My Pontiac Story

[Keith Seymore]

Plans for 2008

Since Dad's passing in November of 2005 the Widetrackers have remembered his name by awarding the "Best of Show" award at the annual May Dustoff.







Our family was on hand at that first show in 2006 and we will, once again, be there to present the award this year as well.





For more info about the Widetrackers Chapter of the POCI and the annual Dustoff, see: http://widetrackers.com/


Also for this year we have been asked to bring the GTO to the "Eyes on Design" Concours Event held at the Edsel Ford Estate. One of the special displays at the event will be a recognition of GM's 100 year anniversary: significant GM vehicles are to be highlighted and we were asked to represent the Pontiac GTO.


For both this year and in the future, my plans are to maintain this car in it's current state: both by not allowing its condition to degrade any further and by keeping it in it's 1967 season B/MP trim. I have all the parts to return the engine to completely stock (intake manifold and carbs, exhaust manifolds and cylinder heads) but prefer to keep it in it's current set up in deference to my Dad's legacy and as a steward of "his" car (not my own).

To me, it will always be "Van Seymore's '65 GTO".

[Keith Seymore]

From November of 2009:

Got my advanced copy of the latest Darwin Holmstrom/David Newhardt book in the mail over the weekend. I was pleased to find the GTO was mentioned (by name) and a couple photos present on page 99. These are a sampling of the shots from the aforementioned November 2007 photo shoot with David Newhardt.

Other PYer's who figured prominantly in the book were: Eric White (67 GTO convert) and a big "thank you" from the author to Dr Eric Schiffer (whose '68 convertible is also featured). David Anderson and Mr Wangers are also called out, as well as Jim Kennedy's '62 as shown above.

The book is getting rave reviews from those who have seen it, including Mr Wangers, and I highly recommend it for any GTO enthusiast.

K

[Keith Seymore]

June, 2009:

This Father's Day weekend I had the opportunity to participate in the "Eyes on Design" event, held at the Edsel Ford Estate.

The show is an "invitation only" event (cars are chosen by a selection committee) and benefits the Detroit Institute of Ophthalmology. The show is also unique in the way cars are judged, not by how well they are restored (or survived) but by how the design (ie, styling) created trends, enabled technology or reflected the culture.

The theme for our specific display was the advertising artwork of Art Fitzpatick/Van Kaufman. I was asked to bring both the GTO and the Grand Prix. As you might expect the vehicles were displayed with the corresponding advertising art.









At any rate I won a "Design of Distinction" award, based at least in part on the car's originality.

Here is the "elusive" Keith Seymore, posing with judges (and former GM Design heads) Bill Porter and Kip Wasenko:

[Keith Seymore]

One of the things I enjoy about being "my father's son" is finding the little surprises he left behind.

I was in his garage the other day and I found this "well loved" Chassis Service Manual:



This was significant (to me) for a couple reasons:

First - I found this folded up in the middle of the pages:



I realize it's impossible to read (anybody else remember the old "onionskin" typing paper?), so I retyped it here so that it would be legible:





It's the service letter introducing the "Ram Air" package. Since we raced our car with an early ram air box installed, Dad used this letter as verification that he could legally run the airbox in NHRA competition.

Then, there was this "To Do" list (a list of things, from "beyond the grave", that he wanted ME to finish ):







Lastly, as I was flipping through the pages, I found these sketches:



As you might guess, there's a story there, too.

[Keith Seymore]

Dad had the opportunity, through his connections at Royal, to work a little bit with Roger Huntington. For those not familiar with Roger he was a free-lance author and tinker-er, and fancied himself to be somewhat "forward thinking" in the areas of performance and automotive engineering. He probably was, actually, but was crippled by polio and therefore wheelchair bound; as a result he had to live out these theories through others and the subsequent articles.





Recall that the main issue facing these high horsepower cars back then was the lack of traction. Conventional wisdom called for production rear suspensions, as released by the manufacturer, and the addition of "Atlas Bucrons", or some other "soft" compound tire. There were no wrinklewalls, no "fat" tires, no water burnouts, and traction compounds were for the fledgling professional race categories (if at all).

There had been some thought that "longer" rear control arms were better, perhaps resulting from successes with the Swiss Cheese cars and other big Pontiacs. In fact, some work had already been done installing these longer Catalina lower control arms on the smaller intermediate sized GTO's.

Roger proposed that this thinking could be taken to the extreme: if a lower control arm, or traction bar, could be fabricated to attach all the way up at the car's "center of gravity", then that would be ideal, right? So between he and Dad they devised a scheme to fabricate such a device and install it on our GTO. The sketches you see here are the result of that brainstorming session.

