[Tom Vaught]

This year is my 30th year of working for The Ford Motor Company in Engineering and my 43rd year of owning my car. The difference in the years 1964 to 2008 is 44 years but my car was owned by the St Louis Zone Office prior to my uncle (a Pontiac dealer for 69 years) getting it for me from the factory. A lot of history has happened in those 43 years.

But back to the topic "Why the "Factory" built "Clones"

I do "boosting" (Turbocharging/ supercharging) at Ford Research for a living, as some of you know. I was involved in the 2003 Mustang Supercharged Mustang, the Ford GT, the Lightning, and other projects like the Shelby 500KR vehicle. http://www.mustangheaven.com/stangsp...lbyGT500KR.htm

Many of the vehicles I worked on were "MULES" meaning that the car or truck was a earlier production vehicle with the parts from the special vehicle installed on it for testing, drive evaluations, road tests by magazine people, etc. My 600 HP "Pool Car" Mustang with the supercharger in 1998-2004 time frame was an example. Once the 2003 production cars had been out a while then we could get the real deal for our future testing work. Before that we used "MULES"

A "MULE" by another name could be called a "CLONE"

A "Clone" is any vehicle that did not go down the production line and come out for example as a 64 GTO or as a 2008 "Shelby 500KR".

Why would the factory engineers do this? TO SAVE MONEY AND TO GET TESTING ON THE VEHICLE PRIOR TO RELEASING THE REAL DEAL FOR PRODUCTION. You will notice that I put the "Money" part FIRST. Money for any program is hard to come by as you try and save as much as possible for your road trip budgets. If you can grab a Ford GT and upgrade it to a Shelby 500 KR with your access to the parts before hand you save money. You might also put BREMBO Brakes on your deal and the car goes down the line with a lower cost brake when a lower hp engine was finally approved due to emissions, f.e., or other program changes.

Pontiac in the 60s built some magazine cars. Two famous ones were the famous "Red Car" and the "Blue Car" that had the "cheater" 421 engines installed in them by Royal. Another car would be Bill Schultz Ram Air 5 car that was originally I believe a Ram Air 3 car. Milt Schornach's "Brown RA-5 car" is another example. Herb Adams' wife's car started life as a Lemans and later would up as the "Grey Ghost" 64 GTO road race car. The "LeFlamme 64 GTO" show car actually started life as a 64 LeMans. I have a CD, given to me by a famous pontiac writer which shows the "LeFlamme GTO" being converted by factory people from a Lemans. My car has a bunch of stuff on it that does not make sense vs the PHS paperwork. A buddy of mine has the 65 GTO that was featured in a track test against the Bill Schults 69 GTO. The 65 GTO had a hood tach on it. He still has the hood and the car in his garage, lol!. I have the magazine article somewhere.

Now this is stuff that I can easily put down on paper as happening.

Again, 99.9% of the time the car you look at to buy will either be a GTO or a "Clone". Don't be in a big hurry to get away from the "Clone" as it might have a more interesting history than the average production line GTO ever had.

As was said by several people, if you want to drive the "Clone GTO" go for it. If you want a "REAL" GTO, go for it. Personally I would love to have the "LeFlamme" Lemans/GTO (even if it was a "Clone") as that car would be worth a million bucks today to a collector.

Unfortunately a lot of those cars were crushed over the years. (:>((

JMO

Tom Vaught

[Keith Seymore]

Tom -

I agree with everything you said, except for the statement "...A "MULE" by another name could be called a "CLONE"..."

You know this but the way I would say it is a "mule" is simply a pre-production (pre-prototype, actually) vehicle, typically stall built or an "over the fender" build.

"Clone" to me connotes a copy of an existing vehicle, usually to cash in on the increased value of that vehicle's reputation.

Since the mule phase is way before any other vehicles, in my mind you can't "clone" a vehicle that hasn't been in production yet. For example, you wouldn't be able to "clone" a Ford Lightning when you (ie, Ford Engineering) have the only one!

