History Rare Pontiac race car found

Pete McCarthy's book "Pontiac Musclecar Performance" is one of my Bible's !

 

just in case... http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=307369

$$$ aside... cool car... hope it get's a righteous restoration and someone puts it back on the track and not in some personal museum.

 

Boy what a find. As for the numbers and the economy I think to many are star struck. Not to say it not worth the money but last year I watched Beswick's fully restored '61 SD Ventura (which we helped restore) go through the auction block at $270,000. This was one of 12 produced with 6 known to extist. We also watch one of the '63 SD Tempest wagons and one of the SD coupes go though. The wagon went for $185,000 and the coupe went for $195,000 with the reserve not met.

 

When I was a little kid, my stepdad had a white/white Catalina 2+2 convertible, '66-'67 I think, and I think might have had a 421 with a tri-cabs. Not 100% sure on the motor, but I kind of recall multiple carbs. I just remember after he sold it to some local drunk because it wasn't big enough for the whole family and after we got tired of it leaking all the time in the rain and someone had cut the top and stole our 8-track at the Wash. D.C. Zoo. My mom cried that day at the zoo because of it. Sad to see when you are a little kid.

Anyway, apparently some guy came by a few months later after he sold it and had some how tracked him down looking for the car. He apparently offered him some sizable cash for the car - early-mid 70's. My stepdad apparently found the guy he sold it to again and he said he didn't know where it was because he was a complete drunk and "lost" it somewhere. Never was quite sure how much of that was too true. Any of you Pontiac experts know possibly how true that may or may not be in relation to it's possible value? Always kind of wondered about that. I just assumed it was a bit of a tall tale and the car wasn't really that valuable.

It was a cool car though and did seem like it could haul some ass for as big as it was - to a little kid anyway. I do remember once it was raining so hard we couldn't get out of the car to get to the house. By, the time it let up some after a half hour or so, there was about 2" of water in the floor of the car and we were holding our feet up on the seats. We decided to just make a break and run through the flooded yard to get to the house. Ah, old muscle Pontiacs, brings back the memories - some not so great.

Oh, yeah, like this one, but white interior and black dash I think - and no cheesy wheels, all stock.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubikwp1SLZY

 

I'm glad this came back around, and this q and a, I think is the best;<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR bgColor=#eeeeee><TD width="80%"><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=2 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=standardtitle vAlign=top align=left>Q: </TD><TD>Had you any clue as to what this car was when you listed it? Bet it's a shocker! Hopefully someone restores it to it's former glory. Would make...more</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
</TD><TD class=help vAlign=top noWrap align=right width="20%">Answered on Nov-07-08
</TD></TR><TR><TD width="80%"><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=2 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top noWrap align=left>A:
</TD><TD align=left width="100%">NO CLUE
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The person or people that are going to end up with this car in Ebay are not looking at current value, more are looking at the future value. This without a doubt will bring half a million dollars when this screwed economy flips back to normal.


I've been lucky enough to own some very rare cars over the years but Not long ago i had an original black paint 61 Ventura with factory tri tone blue interior - bench seat, 389 363 Horse SD 389, 4 speed, 4.30 posi car. Someone in the midwest bought it sight unseen and is currently restoring it. Although not one of these 8 SD Tempest/lemans aluminum factory race cars, it was (or will be) a high dollar car. Oh well, i can't keep them all.

 

That car was driven by Don Gay a 14 or 15 year old kid. He was also one of the top drivers at the time. He folks owned the dealership

 

Yep and currently watching this auction

 

Was the Don Gay car ever a old Bewick car or is it just the same color as Arnie's '62.

 

So, what were the original clues that this is a SD? I was just curious of the identifying markers. Plexiglass windows?

 

The windows, the block out plates on the firewall, the one off rear suspension with the really long ladder bars, the dent in the rt rear bumper that is identicle to the dent on pics of the original race car, the correct colors, the factory 421 cast exhaust manifolds that were in the trunk, the foot shaped gas pedal in the trunk, the shadow of the original "Champion Spark Plugs" sticker in tghe correct location on the rt rear quarter. Basically EVERYTHING checks out including the vin that matches the known VIN of the real race car.

 

No. Don was driving them when they were new.

 

The plexi windows and other things were certainly big clues, but the biggest thing is the VINs of all the SD cars are well documented in Pete McCarthy's Pontiac book. As soon as I heard about that car being on eBay I grabbed my copy of the book off the shelf, and sure enough there it was.

 

Well said statement of the weekend !

 

I don't care who drove it back then (besides never hearing about the guy mentioned), but that's just fucking rediculous. Noone loves 60's drag cars more than I do. But, that kinda money's just nuts

 

The VIN number. Pontiac kept excellent records of these SD cars and who they sold them to.

 

I agree, especially with today's economy!

 

just jumped to $84,700.

 

Holy hell.......yeah, I see this one holding the concrete floor down in a museum.

Hard to believe this cat would've scrapped this piece of drag-racing history.....but now he's gotten a serious case of BJS.

 

I remember back in the late 80's early 90's? There was a Don Gay Jr whos NHRA FUNNY CAR burned up pretty good. Same Don Gay family??

 

the Former Govenor of North Dakota, Ed Schafer had a collection of Mickey Thompson Lightweight pontiacs to die for.. He sold them all a while back, but i think it was before the muscle car prices skyrocketed.
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I dont know how many he had but it was like 3 or 4 of em...

i was pretty young when i saw them, and at the time it wasnt that big of a deal to me.

but they were aluminum front end cars.. i know that much

 

I'm sure the price of the front clip and the motor have just increased in value also. I understand they were worth alot of money on their own, but now I'm sure they are worth more to complete a piece of dragracing history, instead of being individual pieces.

 

They just used your credit card to buy it.

 

I love these kinds of stories! Good to see a historic car saved!

Back in the early 70's, dad had a friend that owned a 69 Camaro convertible pacecar. Bought it for something like $1000 or less. It had a bigblock in it, said it was scary fast. They used to do burnouts with it. He got tired of it, and passed it on.

It's hard to believe there was a time when these cars were worthless. We'll never see that again, in this information age.

 

Oh, I thought it would be $1M by now, but I guess the economy is holding a few people back.

 

By the time this is all said and done there will be around $200-250 invested in the car.....BUT.........There is the possible chance of the car being worth twice that.

Bill Blair out of the Carolina's owns a few of these priceless cars.

 

$250, that's probably about how much I would have paid for it.

 

This is cheap intertainment, anyone following the list of bidders? Looks like g***g is the most serious, top bidder when I last looked had (0) feedback that always looks spooky.

 

Darn...I'm going to be at my in-laws' tomorrow about 15 miles away from this guy's place. Would it be rude to just look at it so I can say I saw it??? What a cool story...I flashed on this car on ebay when it was under a grand and didn't think a thing of it...

 

wow