The GSX Prototype - From Those Who Were There and More

Discussion in 'The Bench' started by rkammer, Aug 15, 2022.

  1. Duane

    Duane Member

    Dave was also good at doing a practical joke every now and then.

    Maybe I will tell about the one he pulled on Brad later.
    Duane
     
  2. Duane

    Duane Member

    Allan,
    We all have our days in the sun. The trick is to remember them and try to let the bad days be forgotten. It can often be a struggle to do that, but you have to keep trying.
    Duane
     
    Lucy Fair, gsconv, 71GSX and 2 others like this.
  3. allan m johnson

    allan m johnson Well-Known Member

    well said
     
    FLGS400 likes this.
  4. Guy Parquette

    Guy Parquette Platinum Level Contributor

    Duane, I think you are correct! Was going off of memory. That grille emblem did come from the #4085 GSX.
    Doug Jones and I became somewhat very close over the years. He would call me out of the blue. And I did the same.
    I will always whole heartedly respect the man. He fought in Vietnam, and later was disabled from Agent Orange.
    And I do know what parts did and did not go to the J/B car. The Stg2 heads on the J/B car did not come from #4085.
     
  5. Duane

    Duane Member

    So another piece of the puzzle is figured out.
    Duane
     
    Brad Conley likes this.
  6. Guy Parquette

    Guy Parquette Platinum Level Contributor

    Um, just reading some post's here after my last post.
    Maybe I'm missing something... But you all realize Dave Benisek passed away in 2014? Sad....
     
  7. Duane

    Duane Member

    No I didn’t know. Another one gone.
    Duane
     
  8. BUQUICK

    BUQUICK I'm your huckleberry.

  9. Duane

    Duane Member

    To brighten this thread up a bit, and to give you a little idea of Dave's sense of humor, I am posting an article I wrote years ago. It is another little piece of "GSX history" that involves Dave, Brad and myself. This will also explain why Brad felt the need to get a Pink air cleaner lid on my car years later.

    I hope everyone enjoys the story.


    THE SAGA OF THE PINK AIR CLEANER FOAMS


    A long time ago, in a land far far away….

    Oh, sorry guys, wrong story. Anyway, when it came time for Brad Conley to restore his 1970 GSX Factory Show Car he contracted Dave Kleiner of GS Enterprises to do the job. Dave liked the quality of my work and was buying all his upholstery kits from my company, Classic Car Interiors, so I was given the job of doing Brad’s interior. I also located many other parts for the restoration including the turned metal appliqué material used throughout the interior and various other smaller items.

    One of the things Dave was looking for was the air cleaner foams for the Ram Air setup. The GSX Show Car has much wider Ram Air Scoops then it’s production counterparts, so the air cleaner foams were extended accordingly. One day Dave and I were talking about this and I told him I thought I could make them. I was in the upholstery business and had a machine that could cut material up to 4” thick. I used this machine to cut out multiple seat cover sets at the same time. We would draw out the seat pieces on the top sheet of vinyl, put as many sheets as needed under that, and then cut them all out at once.

    Anyway, Dave thought it was great, so he sent me one of the steel GSX base plates for the air cleaner foams, to use as a pattern, and four 69-70 GTO ram air foam seal centers. (The centers get discarded after shipping.) Brad wanted 2 sets of seals back, and as I could only get one GSX seal out of each piece, there was no room for error. So I decided I better “practice” on some other foam before messing something up. My buddy Alan had just finished re-upholstering an old antique couch and we kept the old foam cushions for packing material. The cushions, just happened to be “bright pink”, and were the same density and height as the GTO foams so I practiced on them. Well I cut one out and it worked great, so I cut out the 4 pieces Brad needed and shipped everything back to Dave.