Similarly, Pontiac engineers had to start with a Lemans mule for the GTO because, in that time frame, the GTO did not exist. I would call it a mule, or a prototype, but not a clone...

Respectfully -

K

[Keith Seymore]

Incidently, our '64 Lemans WAS a factory mule, received via the GM Milford Proving Ground. It was given to us with a 421 engine in place...



...and it was faster than our '64 production GTO racecar....



In fact, if anyone gave Dad a hard time about the GTO, he would say "...why, I can beat you with my TOW CAR!..." and he usually could!

[Tom Vaught]

Quote:

"Incidently, our '64 Lemans WAS a factory mule, received via the GM Milford Proving Ground. It was given to us with a 421 engine in place..."

Great Pics, Keith!

Proving Grounds have a way of disposing of "left over" parts and vehicles don't they! I wish I had been around when Romeo gave away the three 427 cid side oiler engines they had in the crates in the one storage area. An "outsider" would never have a chance at that stuff but an "Insider" would be able to get the proper paperwork to document receiving the vehicle, engine, etc.

Your comment about "Was" a mule begs another question. My car came with the mechanical tri-power linkage shown in the parts book (I have the numbers but not in front of me). A guy who asked me to restore his 64 GTO carbs back to vacuum linkange sent me a NOS (never opened) box with the same linkage so I know the linkage made it into the parts system. Question for you. The car had mechanical linkage, 3.90 gear (vs 3.23 gear on build sheet), woodgrain dash (which Mr. Bill Sherman said was a test market deal for 65), in dash tach, 4 speed (wide ratio), metallic brakes, Deep 4 core radiator square bottom (but John V's info says that was not the 50 code on the build sheet, No Power Brakes but the sheet says Power Brakes, Limited Slip diff, etc. How was your Mule built?

Tom V.

[Keith Seymore]

Unfortunately I don't have any further detail about how the car(s) were spec'd out. Both the '64s are long gone and I'm afraid I can't ask anybody that level of detail (ie, Mom wouldn't know).

I always keep my eyes peeled for any old paperwork, so perhaps someday I'll find a VIN for either of the cars and do some more research.

K

[mzbk2l]

I remember several years before the Duramax became available, we had a test mule for transmissions that needed to have similar torque and hp to the upcoming duramax. They took a brand new 1998 extended cab pickup truck was built with a 6.5 liter diesel and converted it. The 6.5 liter "HO" diesel featured a larger turbo, intercooler, and different intake on top of what looked like a normal 6.5 in . That thing was a rocketship. (It also had a cobbled-up extended nose to clear the intercooler, a 2" body lift to clear the Allison, and about 40 miles of extra wiring to accommodate all the sensors we installed on test vehicles.)

[Keith Seymore]

I was the design/release engineer for the engine air induction system back when we did the GMT800 truck (1999 model year introduction).

We needed to do water ingestion testing but there were no running vehicles at that time. So - what I did was take an existing "old fashioned" GMT400 truck and assembled a GMT800 style front end. I used a hood, RH fender and half a radiator support that I dug out of the trash...



Then, since hydrolocking the engine can be fairly catastrophic , I routed a remote (slave) air induction system at the back of the truck for the actual engine. My new induction system was routed to a shop vac, sucking at the same rate as the diesel engine (to provide the airflow) and which also allowed me to collect and measure any water that got into the system.

I'll never forget the first time we hit the water trough with that setup - it was 16" deep and at 25 mph there was water EVERYWHERE (over the top of the truck, into the pickup cab). I thought "man, this must be what it was like to be on the Titanic..."

It was a nasty looking thing but it got the job done.

K

[Tom Vaught]

Most of the "SD" type Ford Trucks (We invented the name by the way), lol, today have the inlet in the old Pontiac Trans Am Extractor location on the upper fender behind the wheel. Works pretty good for the water injestion deal.

Tom V.