The first order of business would be to locate the CG of the car, in the fore/aft direction. Dad had told me previously about jacking the car up, using a small scissors style jack on each side, and moving them forward and rearward along the car until it "balanced" with the front and rear tires off the ground. This would establish the location for the forward attachment point, at each frame rail. Square tubing was used to fabricate the bars themselves and they were clamped to the rear axle tube to secure the rear of the bar.

In short order the new setup was ready for testing. Arrangements were made to rent one of the local tracks and Dad and Roger met there with high hopes and great expectations. After warming the car, Dad proceeding to the starting line for the first test pass. Equipped with a skinny set of M&H "Racemasters" - a couple short, "dry hops" indicated everything was in order - Dad staged the car and the tree came down. Dad launched the car and BOOM!! it immediately spun end for end, moving only a few feet forward and pointing exactly back the way he came. Shaken, Dad "putt-putted" back toward the bleach box area and shut the car off to regain his composure.

After a short break a second run was attempted. Dad tried "driving" the car out (a much less violent launch), but the car never gained traction down the quarter mile, slipping and sliding until the run was finally aborted. The "traction bar" concept seemed to be a dismal and complete failure, after just these two attempted passes.

Today, in hindsight, we can see why these would not work. Per the "doorslammer" chassis guru's, like Chris Alston or Dave Morgan, the instant center of the 4 link rear suspension is driven rearward and down from the production location, providing more "percentage of rise" when compared to the car's center of gravity. Today we would never consider moving the instant center to go directly "through" the heart of the CG; what they had tried out was completely "directionally incorrect".

As has been said before, you can learn as much from your mistakes as from your successes. The rear suspension was returned to it's "production" configuration (ie, control arms attached at their original locations, reworked bushings*, air bag located in right rear spring), and it is in this condition that the car ran it's best ET and is how it sits today. It is basically the same setup that I have on my bracket/index car today.

Dad had mentioned that some of the bracketry and holes can still be seen under the car; I haven't checked specifically but the next time it's up in the air I will take a look.

K

*an old hot rodder trick is to drive 10 penny nails longitudinally into the bushings. The diameter of the nails take up space inside the bushing, compressing the rubber further and giving the end result of making the rubber appear "harder". Today we would probably simply purchase polyurethane bushings and install those but back then they were not yet available.

[Keith Seymore]

October 2009:

Found this at Mom's house today. I had been looking for it for quite some time (but not in the right spot, apparently):







Some of you might remember that Ubly Dragway was in the mainstream news about a year ago, as a result of this:

[Keith Seymore]

How We Met Jim Wangers

It occurs to me that I haven't yet told you how we first met Jim Wangers, a very long time ago. I hadn't shared this yet because I wanted to make sure I did so in a way that paid him the appropriate amount of respect, as an icon of the era, that he deserves. I think I am ready to do so now.

I may have mentioned that my Dad had started to record his thoughts and recollections in a yellow legal pad. He made it through about 20 pages of handwritten notes, starting with the early 60's up through the end of 1963, before his passing. I was sitting here, re-reading those notes, when it occurred to me: why should I reconstruct and editorialize and summarize when it's already here in front of me? Perhaps I should let "him" tell this story in "his own" words...

So - here we go - "How we met Jim Wangers", as told by Van Seymore:
[my comments are in brackets - K]


"My first encounter with Royal was by accident. They came to Central Michigan Dragway [now Mid Michigan Motorplex, in Stanton Michigan] on the second or third Sunday in September of 1960. Wangers was fresh off his Stock Eliminator win at Detroit Dragway. On this Sunday they had the Maroon car 'Hot Chief 1' (the car that took Stock Eliminator), [Dick] Jesse's white automatic 'Hot Chief #2', and a blue car.



"At this time I was racing a Ford; it was the first 360 HP delivered in Michigan and at this time it had the three Holley two barrel set up on it and was running as a 375 HP (with a letter from Ford).







"Steve French was the Tech Director and flag man at Central and I knew how to read him. As time trials opened Jim brought the Hot Chief #1 to the line and I came up in the left lane in my car. Steve would look at the right lane and then the left, and when the person in the left lane nodded the flag came up. By knowing this I was gone and I don't think I beat Wangers as much as I startled him so bad he couldn't catch me, but he sure sailed by me at the end of the quarter.

"When we returned to the pits Frank [Rediker] and Jesse were laughing so hard they were almost rolling on the ground. Wangers sure didn't see any humor in it and he came over to where I was parked and said 'I bet you can't do that again!' I was feeling kind of cocky so I said 'Sure I can'. We lined up again, in the same lanes, and although I didn't beat him by as much I still got to the end of the quarter first.

"By now Frank and Dick were laughing so hard they could hardly stand it. Jim came back over to where we were parked and said 'You can't beat the blue car!'. He sure was right, it didn't matter if I knew the flagman or not, he beat me that run.

"Later, I asked Frank about the engine in the Blue car and his comment was 'it's not quite stock'. I never did find out what 'not quite stock' meant."