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Originally Posted by carnut4life
I definitely prefer The RatiCal One in its day two or as raced condition but appreciate the owners choice to restore the car as he saw fit, its a great car either way.
I mostly agree with you on your other thoughts but the guys that left them stock were probably more mature than the rest of us that did or would have modified and beat the hell of of them if we were around back then. There are a lot of survivors out there today that had different wheels on them back in the day or had the manifolds and smog system removed for headers so I think the guys that left them totally stock back then were few and far between, which in turn makes the cars they owned even more celebrated 50 years later. Great thread by the way!
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Thanks I was hoping it would be a fun thread for everyone . I certainly like the cars both ways I can appreciate both for sure. And in the camaro world both are celebrated , in the Pontiac world however Day 2 doesn’t get the respect it deserves in my opinion . You either see modified, todays stuff on them. Or stock . Period correct restorations are typically seen only on early 62 63 SD cars
JR stock / stock eliminator is what made the muscle car craze in the first place. These lettered up dealer race cars drove the whole muscle car craze and sold all these other cars we see. So to me that’s the pinnacle of muscle cars…. There’s just not much representation of these cars out there today .
That’s not to say they should all be one way or the other, I think all one way and not the other makes for a very boring show no matter which way it is. We all know it started w private guys w shoe polish lettering in the 50s (my dad was one of those guys) but when the dealers got involved and started going crazy w lace, cob webbing, freak drops, endless line, and panelizing etc the cars got interesting . I could page through pictures of 60s early 70 race car paint schemes for hours.
Not to mention JR stock / stock eliminator was filled w the most cunning and talented mechanics racing has ever seen . Grumpy jere stahl , John dianna to make a few of the Chevy guys. Things like leaving a carb loose so the linkage at full throttle would rock it back and create vacuum leak w springs pulling it back forward and down .to make more CFM at WOT were brilliant tricks . Of course it had to be jetted up the same amount to compensate for the air leak . This is why so many stockers woukd be clearing thier engines from loading up back then .
Cutting off the nubs on Brake tensioners so they would not tighten in reverse and have little to no friction, taller front tires for rollout, taller rear tires for more contact patch rather than width which wasn’t allowed, cool cans and other items stock class racers employed. Just brilliant
These stockers IMO should be celebrated