RAIV and RAV more continuation....

GOAT72 · #1 12-18-2004, 03:52 PM

Steve,
I spoke with Milt Schornack at length about the RAV last night. He was stuck @ home with the flu, so he was a captive audience.

Here what I gathered, and this is MY opinion and not necessarily Milt's.
Also remember that this is from Milt's memory - nothing recorded from the factory - and my OWN interpretations.

There were a number of RAV/tunnel port rams built in early 1969. Milt believes the numbers were in the dozens. However, because the project was cancelled, Milt relayed that he was involved in the actual scrapping of tunnel port ram heads and intakes -- into a Royal Pontiac dumpster!!!

Now, Mr. Wangers has "made reference to"- but has not readily admitted to any RAV cars going over to Knafel, (this fact is from you, not him) and I think he knows the answer to this, but why would he keep it a secret?

Schornack claims that because Bill Knafel was close friends with DeLorean that it is probably more than likely that Knafel got his mitts on several (if not more) RAV engines and components, however, Milt adamently denies that Knafel could have received a factory RAV car. If Wangers and Schornack couldn't get a hold of a factory RAV car, how could Knafel?

Friends or not, (DeLorean/Knafel) I would be willing to bet my "left one" that Wangers had just as much "pull" with Johnny D. as Knafel did when I came to getting cars out of engineering.

In fact, you will see that Wangers pulled a TON of cars off the line @ PMD in the 6-7 years that I cover in my Schornack/Royal book.

Today I plan to give Dave Warren a ring again. While Dave will be just another opinion from Royal Pontiac, I think he will have an opinion and some memories of this as well.

I already have a major surprise in the book about the RAV test cars, and I hope to find more. But since the book is about Schornack and Royal, I don't plan to delve into that whole Knafel scene - save for the 1/4-mile strip competition between Knafel and Royal.
(They were the automotive equivalent of Sox vs. Yanks!)

But I do plan to publish opinions from the Royal side concerning the RAV.
I met Jim Wangers in Pontiac this past summer and he was very nice to me, however I doubt he would help me out with any info concerning RAV lore, as this is a Schornack tome, and unfortunately the two men have not exactly been "buddies" for the past 35 years.

Steve, I applaud your continued persistence and resolve in finding the truth about RAV cars, and while I hope someday you'll prove everybody wrong, for now I'm staying with the standard belief that only the engines got out of PMD.

.... can you imagine throwing away RAV intakes and heads??????

Mac

Belair62 · #2 12-18-2004, 08:02 PM

Personally I would think that Knafel got as much or more from Pontiac since they were both racing Dealers...especially if he was buds with John D...JMO...

**tjs44** · #3 12-19-2004, 12:13 AM

really dont know why they would have"trashed" them in 69 or 70 as they were avail.over the counter to more than factory guys.They made a lot of 400 crate motors.I could understand it if there was stuff laying around in the late 70s when the parts would have droped off the catalog.You HAVE to remember that the guys that were involved in these projects are very old now(damn im old)and most of them are now ledgends in their OWN minds.I know a couple of the old pontiac racers that have been telling so many lies for so long they believe them.Tom

Belair62 · #4 12-19-2004, 12:24 AM

Steve_Hoog · #5 12-19-2004, 03:53 AM

Tom I STILL can't find that HPP, what gives? My subscription isn't here, there are dozens of the last addition on the stand yet Gary got his. Whats up?