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Originally Posted by Dr. Eric M. Schiffer
I hope everyone has had a great holiday. I had the opportunity to meet Don Morton who once ran Hurst Corporation for George Hurst and Franz Estereicher who is best known as the Corvette Z06 expert and owns one of Mickey Thompson's silver 1963 Corvette Z06 big tank cars and a 1962 Corvette Z06 big brake. They both attended our weekly Saturday Pasteiner's Auto Zone Hobby store gatherings. Both usually go to the Saturday gatherings at the Woodward Garage with George Delorean (Leader Automotive and John Delorean's brother) and Win Brown (early Royal Racing Team member and part of Pontiac's Daytona group).
I'll explain the reason I mention both of these guys. First Don I had told Don I owned Jim Wangers' Firebird. He asked which one? When I told him the 1968 Black one he be came very animated about the car. It said that was Jim's fastest and best stealth car. Just a black unassuming Firebird that would just blow the doors off anything on the road.
Now as for Franz, he once worked for Rockwell Industries who supplied the suspensions for GM. The springs and torsion bars. Franz designed the suspensions for Roger Penske's Camaro's and Javelins that the likes of Mark Donahue drove. Franz was also once President of Gabriel Shocks.
The reason I bring up Franz is because on a resent trip the Germany he was invited to visit a special room at Mercedes. The person who invited him knew Franz owned one of Mickey Thompson's 1963 Z06 Corvettes that raced at Daytona where Paul Goldsmith's 1963 Tempest 421 SD beat the Thompson Z06 Vettes with the Mystery Motors. The room was 6 floors DOWN. In this special room was Paul Goldsmiths Tempest. All of it's parts where still spread out on the benches from the disassembly in 1963. The body's paint still looked as it did after Paul Goldsmith drove it in 1963. The roamers that Mercedes scraped the car after purchasing it was false. Mercedes just like every manufacture buys the competition's cars to evaluate it. Then they usually reassemble it and sell it or scrap it. In this case the 1963 Tempest 421 SD just sits 6 floors below Mercedes engineering in pieces just as it has since 1963. Wow!
I was unable to down load a great article about Pontiac's Experiment into Road Racing '62 and '63 that appeared in "Vintage Motorsports" July / August and Sept / Oct 2015. Great read and show a the winning number 50 Paul Goldsmith 1963 Tempest 421 SD.
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Great news Eric that the 63 SD Still Survives
