Re: Vintage Pontiac Pics
Here's another rare one from the engine archives.
Pontiac was very experimental back in the early 60's. While the work of their engineers was very advanced, Pontiac didn't have the engineering budget that Chevrolet had. DeLorean and Estes contracted well known drag racers and stock car builders to make super high perf parts for their Pontiac V8's, with the possibility they could use those parts for production, or add them to the Pontiac high performance parts catalog. Pontiac knew that once a part was in their catalog, that part could be considered legal for use in NHRA and NASCAR competition. And if the part(s) caught on, Pontiac could them to their production line.
Legendary NASCAR builder Smokey Yunick was under contract with Pontiac to develop some super high perf parts. With Pontiacs already dominating the 1961-1962 NASCAR season, Yunick turned his attention towards turbos. He came up with was a twin-turbo setup for the 1962 Pontiac 389, and he tested the setup to the tune of 900 hp back in 1961. Pontiac then scheduled a twin turbo setup for the 1962 model year, but canceled the project at the last minute. It was estimated the street version would have been around 550 hp.
These manifolds are dated 06/13/1961.
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