    I got a call from Dave a few days later and the first thing he asked was, “Do you have any more of that pink foam?” I responded with, “What pink foam.” Here, when I shipped the gray GSX foams to Dave I had unknowingly used my pink practice piece as packing material. I let Dave know I had lots of foam, and asked what he had in mind. Now this was happening only a few weeks before the restored GSX was to have its debut at the GSCA Nationals, so time was running short. He wanted to tease Brad, and said if I would cut another one and bring it to the Nats, he would bring his to complete the pair, so that’s what we did.

    A few weeks later at the GSCA Nats, the stage is set. The car is under Dave Kleiner’s tent and has been on display for maybe 20 minutes. There are probably 100 plus people either looking at or taking pictures of the car. Brad is all kinds of nervous and is walking around like an expectant father. Dave is all ready with the hood up, and the pink foams are under the front table. At this point Dave sends Brad back to get something out of the trunk. I hush the crowd, and remove the gray foams while Dave puts on the pink ones. Everyone is quiet, and is just waiting for Brad’s response. Brad comes around the side of the car, sees the pink foams and says “Who put those -------- things on my car!” The whole place erupts, Brad starts coming towards me because he knew who did it, I am rolling on the ground laughing, and oh God was it funny. It’s a good thing Brad is such a good sport, because I was laughing so hard I couldn’t have run to save my life.

    Well for years we have been laughing about the “pinkies episode”, as we now affectionately call it, and a few months ago I was talking to Dave about it. I always thought that Brad had the pink foams, but Dave kept them, and as all three of us, and the car, were going to be at the GSCA Nats, we figured to do the dirty deed one more time. Every time Dave and I got together to put the foams on the car we couldn’t find Brad. This went on for the better part of 2 days before we finally gave up. On Saturday, Brad had the car out where the Concours cars were judged and I presented him with his “gift”. We took a few pictures with the pinkies on the car, including the one where we are hamming it up for the camera. Then Brad got to finally take them home, where I figure they will never see the light of day again.

    When I told Brad I wanted to write this story his only response was that he should have connected with his punch. The moral of the story is this, if you can’t tease your friends, who can you tease?

    Duane



    MVC_005S.JPG MVC_006S.JPG
     
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2022
    racenu, 1972 Stage 1, #7 and 11 others like this.
  10. Duane

    Duane Member

    By the way,
    The car sitting next to Brad's car in the pics, is John Chamberlain's Red with White interior car. That car is also a Design Study car and was toured around the country with Brad's car as part of Buick's display.
    Cheers.
    Duane
     
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  11. hugger

    hugger Well-Known Member

    Was John's car,...it's been butchered up by several owners now
     
  12. Duane

    Duane Member

    I always describe it as that, so I know which car I am talking about.
    Duane
     
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2022
  13. allan m johnson

    allan m johnson Well-Known Member

    there is also a pearle and pechear convertiblr displaed with the other 2 cars at chcago auto fair,think it was a wildcat
     
  14. Brad Conley

    Brad Conley RIP Staff Member

    It was Allan, front to rear fade pearl orange/peach. Beautiful Wildcat convertible.
     
  15. 72STAGE1

    72STAGE1 STAGE 1 & 2

    I would love to see pictures of it, got any to share?
     
  16. Duane

    Duane Member

    I have 2 copies of pics of the car that I think Allan sent to Brad. One shows the interior pretty well and the other is a look down the side so it shows the color fade.

    They aren’t the greatest but you can see some of the car.

    Bill Sales also took 3 shots but they didn’t come out as detailed.
    Duane
     
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2022
  17. allan m johnson

    allan m johnson Well-Known Member

    sorry bout text,me and the netbookr getting old,he he he
     
  18. Brad Conley

    Brad Conley RIP Staff Member

    If you recall Duane, we came to the conclusion that the front buckets in the Wildcat were built just like the front seats in the GSX...
     
  19. Duane

    Duane Member

    That’s scary, but if you can do it once………why not do it again.

    I will check out the pics that I have.
    Duane
     
  20. pbr400

    pbr400 68GS400

    The second set was probably easy!
    Patrick
     

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