The Pontiac That Ate Ferraris: How A 1963 Tempest Super Duty Dominated Daytona In The Rain - YouTube

This is a little long at 12 minutes, but an interesting story about a 63 Pontiac Tempest that soundly beat some very high end racers at an 100 lap race at Daytona...as a Pontiac aficionado, it made me smile



Robert

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Robert
SWCA #2906, SWHF #760

That was awesome. Thanks! Love it that second place winner A.J. Foyt had been lapped two times and the Ferraris had been lapped eight times. Talk about egg on their faces!

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USS Brewton FF1086
SWCA#3597

Had a 1963 Pontiac LeMans. Black with red interior. Had a 3 speed transaxel with the shifter in the floor between the bucket seats. 326 cubic inch engine.

Nice car, but not like that "Super Duty". Paid $750 for it in 1968.

Traded it on my 1970 Camero. First new car I ever bought.

I learned how to drive on a '61 Tempest. It was the limited production coupe with bucket seats and 3 on the floor. Had my first date in the car.

On my parent's 25th anniversary Dad bought Mom a '67 Cat. We were the first house on the street to have 2 cars.

Our '80 Bonne was delivered on Leap Day February, 1980. It has been a dedicated towcar ever since.

If you-know-who hadn't destroyed the Pontiac name we'd still be driving one. Never had another before that.

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My wife had a '62 Tempest around 1970, her first car. It had a small engine. Were they four cylinder or six?

My first car was a 1966 Pontiac Tempest 4dr with the V8 326 ci & auto transmisson. My dad ordered it and took delivery of it new from the factory. The car was pretty much turned over to me around 1974 when the car had about 85,000 miles on it. I loved that car and after the timing chain broke at about 80mph on my way back to college (around 1977 at about 125,000 miles) which required a couple new valves and the transmission having to be built once it was a tremendous car. However, it did have the worst 4 wheel drum brakes I have EVER encountered on any type of vehicle. I think the old rear wheel only coaster brakes on my old stingray single speed bicycle were 100x better.

Pontiac had a lot of nice cars through the '60s and into the '70s. I remember one early on called a GTO. Best-running used car and probably in my top 5 ever was a '66 Bonneville. About the same color of the blue car in Post 4. It was also a 4 door, with a 389-4 barrel and posi rear end, it just wouldn't quit. Far from a drag car but it ran like a top when I bought it in '78. Not a Caddy, Olds, or Buick, but not a Chevy Biscayne either. The Goats with the 389 Tri power or the 421 HO were awesome vehicles. I always leaned toward the larger cars; I had my muscle car fun in my friends' cars! This is why I get droll like a Lab Retriever watching the Mecum Auctions on TV!

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Waiting For The Sun.

I learned to drive on my Dad's '63 Tempest. 4-cylinder (one bank of a 389ci V-8), automatic shifter in the dash, independent rear suspension, and a flexible cable for a drive shaft. Quite a unique car for 1963.

My mom had a '63 Tempest. The whole family hated that car.

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The best I can with what I got

That "little" '63 Tempest spawned the GTO a year and a half later. Scariest car I have ever ridden in was a '64-1/2 GTO with the 389/six pack/4-speed. That might be partly due to how the owner drove it, but day-um did it have some get up and go.

Dad was always a Pontiac fan, every car we owned from the time I was born until I moved out at 18 was a Pontiac. 1st car I ever rode in was his 1953 Chieftain. Kept it until 1962 when he bought a new Catalina, traded that for a '67 Catalina, which was my first dating car. Last one I remember my parents having was a '81 model but can't remember which one, maybe a Grand Ville. Looked like the same year Chevy Impala, whatever it was.

My first car was a 1952 Buick Super. My folks thought that I needed a newer daily driver since I was driving from Alabama to Maryland fairly often. They found a '60 4 door Catalina for $200. Drove that for several years and then a '67 Catalina wagon for a little while. Later on, I had a '72 Catalina. They were all decent cars.

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John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

I had a white 63 2 door hardtop and the ac system was in the trunk. It had a factory reverb radio system. My neighbor has a factory ram air 5 Pontiac Super Duty he's putting together. I took a photo of the heads last year. Few eyes have seen iron heads like this. This is a factory GM intake for the same car.

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I would have loved to have had the Ram Air V in one of my GTOs. I had a Ran Air III. They rated the Ram Air II at 366 hp, and the Ram Air IV at 370. They lied. The Ram Air IV probably made 425 hp and the Ram Air V..maybe 500....Would love to see your neighbor's when it's done.

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Robert
SWCA #2906, SWHF #760

The Tempest did the job at Daytona, but they really stood out on the drag strip.

