Question on the 70 GS Stage 1 show car?

The one I am talking about is the traveling companion to Brad's GSX prototype. The John Chamberlain's formerly owned red w/all white interior.

The question I have is really confirming something I have heard. I have heard that when the two where touring the auto shows in 1970s. Both cars where white. after it toured the all white interior car was changed to red, by Buick.
I cannot remember where I saw this. just want to confirm things.

Tim

 

Pretty sure John's chamberlains car always had white interior with a white rug the current owner changed the white rug to black no one knows for sure if he kept the original rug big mistake changing it to black because he wanted to drive it.

 

John would know the answer to your question for sure.

 

Stage 2, he's asking about the paint having been changed, not the carpeting.

 

Sorry about that I was driving and looking at my phone a big no-no. John Chamberlain's car was originally white when they pulled it off the assembly line then painted it fire glow for the show circuit I believe starting in Chicago.

 

Again John Chamberlain would know the answer to your question.

 

That answers that question, thanks all.

tim

 

There also appears to be one in the background of a GSX photo. It looks like the same car but with a white roof.

 

Brad is correct. Cars were ordered identical with exactly the same options and were invoiced exactly the same down to the penny.

 

You may be confusing the interior of the red 1970 car with the 1971 factory show car, which actually had (has) an interior that is somewhat orange in color. This car also eventually sold through Immke Buick in Columbus, as did the 1970 show cars, and is currently undergoing restoration.

 

OOPS! I need to pay closer attention to the original question, it was with regard to paint, not interior. Oh well, hopefully I didn't use too much bandwidth.

 

I wonder if some national car show, perhaps Muscle Cars and Corvette Show, could have the clout to put together a show of remaining GM show cars from the 50's, 60's & 70's (& maybe 80's). Over the years, I have read of other GM Divisions' similar show cars winding up in private ownership - Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles, for example. Many run the gamut from internal custom builds as design studies (multiple Pontiac/El Camino builds), Pontiac & Olds design concept versions of C1 'Vettes and a host of other cars bearing "GM Design" emblems which were displayed at car shows to judge potential interest, etc. Some Dealers even took on the task to build the prototype and then showed them to the Execs in Detroit to try to convince them to build a version. I keep recalling all the various special "one offs" which have been documented and written about over the years (like the Corvette built for Bill Mitchell and the Gen 2 Trans Am built for Bill Mitchell with powder blue wheel wells and dash and carpet) and a display of the range of the General's cars together ... showing multiple decades of effort would really be something special. I think it would be very interesting.

On a side note, I know many people have had questions about how a "prototype" car (built by a manufacturer) could have been sold to the public as a new car? I am specifically referencing Brad's GSX "prototype". While Brad has gone to great length over the years to educate us about the technical differences of special one-off cars like his, he tries to remind people that his GSX is really called a "show car" rather than a "prototype", though loosely the latter does still seem to kinda "fit". Fact is, I think I recall reading a response from him in a thread that he just got tired of explaining this technicality to others and let them run with "prototype" label. So, in an on'line article (HERE) about the Pontiac Trans Am which Bill Mitchell (Head of GM Design, successor to Harley Earl) drove, I saw a little nugget of information which makes total sense in retrospect, but explains that while GM Design made all the custom touches (paint, upholstery, trim, accents, etc.), that Trans Am was produced on a Pontiac assembly line which meant it had all the formal certifications to be street driven and even licensed. That is probably the very reason why Brad's GSX and the Red Stage 1 show cars from '70 were allowed to avoid being dismantled or crushed (as was the infamous Corporate dictate). The article even mentions that only certain Dealers would be considered for moving such a special car as inventory and/or for sale - probably a reward for being a big Dealership with a special relationship to the Manufacturer:
"Mitchell himself must have warmed up to the big bird rather quickly. He had another Trans Am, this one a 1972 built at the Norwood, Ohio, assembly plant (that quite possibly could have sat idle during the 1972 strike), assigned to the Pontiac design studio, with a number of specific design requests. For the exterior, he asked for pearl white paint, trimmed in blue (with matching blue fenderwells, no less), and accompanied by a set of white honeycomb 15-inch wheels, even though Pontiac never offered honeycombs in any colors other than argent silver and gold.

(According to Tom Goad, the product planning manager for Pontiac at the time, the company that supplied Pontiac with the honeycomb wheels, Motor Wheel Corporation, had pitched the idea of body-colored honeycombs to Pontiac, and the division contemplated adding them as an option for 1973, but Pontiac ultimately canceled the option before it reached production.)

Mitchell specified pearl white leather seats and white door panels trimmed in blue with blue dash, blue console, blue carpet and blue steering wheel spokes. Whether it came as such off the line or whether Mitchell specified it this way, the Trans Am came with an automatic transmission, tinted glass, the aforementioned console, 8-track, air conditioning and power windows. As with all cars that passed through his studio, Schinella added stainless steel grates in place of the floor mats and affixed to the door panels a pair of General Motors Design badges.

According to Jim Mattison of Pontiac Historical Services, those last two items were a kind of trademark of cars that emerged from the Pontiac design studio.

“Generally speaking, cars that got those weren’t normally put on the street for use, just on turntables,” Mattison said.

Stylistically speaking, however, the most significant addition to the Trans Am remains the black and blue hood bird, which carried the same general design as the production graphics of 1973, but much more modest dimensions–roughly two-thirds of the production bird’s size, with wings that came far from wrapping around the hood scoop.

The decal on the hood scoop has a similarly vague origin. Though it claims a Super Duty 455 under the hood–an engine that didn’t see the light of day until late in the 1973 model year–the X in the car’s VIN identifies a 300hp 455 H.O. as the engine. Neal Wichard, who owned this car when we photographed it, confirmed the engine as a 455 H.O., though he said the V-8 did receive some tweaks at the hands of Pontiac’s engineering department.

“Engineering installed an experimental aluminum intake manifold, which I’ve gathered to be a leftover from their testing with those in 1971,” Wichard said. “We also saw that it has Ram Air IV heads, as well as a Ram Air IV camshaft and a little higher stall converter–around 2,300 to 2,500 rpm.”

So, conceivably, Pontiac’s styling studio simply decided to use this car as a test mule to see how the upcoming SD-455 decals fit to the hoodscoop.

According to Wichard and Mattison, Mitchell then took the car out to Road America at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, several times over the next eight to 10 months, both to indulge his love for racing and to show off the car and gauge the public’s response in the same way Schinella took his first hood bird Trans Am up Woodward.

“Mitchell developed a great number of friends up there,” Mattison said. “So, generally, any car that he had control over, he sent to them.”

The car’s origin on an assembly line meant it remained DOT- and EPA-approved, which saved it from heading straight to the crusher once Mitchell was done with it. Rather than sell styling study cars directly to Mitchell’s friends, however, GM had to arrange the sale through the Brass Hat Dealers, a small network of dealerships set up to handle such transactions. Public Pontiac in Skokie, Illinois, thus sold the Trans Am in late October 1972 for $4,197.34 to Dave Doren, an acquaintance of Mitchell’s who admired the car. It then passed through another couple owners before Wichard, of La Jolla, California, discovered it in unrestored condition in Michigan."

 

Wow this car looks super awesome first I've heard of it