73 455SD Grand Am
 

My SS Ford buddy is really a Pontiac guy at heart. He worked at a dealership in Chicago in 1973 and purchased what he says is 1 of 3 cars. It was stolen and never recovered about a year or two later.

He just came across two NOS fender 455SD emblems black. Are they the same as the hood scoop emblems? Gotta be a rare car too bad it was never recovered.

He is going to sell them on Ebay.

Lynn
lmc3470@aol.com

They're probably the same, Lynn. The SD455 (unfortunately) never made it into production in the A-body. If your buddy's car had the SD motor in it, it was a dealer install, which would also be surprising based on how hard it was to get parts for these engines, even as late as 1975.

A good friend of mine (Phil) has a '73 G-A that was originally a 400/4-speed. He purchased it in 1996 from the original owner, Jack Hoffman of Horicon, WI. Jack was an engineer for John Deere. He ordered the car from the dealer in December 1972, with the SD455 and ram-air. It came in to the dealer about 10 weeks later, equipped with the 400, sans the ram-air. Jack still took delivery and brought it home, and spent the next 18 months gathering up the neccessary parts to convert it over to a SD455. In all of this, he still could not obtain a correct SD block or intake manifold. He settled on a regular 455 block pulled from a totalled '73 GP, and a '70 R.A. IV intake. All of the other parts (rods, carb, exh. manifolds, etc.) he was able to get over the parts counter at the dealer. He was also able to get many of the ram-air parts for the hood from the dealer, save for the most important one...the lid that sits atop the air cleaner base.

Jack networked trough his friends in the car club he was a member (I think it was the Antique Automobile club of America), and found another member who happened to be an employee at GM. He found him a lid, and, how shall we say?...it found its way out the "back door" (LOL).

I went with Phil when he went to pick the car up, and spent an afternoon with Jack at his garage. Jack was a very unique car guy. I may be speaking of him incorrectly in past tense terms, but in 1996, he was in his early 60's and his health had been ailing a bit. He had a small collection of late 40's to early 50's Cadillac's. He even had an old Caddy flathead V8 mounted up in an old water brake dynomometer. In addition to the Pontiac he also had a Toyota Supra of about mid 80's vintage with a Hotchkis turbo kit that was putting out 350-HP to the wheels. Then there was his collection of spark plugs which dated back to 1908, and his collection of German die cast toy cars from the 1920's and 30's. He had these really cool Schucco (spelling?) cars that you wound up and they would go across the floor like mad...what made them cool was they had "transmissions" in them with a gearshift, and depending on what gear it was in would dictate how fast it went across the floor.

I've rambled off topic a bit, but long story short, the decals are hood decals that your friend has, and given the scarce availability of SD455 parts in '73, although possible, I find it hard to believe anyone would have gotten one in an A-body installed at the dealer.

That car would have been Awesome Lynn on the street or the high banks of Daytona--very slick-love to build a clone of that-specially in the white with the American colors-anybody got some pics of one in the USA colors.

Heres a link for the not to be 73 GTO 455SD--not as Slick as the GRAND AM but close http://www.pontiacserver.com/c73gto_4.html Politics -- Imagine GRAND AM's-GTO's -TRANS AM's -FORMULA's -and GRAND PRIX's all screaming down the road with 455SD power back then--still be lots today to go around.

Lynn, see if he has any old registrations on that car or knows the VIN.
See what PHS would show for it.

Naysayers
 

LOL,

Well I knew someone would say something. Just like they never built any 69 TA's blue with white stripes. I was at Tom Wood Pontiac in late 1969 and there were two blue ones on the trailer.

They also never built the 59 Super Chief car Super Charged that showed up in Ohio at a used car lot. (Saw it on the cover of Hot Rod(?) as a feature article.

We have 100% positive proof this car was built by GM. Here is my buddy's response.

**************************************************

You are right Lynn, not worth engaging unless he has a lot of money to wager.
Ask him how many ram air hooded Grand Am's he has seen?
Also 4 speed Grand Am's were not that rare either. Not a dime a dozen by any means, but not uncommon.
The dealer I bought mine from even had a 4 door with a 400 4 speed.
Remember that I still have the window sticker and bill of sale.
I ordered the car Sept. 9 1972 and it was not even built until late May. It was continually delayed due to non availability of the engines. If not for me working for Jack Roach, brother of James Roach at the time it probably never would have been built. Even the 3.42 gear was a issue due to A/C, but they finally installed it at the factory. They did not want to give me anything stiffer than a 3.23.
I took delivery of it the day after Memorial Day 1973 from Seltzer Pontiac in Chicago.
PS.
In case you weren't aware, James Roach was from Hinsdale IL and the Chairman of General Motors at the time so his brother Jack had a little clout.

Alex

Lynn:
Just an FYI to your friend.
His name was actually James Roche and he retired from Chairman of GM in 1971.

If he does have an X coded vin and the paperwork, he should contact HPP or Rocky Rotella on this site. I’m sure they would love to do a feature. People have been searching for proof of a factory 455SD A-Body for many years. It would be equivalent to finding the proof on a true factory built 69 RAV GTO.

Lynn, do you think he would release the VIN?

I'd be interested in it.

SD455's should have been common installations in my opinion. It's not like the A bodies were light cars! Lynn, Your buddy must have had a lot of fun with his Grand Am! Too bad some scum that shouldn't be allowed to breathe stole it.

Well, Lynn...tell your friend I'm not the one carrying the burden of proof...he is. Produce the car or some legitimate PHS documentation to back his claim. If he can't do either, I'm still sticking to my claim that THERE WERE NO '73 A-BODIES PRODUCED FROM THE FACTORY WITH THE 455-SD ENGINE. Pontiac had to jump through flaming hoops with government emissions just to get the 455-SD program to market, which is why it was so late in being released, and why it was only installed in the F-body. I'm sure if there ever was an X code '73 A-body that Jim Mattison would know all about it.

