I was have a discusion with my wife about thinking of changing the auto for a 4 speed in the 73 I am watching. I thought that the 73 GS factory 4 speeds where the only 73 A body 4 speeds available. I have seen the 74 GTO with a 4 speed but that is the smaller body. the question is: Other than the 73 GS has anyone ever seen another 73 GM A-body with a 4 Speed. ????( Chevelle, GTO/ Lemans, Cutlass) Tim
I know in 73, pontiac had the lemans/gto on the X-frame. Chevelles did the same. From the info I have it appears Olds followed suit, which would make me believe that Buick was no longer an a body in 73.
Tim, I believe the 73-77 Cutlass/Lemans/Regal/Malibu was still the a-body. The x-body was the Nova platform, which the 74 GTO was based. The mid-sizers became the g-body with the downsize of 1978. I think the frames on the 73-77 mid-size cars are very close in design to the 64-72's, much as the 91-96 b-body cars (Caprice & Roadmaster) are the same under the skin as the 77-90 models. I have seen a 4-speed 73 Chevelle, but it was a long time ago. Anyone else? Mark
Tim, I believe John Csordas of the N.E. GS/GN club has a factory 73 GS Stage1 4-speed. And the last I heard it was for sale! He's a BPG member and is on this board. You can e-mail him at NCsord4@aol.com
2 Chevelle's I've seen two 454 4 speed 73 Chevelle's. Wait,I take that back. One 73 chevelle ss, the other car was a 1974 Chevelle Laguna type S-3 with 454 4 speed(very rare) we (my Dad&I) looked at and drove the car, went home and talked about if we really wanted it or not, found out how extremely rare it was,went back with the cash and it was long gone. The seller had it listed through Hemmings, and told us that a very famous sports star bought it for his collection sight unseen! Can you say Reggie Jackson!!
The '73 Pontiac LeMans & GTO were based on the A-body chassis, the '74 GTO was the 1st & only on the X-body chassis. The '73 LeMans was available with a 350 2bbl & a 4spd Saginaw. As such with no a/c, it will have a 3.08 rear gear. The LeMans & '73 GTO were also available with M20 Muncie & 400 4bbl. Have dragged in & parted several 4spd '73's here in OK & even ran across a 4spd '73 442 in a boneyard in MN last year. Need some clutch pedals, other linkage pieces, feel free & drop me a line. Roger
4 speed 73 I owned a 73 Stage 1 4 speed car earlier this year. Build sheet and sloan musuem documented car. Yes, the other A bodies were available with a 4 speed. I also have owned a 73 Chevelle SS 454 4 speed STATION WAGON! Yes, they made them and they are hens teeth rare! This was the only year that the Super Sport option WAS AVAILABLE on a Chevelle station wagon as a factory RPO option. Any other year wagon is a SS clone. I like those long roofs. Also had a 72 Pontiac wagon with a 400 and the "sport" frontend option. The sport option was a GTO nose. Yep! The same frontend as a 72 GTO on a WAGON! Drove this car several years. Now being restored by a guy in KY. Olds actually made 2-3, can't remember the number of 72 Hurst 442 wagons for the 72 Indy 500. Olds was the pace car with the 442 convertible. There are some unique wagons out there! How did I go from 4 speeds to wagons? OH WELL! Happy Holidays!
According to my stuff there were 365 AD37('73 GS/Century, includes 350,455 and Stage 1) in 1973. Rumor has that only 7 of them were Stage 1, but that is not in the documentation I have! There were some Century's built without the GS option with the 455 too! So if anyone has one they should contact the Sloan Museum to confirm and get more info. Please share with us if you find anything interesting. Thanks!
Re: 4 speed 73 I remember one of those 454 Chevelle SS wagons running around my home town while I was in high school. Couldn't tell you if it was a 4-speed or auto though. The owner ran a red light, got t-boned by a semi and ended up squished between the semi and a building. Not a single thing was salvageable.:ball:
Re: 2 Chevelle's Hey Tom, Sounds like a story for "The one that got away'' thread. There was one of these running around in my home town also but i think it was an auto.
