on the 57 pont.i think the side trim represents an ARROW ;on the weight the PONT.is model to model , 300 lbs. heaver than the CHEV. hope this helps . thanks JAKE
Thanks Jake. That front bumper and grill assembly looks like it made up the bulk of that 300 or so lbs. that made it heavier than a comparable Chevy model. Even so, still a great looking car. Pete
I'd have to guess they didn't have a favorable NHRA horsepower rating unlike the 1958 models. Am I right? Pete
I can't recall seeing a single '57 Pontiac as a racecar. Really never saw one with fenderwell headers like a '57 Chev. either. Mostly the cars I recall were some wagons as tow cars. There seemed to be a lot fewer of them on the street as well. I liked the body style. My frist nice car was a '58 Pontiac.......I also had a '55 before the '58 but it was pretty rough looking and nowhere near as fast as the '58.
This Pontiac had the original 347 Tri-power and was raced in H/SA. This picture was taken at Thunder Valley in Marion South Dakota in the very early 70s. Bud Lias from Akron Iowa bought the car in Washington state and for a time it held a National record. Bud eventually blew the engine up and then sold it to a couple other guys from Akron. They in turn found a junkyard engine and ran it like that in the brackets. Thats why in this photo it says HR-1 which was Hot Rod 1, a bracket class back then. It shows it dialed in at 15.55 but in its stocker days it ran in the 13.60s according to Bud. On kind of a sad note my brother and a buddy bought this car for $150 in about 1974 and was going to race it that next summer. One day a guy came through town and offered him $300. My brother didn't want to sell but his buddy did and so they doubled there money. I showed this picture to my brother a couple weeks ago and the first thing he said was "what a dumb ass I was for selling that car" Hind sight! My brother also remembers it having only a few hundred miles on the odometer as it was mostly just a race car up until that time. Here is a picture of Bud Lias towing the Pontiac with his new 67 GTX.
Having met John in the mid to late 1960s at the us Nations I learned more about racing Pontiac's in one afternoon than any one else ever taught me. He was a sure nice Pontiac guy old-old timer
Oh...I forgot about John Thropps car..... John Thropp or Fred Borcherdt had a '57 Safari Wagon tow car, I don't know who's it was.......and I think it had a F.I. unit on it. I saw it at one race and loved it.... I had a '58 F.I. unit in my basement for years.....I was trying to find a '57 Safari wagon to build as a street/tow car......I had a '58 engine laying around in pieces.......eventually gave up and sold what I had.... I took the F.I. unit off a car I found on a farm in Flemington ,NJ. Paid $75.00 for it with everything. The car was a '58 Super Chief...... Sold the unit for something like $300 a few years later and thought that was good......I wonder what that unit would bring today? I had the F.I. front fender emblems off the Super Chief in my basement for 30+ years....sold them a few years ago for $150.....
We talked about both John Thropp and Fred Borcherdt at dinner the other night. Both Little George and Dick Jarrell said that they have had phone conversations with Fred in the past few months. Maybe we can get him to contribute to the discussion.
Wow , that's a nice looking 57 ! If anyone has anymore Pontiacs pics or info please post them, thanks. I think i've already saved all the other Pontiac pics on this thread.
I might have posted these before anyhow heres a 57 pathfinder sedan delivery, M/P or Jr stock? It was raced at Cayuga and Niagara , late 60's early 70's. I have known about this car ever since i was a kid and was , is owned by a good friend of my dads. From the look of it he did pretty well, thats only a small amount of trophys he won.Unfortuneatlly he was diagnosed with allzhiemers and the car is in limbo at the moment. His name is Bob Crysler. Any pics or info out there?
No, I'm sure Don was as straight as they come. That picture was one of the imfamous murals painted on the shop wall at Mr Norms Grand Spaulding Dodge from back in the 60s to make fun of there competitors. When it was asked why he was DQed that picture came to mind. Sorry to get off topic but heres one more of the Ramchargers.
If you are really "old-old", you will remember that stockers were required to run a full exhaust system. Don Gay's muffler was deemed to be too short by 1/2" or 1/4". Can't remember the Harbit deal.
Harbit's bore was declared .001 too big. The same engine was checked at a points meet a few weeks before the Nationals and was declared legal. This is why we Jr. Stockers started building our engines .058 over instead of .060. The temperature of the block could affect the bore size. In another post, it was mentioned that Jack Clifford probably drove his Hudson to Indy. Well, Harbit always drove his cars to the Nationals. He once told me he went to Farmer at teardown to ask when his engine would be checked, he had to put it back together to drive it home. Farmer couldn't believe he drove it. John
I believe Arnie Beswick was DQed for being .001 oversize on the bore back in his stocker days but I'm not sure what race it was at.
Had the pleasure Thursday night to introduce the first-ever Sportsman inductee to the International Drag Racing Hall Of Fame. I'm sure he has been mentioned in this thread. His name is Bobby Warren. Bobby has been a three-time NHRA World Champion. First time was at the wheel of his J/SA 69 Chevy Nova in 1970. A truly amazing, yet very laid back, person with a marvelous personal story. I have a new hero and his name is Bobby Warren.
The color was right off the 'lot'..... here is a photo of the car as we knew it... Sad to say "Super Tom" passed away this week at the age of 66 in Piscataway NJ... he will be missed! Nice to see he is still thought of in the 'Drag Racing World'..... Sandy
Here is the Vett and "Super Tom"... I'm sad to say "Tom" passed away this week at the age of 66, in Piscataway NJ.... makes me smile to see he is still thought of... God's speed Tommy!
Such fanaticism and hair-splitting is mega-absurd. For crying out loud, those tech guy(s) could've let those class winners slide! No one would've been the wiser, either, especially since in no shape, way, manner or form was there any performance gain by such a microcosmic infraction. Zero, zip, none, nada! Pete
The Jalopy Journal