I have some interest in the Pontiac name plate. My Grand father, father and myself all worked at the Pontiac Plant in Pontiac MI. Pontiac was the red-headed step child of GM. In the 60's Pontiac was the number three car manufacturer in the US, behind only Chevrolet and Ford. Arrogance set in and Chevrolet looked upon Pontiac as it's chief rival, especially when it came time to drink from the corporate trough. To make a long story short, Chevrolet eventually won in it's efforts to bury Pontiac, literally. One early casualty of the animosity was the Fiero, which Chevrolet looked as competition against the Corvette. As corporate offices became filled with former Chevrolet personnel, the writing was on the wall. During a visit to the GM Tech center, while looking for work to bring into the Pontiac facility, one engineer told me point blank when I said I was from Pontiac: "Are they still around? I thought they were closed!" This was in 1992, long before Pontiac's actual demise.

During the years, I saw and heard some interesting and amazing things. I saw a Fiero convertible and Fiero's with 4 cylinder engines producing over 400hp that would eat the then current Corvette's lunch at about 1/2 the cost. I saw Trans Am station wagon and Pontiac "El Camino" vehicles. A local stock car racer who raced Pontiac's came to his shop one morning to find a complete aluminum front end sitting outside with no indication where it came from. Richard Petty paid more than one visit to the Pontiac Engineering facility.

Although GM announced the end of corporate sponsored racing in 1963, Pontiac thumbed their nose at the Downtown decision. Parts continued to find their way to racers who supported the brand and as is well known, Pontiac introduced the GTO in 1964, the car credited with creating the muscle car craze. Catalina 2+2's and Grand Prix's sporting 421 super duty engines that required a second battery located in the truck to turn over the high compression engine were also race car favorites. From 1960 through the oil embargo in 1973, Pontiac had some interesting and unique vehicles and drive trains. Their closure as a result of restructuring obviously left a bitter taste in the mouths of the thousands of people who worked there, myself included.

Located in the City on Pontiac is the Pontiac Transportation Museum. It is an interesting place and deals only partially in the Pontiac name plate. The city was the location of multiple car and truck building factories, including Oakland, Yellow Cab - Truck and Bus and even a car named "Pontiac" before the name plate was picked up by the Oakland Motor Car Company (which later changed it's name to Pontiac) for one of it's models in 1926. The museum isn't huge but is worth looking into if you happen to be in the area.

As a certified "shop rat" I have numerous stories of the life inside the sprawling complex that once employed 28,000 workers. The complex was so large that shift changes had to staggered between the different plants to avoid massive traffic jams. If you lived in the city of Pontiac, you either worked for GM or your job was dependent on GM workers. When you consider that the Pontiac plant located on the north end of Pontiac, (including Fisher Body and the warehouse facility) employed 28,000 and the large GMC Truck plant located on the south end of Pontiac employed a similar number of people, it's pretty easy to understand what kind of influence General Motors had on the city with a population of about 60,000. Pontiac, like Flint, MI was a corporate town. And like Flint, when GM all but abandoned the city, the City of Pontiac paid lost a huge portion of it's revue and nearly had to file for bankruptcy under Chapter 9. An emergency manager was appointed who managed to avoid filling but city services were cut to the bone and remain so today. The Pontiac Police force was taken over by the County Sheriff, the fire department merged with neighboring Waterford Township and numerous other cost cutting measures put into place. Even snow removal is a problem once one wanders off the major roads.

The memory of Pontiac's muscle car fame live on in the hearts of enthusiasts however who give Pontiac props for the legacy they created.

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So many S&W's, so few funds!!

Have mentioned my 1974 in this Forum previously but think it deserves another mention in this thread.

Ordered from the factory, it was very well equipped. As noted, it had the SD-455 motor, automatic tranny, power windows, power door locks, and REAR console. Literally every option except 8 track player. Of course it had the Firebird decal on pthe hood.

It was Admirality Blue with white seats and black trim. (Most had blue interior trim.)

Owned it for about 9 years and regret to this day selling it. Though well cared for, I never had a garage in those days and it became infected with rust and other issues. To this day wish I had the resources to (then) keep it and properly restore it. Perhaps I will someday find another one. 🤞

Be safe.

Note: I opted for the automatic transmission because A/C was not available with the manual tranny.

The stock engine was a "slant 4", basically one half of the 389 V8. It had a rear transmission mounted on the rear axle, and it was independent suspension. When you jacked the car up both rear wheels canted down, making it look like the axle was broken.

I believe 1980 or 81 was the last Pontiac production full size full frame car. The Bonneville name continued for awhile, but it was made by Chevy. It was basically a Caprice Classic rebadged with the Pontiac logo.

A few years later the Lemans name (previously Tempest) was dropped and the new Bonnes were rebadged Lemans.

