everyone wants the 400s and 455s (there is no replacement for displacement). Still 350 Ponchos make good power and they can handle all the same mods to it that you would to a 400 or 455. So what do you hope to do to it someday (when money is no longer an object? - Hey a guy can dream can't he?)? Well if you are in the Harrisburg area, then you might be able to pick up something at the GM Nationals at Carlisle in a couple of weeks. I love Carlisle - except for the dang sideways hills in the swap meet area. Still there is way more Chevy than anything else there. Still you can find bargins if you are willing to wheel and deal. I picked up an old original chrome Pontiac knee knocker tach for $50.00. The POCI national convention is in Charleston WV, so if you slide south a few miles, you might be able to get one in the swap meet there too. Lastly, if Notallthere knows where there is a 455, then get it!!!! The nice thing about Pontiac motors is they are the same exterior size. Pontiac didn't have a large or small block program. The bores and strokes were different, but the dimensions of the exterior block is the same (except the 301s and 265s). So you could stuff a 455 under the hood and leave the 350 markings on it. Only a real Pontiac guy would know where to look to see if that is an honest 350 or something else. Nuthin' like a little sandbagging, if you know what I mean.

You can try contacting Stencils and Stripes Unlimited for the Formula graphics. They already reproduce the Formula graphic to the 76-78 Formula Firebirds, so they are familar with the style. Plus they reproduce graphics for the old Vega GTs. So they should be able to produce a scaled down version of the Forumla graphics for you. http://www.stencilsandstripes.com/pr_pont_formula.asp

I can answer that question. A muscle car, by most definitions, is considered to be an intermediate car with (typically) a large cubic inch motor. This makes for great power to weight ratios. The original 1964 GTO was actually an option package uplift on the base Tempest. You had to get the Lemans luxury package first before you could add on the GTO package. At the time, GM and most of the Big 4 auto companies had self-imposed limits on cubic displacement to vehicle weight. Since the Tempest (the base model for the GTO) was classified as an intermediate car, it was limited to a maximuim of 330 cubic inches by the corporation. In the late 50s and early 60s, Pontiac developed it's legendary Super Duty engine program for NASCAR and NHRA drag racing. GM pulled the plug on company sponsored racing around this time. Since Pontiac could not go racing, they took their perforamnce motors to the street - especially since the youth market had started booming. Another important thing to remember is that unlike Chrysler, Ford, Olds, Buick, and Chevy, Pontiac never had separate large and small block engine programs. Pontiac's engines were the same external dimensions with different bore and stroke combinations. So a 326, a 389, and a 455 are the same size externally and....therefore, they bolt into the same size engine compartment directly. No adaption was needed. No engineering or re-design work was needed either. The rest of GM's divisions had just small V8 engines - except for Chevy's 409 "W" mystery motor. So the GTO was the FIRST intermediate car to be sold with a large 389 cubic inch engine. Remember the limit was 330 ci for the entire corporation for the A-body cars. Larger displacement (389s and 421s)engines went into the full size cars like the Bonneville and Catalina based on GM's weight formula/restrictions. So the GTO package was an exception or a loop hole that Pete Estes and John DeLorean used to get the GTO in production. The GTO package was expected to be a small (no more than 5000 units) option. What happened was that it was so successful, that people went nuts and demanded over 32000 GTOS in 1964. So it was the first high cube/small(er) body car to be sold to the public. That is why is considered the first muscle car and the start of the muscle car era. I have written about the GTO and Firebird histories before in other blogs. It's fascinating.

I hate to burst your bubble, but there were a few Pontiacs that had even smaller engines. Anybody remember the T1000 (the Pontiac version of the Chevette) - 1.4 & 1.6L.?Pontiac Lemans (88-93) built by Daewoo - 1.5L? Pontiac Firefly (Canada only) - 1.4L? Still you might win the smallest displacement at the show. I doubt anyone is going to show up with any of these cars.

Could it have anything to do with the fact that the General Lee was never a Pontiac? It's just a guess, mind you!!! Now if you were looking for favorite cars from TV and Movies of all time, then the General Lee would definitely be in the discussion. Different topic thread though.