Back in the 1960’s competition between automakers was extremely fierce, especially when it came to performance.  With the horsepower wars escalating thanks to the decision by most of the domestic car companies to install larger and larger engines into small and mid-size automobiles, it was important for a brand to be able to distinguish itself from the pack in order to maximize its sales.

 

This need for differentiation was especially felt at the dealership level.  Individual dealers looked hard for an advantage when it came to moving more cars than the guy down the block, and a number of them turned to their mechanics for inspiration.  It was no secret that a lot of the engines and drivetrains that were being shipped out of Detroit in that era were severely underrated in terms of their horsepower and torque production.  Quite a few nudges and winks were required to get insurance companies to accept the seemingly reasonable numbers that were floated past them by Ford, General Motors and Chrysler in an attempt to keep rates reasonable and drivers happy.  The potential awaiting a savvy tuner inside those motors was enormous, and very quietly, a number of dealerships began to experiment to see what they could get out of their big cubic inches.

 

Most of this work occurred under the radar at first, and not just for fear for upsetting insurers.  General Motors, for example, had specifically forbade its engineers to pursue racing in most forms for a large part of the decade, as they were concerned with the negative publicity that they felt motorsports participation was bringing to their company.  This meant that dealers had to walk a fine line between doing enough advertising so that their factory hot rods would sell, while at the same time making sure that the mothership never made the connection between drag strip success and its point of origin.

 

One of the earliest rule benders was Royal Pontiac, which called Royal Oak, Michigan its home.  Starting as early as 1959 the dealership had been sponsoring drag racing with the consent of Jim Wangers, a Pontiac executive frustrated with his division’s pigheadedness with regards to performance.  Using Super Duty Pontiacs, the Royal would go on to dominate the local strips, which in turn caused gearheads from far and wide to spread the word about their mechanical acumen.  The dealership became a hot spot for innovations in engine and intake design that eventually found its way onto option sheets that enabled drag racers to order ridiculously powerful cars straight from Pontiac.  This was in addition to the kits and go-fast parts developed by Royal Pontiac during the course of their quest for more power.  The most famous kit was the “Royal Bobcat”, which could be applied to the Catalina, GTO, Grand Prix and even the Firebird, and which among other changes snuck a 421 – later a 428 – cubic inch engine between the front fenders.

 

Two other members of the GM family, distant in geography but close in spirit, would step onto the Chevrolet scene in the mid 60’s.  Don Yenko took the same aggressive spirit he had employed as a professional race car driver and used it to develop an in-house tuning program that was very similar to that found at Royal.  While he had been hopping up Chevrolets for clients since the late 50’s, it was the release of the Camaro in 1967 that really saw Yenko’s star begin to rise.  He decided that the Camaro was a perfect recipient for a 425 horsepower edition of Chevrolet’s 427 cubic inch big block V8.  As with Royal, word spread and soon Yenko was having trouble keeping up with the demand for his Super Camaro.  For 1968, using a secret backdoor into the Chevrolet production line called the Central Office Production Order (COPO), Yenko was able to use special codes to create limited run models of the Camaro that sidestepped Chevrolet’s performance restrictions and saw the 427 installed directly from the factory, along with a number of other high performance parts.  This option was also available on larger Chevelles and smaller Novas.

 

Fred Gibb Chevrolet had started out in much the same way as Yenko, swapping big blocks into Camaros through 1968.  In 1969, however, Gibb took things to another level with the Camaro ZL-1.  This aluminum-engine beast generated 430 horsepower and 450 lb-ft of torque from 427 cubic inches.  Gibb had been able to convince Chevrolet to build these monster Camaros thanks to his relationship with the upper brass and a promise to sell at least 50 by himself.  However, when final production costs soared to create a sticker price of over $7,000 per vehicle, Gibb was forced to distribute the cars to a number of other dealerships in order to find buyers for such an expensive vehicle.  Over the course of two years, 69 of the 1969 ZL-1’s were eventually sold.

 

Ford and Dodge had their own speed-hungry dealerships in the muscle car mix, and in fact these entrepreneurs were lucky in that they didn’t face the same kind of corporate resistance as those working under the GM umbrella.  Mr. Norm’s Grand-Spaulding Dodge in Chicago grew from a used car lot into one of the most revered speed shops in the area, thanks to their decision to focus on young men interested in winning bragging rights down at the strip.  Dodge used them to actively promote their 426 cubic inch Max Wedge cars and eventually Mr. Norm was even performing research and development for the Pentastar, creating the first big block Dodge Darts to prove to their parent company that it could indeed be done.  Sold as GSS models, Grand-Spaulding would continue to pump out fast cars until the mid-70’s, with their Demon GSS, the last special model to leave their showroom.

 

Tasca Ford, owned by Bob Tasca in Rhode Island decided to take the Blue Oval’s stock designs to the limit through their own performance division that built not just factory drag cars but also monster street machines.  Tasca’s big block Ford Galaxie, built in 1961, became the inspiration for Ford’s Thunderbolt drag cars later in the decade, and their 505 horsepower Mustang struck fear into the hearts of bowtie-wearing muscle cars across the country.  They also partnered with NASCAR greats Holman-Moody and road racer Carroll Shelby in order to sell special models like the Cobra right from their dealership.  Tasca’s greatest contribution to muscle car history was the Cobra Jet Mustang, a vehicle he created and then showcased to the Ford brass in 1967.  Unlike the other names mentioned here, he remained active in the performance world of both Lincoln and Ford for the next several decades, and today Tasca Ford is still modifying new Mustangs.

 

The men behind these dealerships represented a pioneering spirit no longer found in car sales today.  Most performance shops have been relocated outside a dealer’s property lines as organizations focus on pushing bread and butter cars to pad the bottom line.  There is no question, however, that the passion and guile demonstrated by these builders and mechanics made the muscle car era that much more exciting – and inspiring – to those lucky enough to have experienced it first hand.

By Benjamin Hunting

Benjamin is a professional, published writer living in Montreal, Canada. He has a deep background in three industries: medical, music and automotive. 

He is President of an independent record label for close to a decade, and also spent over eight years as a musical promoter and touring musician.

He has restored and raced automobiles for 15 years, and writes for a number of automotive publications on the web.

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