A friend had a 1963 Tempest with a 4 cylinder engine. Shifter on the floor. Thought it was a hot rod!

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USMC 69-93 Combat Pistol Inst.

I have mention on here many times I was a street & strip racer and worked part time in my buddies speed shop/ garage in the best part of the muscle car era.

Well my buddy was a top mechanic and more of a "whisperer' in regards to getting out every bit of power out of a engine. He was good with Mopars, great with Chevies and superlative with his favorite Pontiac. Over the course of time he raced a few different "Tin Indians" on the strip and if fact held a few national records back then.

We had a lot of Pontiacs come through the shop and Dan would do his magic on them. No matter how well it ran you could tell the difference both on the street or strip after he had done his job.

One of our Chevie 396s got beat on the street by a Pontiac GTO that came from Royal Pontiac. By chance the car showed up at the garage to get a "Dan Super Tune" a couple weeks later.

We recognized the car and during the work we found out that it was not as told us by the owner a 389 tri power but a much bigger 421 tri power. Well no wonder it ran so well. The owner had bought the car used and said he did not know it had a changed engine in it.

Found out later that Royal Ponitiac was well known in putting in the bigger engine in the GTO and claiming it was just a good running 389!

Well we had the last laugh as we got our hands on a 455 built it up tremendously and puled the 421 out. At least in that era there was no substitute for displacement.

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14 S&W Revs none with locks!

I think Road and Track did a test on the V SD and the 73 ran out around 150 mph in factory trim. My buddy had one in a Firebird and it shifted at 6200 rpm <455 SD>with 308 gears. The SD had solid lifters and 5/8'' rod bolts and the tune up specs were on the left valve cover. I made a little money telling Gas Monkey Garage in Dallas where to find it in Cooper Texas and they restored it a few years ago. It was red and less than 400 built. It came from a Pontiac dealer in Dallas new. The cam and large exhaust made that 8 to 1 compression run at top end.

In my younger years i worked in a body shop that did all the body work on ther race cars that ray Nickles built .His shop was in Griffith Ind .Many nights worked painting a car at 12;00 at night so it could be put on a plane and flown to a race .Once spray painted Paul Goldsmiths pants as he stood at the rear of a Pontiac we were painting at night. Worked replacing the complete roof section on Fireball Roberts flipped at Daytona and slid down the banked turn on the roof Met and talked to many of the top drivers of the time .Nickles and Goldsmith were partners in the Griffith airport and the shop at the airport ,also a trucking company .

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age is just a number

Only new car I've ever owned was a 1966 Tempest Lemans' with the ODC 6 cylinder. Big quadajet card, 4 speed Hurst shifter, even had the go-fast racing stripes, white on green! Would run the pants off any 289 2-bbl Mustang that cared to try but the 4-bbl ones were a good match. It was a lovely, high-reving engine with plenty of torque. Only problem was the overhead cam had a poor oiling system and would wear out in 50,000 miles, changing it was no more difficult than changing a valve cover... I loved that engine, only made 3 years I believe.

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Old paratrooper in NC

my first car, bought it 3 days before my 17th birthday was a Pontiac... a butternut yellow 1967 Firebird convertible with a 326 big block and a 2 speed automatic... the best man from our wedding owns it now.. it now has a Ram Air IV 455 and a 3 speed automatic... the yellow photo isn't mine, but close to what I had in high school.. the black one is my old car as is was last summer...

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My first car was a 1968 Firebird. It had a 250 Overhead Cam Six cylinder with IIRC a 4 barrel carb. The transmission was a "Three on the Tree". It was my 'hotrod" at age 17. Would run well against most small block V8's. Kept it until I went to Viet Nam.

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USMC 69-93 Combat Pistol Inst.

I had the same one that Trooperdan had, Pontiac Tempest Sprint, 1966. Emerald green, off white Leather buckets, console, floor shift, OHC 6 cyl with 4 barrel. It would really squat and go. It was the first New car I ever bought, (just over $3000). Of course income at the time was probably about $8000, I learned about the warping cam and traded it off early at about 40,000 miles. One of my favorite cars, 2nd behind the 61 Studebaker Hawk I had.

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

Wow, I would have given my eye teeth for a Bird at 17. I was a sophomore in college before I could afford gas and insurance, working part time at a Hamburger joint.

Dad bought a 1968 VW Beetle and the salesman that made the deal told him after the papers were all signed he should go to the used car lot and it would be a separate deal. They offered him 50 bucks for the trade. You had to know my Dad - I'm surprised he didn't punch the guy out.....LOL. Anywhoot, he took the old car home and offered it to me at the same price. So for 50 bucks I had a '61 Tempest to go to college in.