1962 COPO Impala 409? First COPO?

[bowtie3168]

BelAir62,
Have you seen Arnie "The Farmer" Beswick's video about the history of his life? There is alot of great info on it. There is a great deal of "Super Duty" info. One of the many things that I learned was that Arnie's '64 GTO 2dr sedan came with a 421 SD and an aluminum nose. I know that I will be questioned on this but the video states it.

Andrew

[JoeC]

The 1963 421 SD Pontiac Lemans Tempest is a wild production car. It is probably the first production Muscle car if you use the definition that a Muscle car is a big engine in a non full size body. I have read that six coupes and 6 station wagons were built with alu front ends. In 1963 someone had a bright idea to run the Stock Cars against the sports cars at Daytona. The race was the 1963 Daytona Speedweek "Challenge Cup" and was an oval track race. There were Ferraris, Porsches, a Ford powered Maserati, and 427 Corvettes powered by the 427 Mystery Motor. The Stock car guys blew everyone away with a Ray Nichels prepared 1963 421 SD Pontiac Lemans. Driven by Paul Goldsmith it averaged 145 MPH to win. A J. Foyt was second in a 63 Z06 Corvette. here are some sites on Arnie "the Farmer" Beswick's drag cars. He does say that his 64 GTO was the only one to leave the factory with the alu front end.
http://www.grocerygetterwagon.com/history.htm
http://www.arniebeswick.com/photos.htm

[Belair62]

Interestings stuff.Arnies bio states the same thing about the Alloy GTO....he sure had some clout at Pontiac to get that type of stuff out the back door AFTER the GM racing ban.When Arnie made his comeback after his devastating fire,the car he used was from the original owner of my 63 SD Catalina,a gentleman by the name of Jake Howard. Sadly I am contemplating selling the old warrior.

[Casey Marks]

Not '62 COPO, but since the Poncho stuff came up ......

One of my best friends does all of the automatic trans restos for SuperCar Specialties (Scott Tiemann). Either last year or the year before, Scott did one of the (6) wagons you speak of. The trans in those cars were absolutely mind-boggling. Called the "Tempest-Torque", it was mounted in the rear of the car companioned with the rear-axle (think front drive Toronado style - only in the back). The "driveshaft" basically connects directly to the engine, and runs back to the trans. The "Tempest-Torque" itself was what was used during this time period, BUT, this did not use the same "off-the-shelf" internals that a regular production trans would have. The owner had spent years and copious $$$ aquiring legit SD Tempest-Torque pieces specifically for this rebuild. The SD parts had different hardness levels than the regular stuff, as well as "Experimental" stamped pieces, etc. It really was a neat piece. Hard as hell to do, but when it was done, it was a sweetheart. Many of the pieces had to be made from scratch because they were absolutely unavailable. The best part ?? The guy was going to make some passes down the track with it !! Too cool !

[Chevy454]

Casey:

Good to see you back again! I hope you have a better reception than I did over at the Mopar board!

Anyway, neat set-up with the trans in the wagon...reminds me of the setup that was in a 944 that I used to have. I had a LOT of problems with the shifter linkage (I guess the Germans don't do a lot of speed shifting like I do!)...how was the linkage set up on the wagon?

[REDZ]

Concerning the '62 Z-11 package, I don't know if it was a COPO program or not, but I think it is fairly well accepted now that Chevy did put aluminum front ends on 10 to 20 Impalas at the end of the '62 model year. I was told that these were all hardtop plain Impalas, no bubbletops, no Biscaynes and no super sports. One of these cars is in the Indianapolis area. It was orginally raced out of that area under the Zintmaster Chevrolet dealership sponsorship. Supposedly, the window sticker is still in the car.

My understanding is that the '62 Z-11 package consisted of only the aluminum front ends, with the trick heads and intake not being installed until the 1963 model year. According to Rusty Symnes, who has written a booklet about these cars and seems to know more about them than anyone else, the Tonowanda engine plant has records of 50 of the Z-11 engines being built for the '63 model year. If this is true, then the accepted number of 57 cars is about 12 to 17 too many....probably about 40-45 built with 5 to 10 spare engines. Normally, they produced about 10% spares which would indicate 45 cars.... but not much was normal when you consider that they were making these wild cars at all.

[Edited by REDZ (07-06-2001 at 07:49 PM).]

[Belair62]

Rusty has THE finest 62 Belair I have ever seen. Wonder if he ever looks in on this site ? As for the Ponchos,they also called that trans-axle the Powershift trans.It was a 4 speed according to my materials. It could be set up for a converter or a clutch! They also used a flexible or "rope" driveshaft which was connected directly to the crankshaft.What a strange piece. There were 6 DOCUMENTED Lemans SD coupes and 6 DOCUMENTED Tempest wagons. Look for Pete McCarthy's book Pontiac Musclecar Performance 1955-1979 for some really cool info and pics on these beasts as well as Swiss Cheese and the rest of the Super Duty Pontiacs.

[Edited by Belair62 (07-06-2001 at 09:33 PM).]

[Bayer Z-11]

First there were only 50 factory built ‘63
Impala Z-11s. Not 57.

Regarding the ‘62 aluminum front ends they were not installed at the factory. They were a service package item only Same as the intake, valley tray and heads released to a select few racers. There were no “Z-11s” in this model year.

Regarding ‘61 409. They were small port heads, solid lifter cam and aluminum intake with a single AFB. They were rated @ 360 HP when built. The 2x4 big port heads became a service package item late in the year just prior to the ‘62 model run.

[tjs44]

Guys I hate to interject in a very old COPO thread but as the 63 SD Tempest were mentioned I can give some info on the transaxle.The unit used a 2 speed Tempest TQ trans with a 2 speed planetary (spelling) bolted to it giving it a 4 speed manual Auto trans.No TQ converter.The car had a clutch with the unit mounted in the rear with a hyd bearing.They launced to car with the clutch and just shifted each gear with a console mounted shifter.Tom

[tjs44]

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