Mecum Pontiac Super Duty's

[Paul D]

For those that didn't make it to the Mecum auction last weekend, some pictures of the Pontiac Super Duty's that were sold out of the Randy William's collection follow this post.

Dana Mecum stood up and said that these were the finest cars he's ever sold at any of his auctions. That's quite a statement and after closely examining the cars, they were all unbelievable restorations.

Also, Arnie "the farmer" Beswick gave a little talk. He said the reason he kicked ass on Chevrolet, Mopar, and Ford in those days was the quality of engineering that Pontiac put into their race cars. He said Pontiac totally dominated NHRA and NASCAR in the early 60's.

In fact, in the Race of Champions at Daytona against all the series winners of European and American sports car and oval, a 421 Super Duty Tempest lapped the field of Ferrari's, Mercedes, Porche, NASCAR, etc., etc. After the race, Mercedes bought the car (an offer that couldn't be refused) from the Pontiac race team, took it to Europe and reverse engineered the car. To this day, that Tempest has never been found!

[Paul D]

the "Grocery Getter" 421 SD Tempest the Arnie Beswick make famous. It went for $650 plus buyers commission.

[Paul D]

the 1963 Packer Pontiac "swiss cheese" Super Duty went for $440K plus. This car's frame had grapefruit size holes over it entire length put in at the factory. Additional weight was save with aluminum fenders, hood, bumpers and numerous brackets.

[Paul D]

the 1961 Super Duty Ventura Bubble Top went for $135 plus. In '61 all the SD parts came in the trunk and were dealer intalled on the factory 348hp 389ci engine. This car was beyond beautiful!

[Paul D]

the 1062 SD Catalina went for $235K plus. In '62 NHRA required that all car must be built in the factory....none of this dealer installed stuff! This black beauty is on of about 170 Super Duty cars Pontiac built in 1962. It has factory aluminum front end, bumpers and interestingly, the SD hardtops came with the post sedan frame, which was not boxed on all four sides..... anything to save a few pounds.

[Paul D]

the '63 SD Catalina post car went for $285 plus. It had all the aluminum pieces plus numerous "one off" items that Pontiac sent to some of the big name racers. Items like stamped stainless steel headers, aluminum rear end pumpkin, etc. Randy Williams searched out all these "unobtainium parts" over a 20 year period and had them installed on this car.

[olredalert]

Paul,

------I got to know Bill Packer (son of the Packer Pontiac) when Jim Gessner and I sold a Corvette for him. He now owns a Cadillac store in Flint and is a great guy. Im sure he will be interested in what the swiss-cheese car brought as he is still a gearhead. He has a number of very nice mid-year Vettes and absolutely stunning boats (floating muscle, I guess you would say)...........Bill S

[markjohnson]

I'm kinda sad that the Randy Williams Super Duty collection was broken up. I know they're just cars but it would have been nice to see the ultimate examples of Pontiac's racing efforts stay together. Sort of like breaking up a litter of cute puppies. I think the cars were a bargain compared to what a single Hemi Cuda Convt. can cost these days. That Tempest station wagon is just remarkable but that black '63 Catalina sedan just beckons to me! There's so many special parts on those cars that it's just unbelievable the efforts that Pontiac put into engineering those factory race cars. They really wanted to win on Sunday. Can you even imagine what would have been released in 1964-5 if the GM racing ban would not have gone into effect in 1963?

[bruno17]

I was just gettin' ready to bid when someone told me that they wouldn't qualify for "pure stock" drags.
Something about them being considered one offs and havin' all the mopar and bowtie boys boycott any future events.................so I said forget it.