"DA DA DAAAAA--I am Captain Chaos--and this is my faithful companion Kato--say hello Kato-----Been a cop long?" LO Freaking L---that took me back. I'm going to find Cannon Ball Run DVD somewhere and buy it.

I would have to give the nod to the man himself, Chip Foose. He built that BMW bronze/gold '69 Firebird that was in an article circa 1991, called Chip Mode. It had late model T/A wheels on it, lowered, flush mounted glass, etc.

It was the first car, aside from the race cars, that really was a modern take on a first gen.

Anyone else remember that? Not to take anything from the racers like Gulstrand and such, but Chips was the first car that was built to be like a modern daily driver, which to me, is the definition of pro-TOURING.

If that puts Chip on the map in pro-touring history... I can proudly say i made the history by myself in 1990 one year ahead of Chip:captain: :woot:

Custom paint,"modern" trans am wheels, rock hard suspension and daily driven- definition of pro-TOURING :lol:

Btw, should i get some kind of profit or comission of inventing this all :) ??


http://www.bowtie-racing.com/cars/79...79transam4.jpg

When I was just a kid, 12 years old or so, circa 1986, I thought it would be really cool to put a '69 Camaro on C4 corvette suspension with the EFI, overdrive, the whole works. Not sure where/how/why I came to that conclusion, other than I was obsessed with '69 Camaro's and my Dad kept telling me how crappy his was in 'real life' and that I should just get a newer car when I was old enough to have one, I'd be much happier driving it...yeah right, like I would follow his advice when the '69 was SO COOL! So I guess I would have been a pioneer if I had a) money, b), any skill whatsoever, and c) was out of middle school!

I guess my primered '69 RS in high school with 16" wheels and wide rubber on all 4's will have to suffice as 'close enough' back then.

HAHAHA!!!!

Jeff Smith of Car Craft came up with the term "Pro Touring" way back.
Jeff also was responsible for starting the first magazine shootout of Pro-Touring type cars in Car Craft Magazine in 1985. It was called "Real Street Eliminator".
BTW in 2008 they renamed it "Car Craft Street Machine of the Year" which was held in St Paul at the CC Nats.

I built the 1st Cadillac Pro-Touring car in 1985 it was a 1978 Seville.

I built my second Cadillac Pro-Touring car in 1993, which won the Car Craft RSE shootout in 2002.

Lil John Buttera built Novette in 1984.
I guess my point is this has been going on a long time, longer than most of you newbies think.

Exactly:thumbsup:

Chip's car is the first one I've seen in print that was a 'modernized' version of a 30 year old car at the time, with an emphasis on style as well as performance that isn't primarily a race car. Being that it's a first gen F body, which have become the ipso facto PT poster child, it's the first of it's kind that stands out for me.

I'll have to look into the Novette, maybe that's where I came up with the Camaro with a Corvette chassis in my youth....

I DID....not...haha,I did put some wide wheels off a gocart on a wagon and hauled a$$ down the drive when I was in grade school,I think we called it pro rollover when we turned the corner tho......

Jeff, was your Seville white by any chance???

Tom

I keep hearing all of "this" about the early 90's... and who said this and who wrote that. Ya got it all wrong...

Dickiepoo Guldstrand has been building 'Pro-Touring' cars since the late 60's. Specifically... he dropped high tech (at that time) Trans-am stuff into fully interriored street cars and viola !! Pro-Touring begun... LONG, long before Mr. Stielow coined the phrase/term.