One-of-14 ?Swiss cheese? Pontiac heads to auction | Hemmings ...

Photos courtesy Russo and Steele.

For a few years in the early 1960s, Pontiac fans on the East Coast looked to one dealership in particular to champion the marque in NHRA drag racing. Union Park Pontiac in Wilmington, Delaware, had an owner who embraced the ?win on Sunday, sell on Monday? mantra, a driver who knew how to handle a hot car, and the connections to get some of the hottest high-performance Pontiacs. One of those Union Park-campaigned Pontiacs, a one-of-14 ?Swiss cheese? 1963 Pontiac Catalina, will make its auction debut at Russo and Steele?s upcoming Scottsdale auction.

Having already developed a number of lightweight components for its full-sized cars in 1962 ? aluminum bumpers, aluminum fenders, aluminum hood, aluminum transmission cases ? Pontiac, led by chief engineer John DeLorean, looked for ways to shed more weight for 1963, thus keeping its cars competitive as Chevrolet, Ford, Dodge, and Plymouth began to explore their own weight-loss programs. However, the pending 1963 GM-wide ban on racing meant that Pontiac would have to act quick and would not have time to develop new race-only parts. To that end, DeLorean?s people chucked the front anti-roll bar, switched to aluminum exhaust manifolds, and used lighter gauge aluminum in the body panels, but the most remarkable modification they made was to drill more than 100 holes in the frame rails of 14 Pontiac Catalinas. All subtractions accounted for, the so-called ?Swiss cheese? Catalinas weighed about 425 pounds less than the 3,700-pound stock Catalina; with the dual-quad Super Duty 421 V-8 putting out a underrated 405-410 horsepower, the cars were good for quarter-mile elapsed times in the low 12s.

?Swiss cheese? Catalinas went to a number of noteworthy Pontiac racers and dealerships, including Arnie Beswick, Mickey Thompson, and Royal Pontiac. Harold Ramsey, Union Park Pontiac?s salesman-slash-driver, campaigned one of the 14 ?Swiss cheese? Catalinas (chassis number?363P99198) that year in Super Stock, splitting his driver duties between the Catalina and an A/FX Super Duty Pontiac Tempest ? another incredibly rare competition-only Pontiac. (Incidentally, a second A/FX Tempest ? one of the six wagons ? also passed through Union Park Pontiac.) Later, Ramsey would alter the Catalina?s wheelbase and campaign it in A/FX as one of the earliest Funny Cars, recording an 8.91-second quarter-mile time at 148 MPH in May 1965.

According to the auction description, the current owner of the Union Park ?Swiss cheese? Catalina came across it in 1997 and commissioned Thorpe?s Body and Corvette Shop in O?Fallon, Illinois, to restore the Catalina to its Union Park non-altered-wheelbase configuration using correct date-coded parts. With the restoration complete and the car authenticated by Super Duty Pontiac expert Pete McCarthy, the Catalina began to rack up accolades in 2010, including a perfect 400-point score at that year?s POCI Nationals.

Russo and Steele?s Scottsdale auction will take place January 16-20. For more information, visit RussoandSteele.com.

Source: http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2012/11/08/one-of-14-swiss-cheese-pontiac-heads-to-auction/

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