As for me, I've seen plenty of '73 A-bodies over the last 20 years, even started to do a frame off restoration on one before I lost interest and sold it. Had an opportunity about 12 years ago to purchase a '73 4-door 4-speed Grand Am from Terry Wortman (one of purportedly 6 total produced), but turned it down for the same reason I lost interest in my other '73...two doors are hard enough to get parts for, and forget about 4-doors. Tell your buddy I've had the very factory ram-air package in my hands (off my friend Phil's car), the very package that to my exact knowledge, there are only three complete systems in existance (Phil's car, Tom Goad's "protoype" wagon, and another car that was in Arizona). There may be more, but these are the only three I know of. I tried to offer a reproduction on this package twice in the last 5-6 years and nobody is interested. Would only take about 40 or 50 units to make it economically feasible, but on the first attempt, I got 6 parties interested, and the last time, only 4.

Speaking of bill of sale...Phil still has the original from Jack Hoffman that shows the car as having been ordered with the 455-SD, ram-air, 4-speed, etc. but that's not how the car was built and delivered.

Window stickers can be ordered (or at least they could at one time) from reproduction companies and have options added that weren't available.

So...produce the car, the VIN, or the PHS documentation. Otherwise, I'd have to say my "bravo sierra" detector is twitching.

From the other post:

There were '73 GTO/ Grand Am/Grand Prix engineering mules and press cars with the SD-455 engines, but they were destroyed many years ago. The famous white SD-455 Grand Am was crushed in April 1978 or 1979 per Tim Claremont at the GA registry, since he has a copy of the factory crush order. The VIN ended in 00232. Over the years, people have mated the SD-455 engine to a 1973 A-Body, such as the gorgeous example originally bought by Jack Hoffman, now owned by Phil Griffith, but none were available from the factory to the general public.

Lynn,

There were actually 3 SD Grand Am's built as I have told you before.
One for a engineer which was a very early car, one for a Pontiac exec (VP of Midwest sales) and of course mine.
One white, and two Ascot Silver one of which was mine. Mine was the only one built with an extra cost stripe delete.

Alex

"I'm from Missouri...you gotta' show me, boy." - quote from some old and long forgotten movie, by some old and long forgotten actor.;)

sure they built SD455 Grand ams they also built 421 gto's in the 60's, put 455's in 79-81 trans ams,built 1000's of GTO wagons , i heard they even built a flying car...........NOT............... put up or shut up

You left out the rare 1972 GTO convertibles.. LOL

Why not, the factory tested 428's in 67-8 FB's/GTO's, and 455's in 69FB/GTO's.
Possible someone with clout cut through the red tape.

We have a n/c dealer near us that is a "poster child" for GM.
Gets anything he whats.
Owns 2 Cadillac and 2 Pontiac franchise's, but only one building/property.
Not supposed to be able to do that. GM has to ok every franchise buy out/new owner.
Both were from nearby towns. One ended up being a used car lot, the other a lawn & garden tractor dealer.

I'll also be interested in the truth. After all, stranger things have been known to happen.

What REALLY surprises me the most though is that Tom Wood Pontiac has been in business that long :jaw:

I want to know more about these blue 69 t/a's he's talking about.

I'm NOT saying it's real BUT I had a guy come in a few months ago to get parts on a Toyota (I know it's NOT a Pontiac) that had an engine in it that I looked at that was NEVER supposed to have come from the factory but there it was and it was all there hooked properly to every sensor and all and after looking under and over it I couldn't see any indiaction that it wasn't for real. I wish I could remeber exactly what it was but I can't and the only way we could find parts for it was to go to the catalogs and go by engine type and not application. I've seen so many late year and early year model run cars registered and VIN'ed as "X" year car but with last years or the next years parts on them I can't count any more. All makes all models going back into the '60's and they are stock. We have a guy working there that has been doing parts for over 30yrs and he can tell you the same thing becuase he saw it on the cars from the late '60's and early '70's when they were only a few years old! Not much superises me anymore when people come in with wierd stuff to the parts counter. What I'm getting at is I can believe that some might have been built and documentation is poor. NOT UNCOMMON IN THE REAL WORLD. For example only (relax people, hypothetical): Lets say Pontiac had three or four 455SD's left over and the production run of SD TA's was done. What do they do set on the engines or stuff them in a car and sell it? My bet is they sell it in a car. Another: You are at the end of a production run and you are the manager and you are about to make yourself look good by cranking out a record number of Grand Am's and you've run out of 400's but there are 3 455SD's on the shelf you can stuff in them to beat your quota and look like your hot stuff. I bet you stick them in the cars. ;) Something to think about. And if you don't think that kind of stuff went on well you don't know human nature IMO. ;) I just had a friend of mine tell me about his uncle's early '70's GP that he bought new off the show room floor. He said it was an SJ with some letter after that, SSJ maybe he's talking about? Well they take the thing in for it's first tune-up and the boys at the Pontiac dealership can't find any specs to tune this thing. They start digging around in the casting numbers and find out it's some "Police" engine that shouldn't even be in this car. It will smoke the stock tires (both) at 80mph on the highway. He was working construction at the time down by Portland, OR and he would run through the Gorge at 85-90mph and if he saw rollers in the mirror he would just put it to the floor and NOTHING ever caught him. My buddy actually drove the car and I really think it was a no BS story. The GP was some funky ass orange with a white vinyl top. I've heard others like it from people that I consider stand-up so it sure makes me wonder that there aren't cars out there that are truly one off that just aren't known about. Who knows, I know I don't...:noidea: