an incomplete history of the first pro stock pintos
November 1 2011 at 11:33 AM
(Login methylated) Moderators from IP address 67.233.89.222
the first pro stock pinto's were commissioned by charles grey at ford because he could see the potential of the pinto/351c combo . he acted as a liason between ford and the builders/racers .
the first cars were built by tom smith at wolverine chassis , michigan .production started in 72 only the first two cars were able to run the whole season in 73
1 dyno don
2 gapp & roush
3 john healy, he left the track at atco nj and hit a guywire totaling the car
4 barrie poole and sandy elliot this car was totaled by wayne gapp , st louis 1973 .not sure if he had bought it.
5 mickey mills never raced the car he was testing it in fla 1973 and totaled it
these first five were the original commisions the next two were added on
6 dave lyall
7 ernie macewen , was wrecked by a broken track locator jan 73,later sold to g&r then jim van cleve
M&S built a number of cars initially , not sure how many . these cars were sold to ...
hubert platt , 2 for dyno , dick brannen , foulger and dondero , sam auxier in 74 , and norm paddock . at least these , probably more
G&R's 1st pinto was built by someone in michigan , not tom smith . they blew the engine in this car and sold it to bob glidden .the car was acid dipped , chassis too , in 74 on or around the time john lingenfelter bought it.
bunny burkett's car was built by a local in va beach
irv beringhauses car was built by don hardy he wrecked this qualifying 1973 . he was killed .
don hardy was maybe the most prolific builder he built around 20 cars
Who do you think you are !? Barney Oldfield !?
This message has been edited by methylated from IP address 67.233.89.222 on Nov 1, 2011 11:42 AM This message has been edited by methylated from IP address 67.233.89.222 on Nov 1, 2011 11:33 AM
a great old topic Joe but methinks your numbers are low.
Back then, the Cleveland powered Pro Stock Fords (not just Pintos) were so strong that my bro' and I looked forward to each month's newest Super Stock and Drag Illustrated, Car Craft and Hot Rod magazines. It seemed that every chassis shop, not just the big names like Wolverine, Don Hardy, etc. had Pintos on the jigs. Heck, as it turned out, the Pro Stock revolution actually made Wolverine and Hardy big names in the sport as they were small potatos before then. Folks like Wisconsin's R&B Chassis (Ron Buttera), Detroit's Logghe Bros., S&W Race Cars in PA, and on the left coast Don Long (funny car/dragster builder) were all allegedly involved in building the chassis if most often not the entire car.
Back then, it wasn't unusual for racers to buy a shell (body-in-white as it came to be known) right from Ford, acid dip it in a backyard pool, and then bring the unibody to a chassis shop. There, the actual builder (if not Wolverine or Hardy) may have purchased a pre-bent moly pro-car kit from Hardy (these were big sellers btw) or bend up their own tubing. Most cars left the chassis shop unfinished with but with tinwork. The racers hung all the glass panels, plexi windows and had the car painted by local talent.
Btw, what drove so many racers to the Pinto was Ford's loud and clear proclamation that they would sell anyone a shell. I'll try and find one old article that speaks of this.
had some unusual mads done to them remember that prior to 73 few p/s cars had a "full tube chassis" .the unibodies were largely intact then a "rollcage was welded around the driver
one of the mavs that tom smith made for possibly gapp and roush had a "false bottom" in it .he would join the subframes with square tubing on top of the original floor pan then weld another floor pan on top of it so the connectors couldn't be seen . I would imagine that this was worth a good bit of et until the secret got out.
but unlike Thunderbolts, lightweight Galaxies and the like (factory finished or semi-finished, with w/vin numbers and or titled vehicles) what really constituted a "Ford commissioned" Pro Stocker? The older Logghe flip-top funny cars and SOHC Mustangs (short and long nosed) were factory backed and paid for by Ford. But by the time the Cleveland powered Pro cars came about, the deal was different. No vin number for bodies-in-white and I've never heard of a FoMoCo issued bill of sale for any pro stocker.
Keep in mind Ford did give away bodies, parts and bundles of cash to quasi-factory teams but I think it's a stretch to say Ford commissioned these cars. Could be wrong but it was always my understanding Ford gave out the bucks with the intention the team would (and did) have the cars built.
Btw, here's the article on Pinto bodies-in-white that first appeared, IIRC, in SS&DI......in a world long ago and now far away!
In autumn 1970, at the end of the 1970 racing season, Ford withdrew support from all racing, "except for limited drag racing and off-road racing support on a divisional level and dealer level". The corporate racing budget went to zero.
Then on Feb 6 1973 a corporate Ford internal memo instructed all concerned to eliminate any financial participation in performance products, parts or events and eliminate any communication related to performance activities. All product development of off-highway and performance parts was to be discontinued, all promotion of such parts and activities was to cease, no new OHO parts were to be added to existing inventories and parts still on the shelves were to be phased out through sales.
The Pro Stock racers were "on the surface" on their own. Any Ford help they received was very well concealed, kept separate from the corporation, chanelled through dealerships and suppliers, etc. The race parts Ford stocked were hidden within Ford's huge inventory, known mostly to insiders. There was no catalog.
Dyno Don said Ford never gave him a paycheck or a bonus check for his racing efforts. Ford provided parts, they would help pay for the race cars, and they gave him his transportation cars.
for posting that George. And Joe, I'm good with what you said too. Ford did do some under the table stuff through late '73 but I don't want to debate what commissioned means either . Once again, Ford had the performance world by the tail but rules, the economy and the EPA in the '73-74 era all conspired to the demise of factory racing efforts.
Funny too when some years later NHRA went to the 500 CID rule to end Ford Cleveland dominance, things didn't quite work out that way. Ah, but that's a story I'll save for another day.
This message has been edited by machoneman from IP address 76.16.0.62 on Nov 1, 2011 4:28 PM
lee iacocca declared that the pinto would weigh "1500 lbs use a 1.5 liter engine and get 50 mpg " so it was pursued from a different angle than any car ford had done before or after.
later on glidden raced an exp and despised it ! even though the weight, track and wheelbase were similar the exp just didn't make as good a race car as the old pintos . aerodynamics maybe ?
The Don Hardy built Glidden EXP was a P/S car of a much different era than the early Pinto's. It's short wheelbase had more power/torque to deal with as it was built for the newly enacted 500" rule in NHRA Pro Stock. The EXP supposedly had the same basic 4-link layout as the previous Hardy Fairmont, but the chassis layout as somewhat similar to the earlier Plym Arrow. But the EXP was just different enough that they had a hard time getting a handle on it 100% regardless of the chassis settings. With more time on the car Glidden might have been able to get the EXP to come around. I do remember seeing pics that showed very "different" looking bottom 4-link bars (compared to other cars). It's bottom bars didn't have the "normal" spherical rod-ends, but some kind of a solid bushing/sleeve/pivot assembly at each end. This may have been Hardy's attempt to try & cure launch body-roll since suspension anti-roll bars for the 4-link hadn't been invented/used in Pro Stock at this time.
From what I have read Glidden had a similar dislike/problem tuning his first ("technically" first, but not "recognized" as first) Probe too since it actually ended up being a Willy Reils built car instead of the planned Jerry Haas built car (Haas wasn't going to be done in time). Bob not knowing the likes/dislikes of a Reils chassis initially went with his past baseline Haas chassis settings (from the previous Haas T-birds) on the Reils Probe & it didn't respond like they had hoped. After a few tweaks they were able to get down the track though. But it wasn't until they finally got his Haas Probe (some call the "official" 1st Glidden Probe) that they started flying again.
Sorry for the hijack away from the Pinto subject, but I have always found all aspects of the Pro Stock class so damn interesting from the beginning all the way to the modern P/S car.
also distributed in late '72 - early '73 a thin book/manual on "How to Build a 351C Pro Stock Pinto". Saw a copy long ago but it seems to have disappeared even on the 'Net. Wayne Gapp's website is a handy source as well, note too the "Bossing the 351" article.
Well when it comes to torque induced diagonal/rotational body roll over loading, the ladder bar suspension by design has always had zero/almost zero body-roll during the launch when installed/adjusted correctly. This is because as a whole the housing/ladder bar assembly (it's self) acts as if it was in effect a very large anti-roll assembly. 4-links on the other hand are much more prone to body-roll because of all the spherical rod-ends they use, and the fact that it's top/bottom bars never physically intersect each other at the front (like a ladder bar does).
Most all of the early P/S cars (like the Pintos) probably used the ladder bar setup because LB's had been around drag racing forever & a ton of people had experience with them. And even after 4-links had started to become more popular in P/S a few years later, a few guys still went with the ladder bar on their new cars (like one-off Bill Jenkins's '80-ish camaro with the long Lenco spacer/extender "tube" case).
The short wb Pinto's having ladder bars pretty much explains why they had such a large "nose-down/ass-up stance. The short wheelbase pretty much dictated that the driver had to sit over the front ladder bar mount instead of in front of it like you can on a longer wb car.
hardy built several pinto's. dyno, glidden, and g&r all ran hardy pinto's at one point(according to hardy himself). hardy primarily built ladder bar cars. he never did a lot with 4-links. the factory money dried up and he said he couldn't justify the research and testing for the money involved. he told me he built his chassis to flex in certain areas(controlled flex) but with the 500 inch rule the exp of gliddens was flexing in ways(unfavorable) that hadn't been an issue before the rule change. i'll post some pics later of his walls of fame. he built a bunch of funny cars before pro stock existed. i should be seeing him soon as they went deer hunting with one of his toys. he is currently gathering parts for it.
as far as other builders, i didn't see butler mentioned. i think he built some of the earliest 4 links. our capri built in 71-72 was a butler 4-link.
The Hardy cars (forget which years) that had the mandrel bent frame kick-up "joints" 2x2 main rails (instead of miter cut/welded joints) were damn interesting from a "flex" standpoint back then. The fact that these rails were 2x2 and not 2x3 tubing would lead to a little more flex as a whole. And a mandrel bent joint will flex more than a cut/welded joint, giving Don in effect a "choice" of where he wanted it to flex more/less.
Even if he did focus more on the ladder bar, one Hardy 4-link car that was supposed to work pretty good was the Roy Hill red/white Capri (back before he went to the Tempo/Topaz cars).
The Butler cars were damn interesting too. If I remember correctly he said in a magazine article that his design used the main hoop as if it was the structural "peak" of the assembly carrying all the "downward" load of the rest of the chassis (or something to that effect). I think that's why some (if not all) of his cars had a door bar placed very high in the car.
This message has been edited by D.I.L.L.I.G.A.S. from IP address 207.200.116.14 on Nov 2, 2011 10:06 PM This message has been edited by D.I.L.L.I.G.A.S. from IP address 207.200.116.14 on Nov 2, 2011 10:05 PM
where his steps joined he cut saw teeth in the ends of the tubing to give him more area to weld .
the "hoops" were bent all the way around and came back in at the bottom to join the frame rails . he believed this design was safer in a rollover because the car might roll more smoothly without "catching" on the ground and , of course, the hoop strength was greater in that part of the chassis.
bob glidden was still using 36'ladder bars in the last of his pintos
I always wanted one of those pintos from a pro -stocker. My wife figures they were the ugliest car made? Isay if you can hand it to Chevies it looks good to me!
he called me a lil bit ago and said he'll be making the trek here next week with his wagon. if you got a question you want asked, post it and i'll try to get you an answer. he's a great guy to visit with!
It would be interesting if Don could share what he used for the EXP's bottom 4-link bar's pivot points since they don't look normal spherical rod-ends in the pics.
I haven't found the article/pics yet. So far I have only had time to look though Super Stock Magazine, & Drag Racing USA Magazine, up through about 1977
. Once again, Ford had the performance world by the tail but rules, the economy and the EPA in the '73-74 era all conspired to the demise of factory racing efforts.
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