Re: 2 Chevelle's Wow, Tom. That's a sad story. I hope it wasn't one of the cars that got torched when he had that big fire in one of his garages. ou:
Sad too Here's another sad story.Factory Stage 1 Sun Coupe, power everything, factory black and white car. Man says he's keeping it here till his brother retores it. I found the motor on a nearby hill after making an ever expanding search circle. Looked good till I rolled it over to find a fist sized hole in the side of the block. Really sad.
I can't stand people like that :af: . They always give the "I'll restore it later" routine. The sad truth is that they will never restore it, it will sit there and rot :af: . People like this really burn me . Sorry for the rant. Larry :TU:
The Stage 1 '73 Sun Coupe is def a sad sight. uzzled: Is the car a 4spd car? If the dum@sses had any sense they would at least put the car up on blocks under a $100 pole-barn shed & pull all the plastic & interior out to clean up & store inside of airconditioned room. This car reminds me of same color combo auto '73 Stage1 that was in wrecking yard on Elliot Reeder in Ft Worth, back close to 10 or 11 years ago. Believe it was across from Glen & Jerry's. Car is long gone, I tried peeling off the 100 dollar bills as car was to be crushed, all to no avail. uzzled:
Thanks for all the info. know IF I decied to convert my auto to 4 speed I have other options for the parts i need. Stage III I know what how you feel. There is also a 74 GS stage 1( I think) here in town that I want to check on. but I think I will get that same line that we have all heard: " I am going to fix it up one day" oPH, IF I need those parts I will contact you thanks. Tim
You'll don't want to see what I did with my '73 Stage 1, bought it for $500, drove it for a year, even raced and beat my brother's '73 GS 455, which we still have, it's been apart since '90. The Stage 1 was a bondo rustbucket when I bought it, the engine locked up, #6 cylinder, the bearings came apart and locked it up at a major intersection when I was going to pick up pizza for dinner, pushed it into the gas station went back with the breaker bar and put it on the crank and no go, so had it towed home, and then put in a storage lot for several years. Dragged it home when I had a place to hide it behind the barn and 3 years ago, (I had to cut a tree down to get it out!) pulled it in front of the barn and proceeded to cut it into little pieces. Sold the rear end to a guy that had one without posi, it was really rusty, saved everything I could. I am overwhelmed with '73 parts as I also parted out a FL GS 350, that the rear qtrs and trunk were slopped with roof cement but the floor pan was good, and is now in Clark Bowman's '74 GS Screaming Yellow Zonker, running 11s! I still have the Stage motor, and all the parts, interesting the top ring was also missing on #6, the car was sold in Flint in September of '73, the tranny went in the race car for a few races only to grenaded due to pinion angle issues, I kept was left of the case and the guts. The biggest problem with the '73-4s is the sheetmetal for all GM products for those years was of a much less quality than ever, someone told me they changed steel vendors for '73, trucks, cars all of them, my sister's first car was a '73 Chevelle with a straight 6 look good when she got it but within a few years it was a major rust mess too. On the other hand, anyone that has owned or driven a '73 Century has a different perspective of life in a Buick, they ride and drive like a big car and can go almost as fast as a '70-72 GS. Rich Stuedemann had a '73 GS Silver at Columbus, he had ran a best of 13.20s and Shane Thekan has the red one that runs in the low 13s too, John Csordas' 4-speed ran in the 12s. It is unfortunate that these cars have no appeal but parts are really hard to find, and find a really nice specimen is getting harder to find because of their rust problem. I just realized, I haven't checked to see if Mike Garrison sold his Regal on eBay, that looked like a good one. Later, way too much rambling!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:ball: :grin: :Brow: :beer Roberta
