Who started Pro Touring
 

In my mind it was Mike Adams out of Florida with Todd Jupiters 66 Corvette, (the red and black vette at Columbus this year in the SMOY comp). then with several of the cars after Mike just kept perfecting it. Anyway whats your opinion

most attribute the first car that lead to the LatG/Pro Tour genre was Big Red. I know that for me, being a senior in high school in 1988-89 when that car appeared in Hot Rod and cleared 200mph in the Silver State it changed the way I viewed hot rodding to this day.

This is what it looks like today after a refurb a few years back. I see it at SEMA including this year, and every year I just stare and drool - I never get over this car, kinda like that first girlfriend you never forget :P

I remember drooling over that car!

DSE claims it in there ads like Al Gore claims the internet. :rofl: Big Red isn't really pro touring. It's a race car. I haven't been around here long enough to know.

I believe it was Stielow who first used the term pro-touring.

agreed - it is a race car. But that said, because it was built in a very stock looking body with a stock appearing dash, race seats, door panels etc you quickly realize it is a lot more Pro Touring that a race car that typically is gutted and highly modified looking. Minus big arse tires that car looks rather mundane at a glance which is what was and still is so appealing to me.

My road race beast that rarely sees the street has a stock looking dash and until last summer had fully functioning doors with windows, etc. I gave up and gutted/hacked another set to save 75lbs tho' hahahaha.

And Big Red had such a monster impact on the people that wanted to copy the concept without going apesh!t and the wide tired, hot rodded engines with basically stock looking interiors with upgraded race seats started to show up... essentially a neutered Big Red. And consider the shear # of 69 Camaros v. any other car (including 67-68 Camaros) that make up the LatG/Pro Tour world... such as yours :lol: BTW you have a sweet car dude.

I hear ya Tim. Race gas, race belts, no stereo, no heat, etc. I agree for it's time but not today. I still like Big Red. :thumbsup:

If I remember my Big Red history correctly, Big Red as we see it today is actually Big Red #2. I believe the original Big Red was totalled in an open road race in Mexico. It was severe, so the Gottlieb's built Big Red #2 as a race car - tube chassis, cage, etc... the car that set all the records and the car we know today.

Does that ring a bell with anyone else?



As for Stielow and Kyle Tucker, there's a lot of history there, too. Mark first saw the One Lap of America while at a race at Watkins Glen in the summer of '88. He wanted to compete in the Vintage class, so he and Kyle Tucker built up a 69 Camaro that Mark already had.

Big Red
 

i couldnt have said it better.. being 37 now i was at the same point in my life when the car came out.it was amazing to watch this car on the tape of the silver state classic.
hands down it was BIG RED that got everyone stirred up about this style of car .now who created the term pro-touring.thats another question .

tom

Scott - you are 100% correct on that, they built a first one and absolutely totalled it - IIRC they were able to salvage the engine and a couple other items but the Big Red everyone knows was actually #2.

Oh yeah, Tom... was listening to some music my friends recorded a couple weeks back, made some comments in regards to being more modern and his response was "We're getting old dude" :lol: :faint: I've heard 37 is the new 40 :mad: hahahahaha

OK I'll settle this, it was all my idea, I was the first one. I had a Camaro in 1983 with 20's...you're welcome!!:rofl:

Scott, you are correct.
It was also dubbed the first car in the pro touring world.

I have a Big Red DVD that says "2006-2008 Version". It has a ton of in shop video, engine building, chassis and aero, and in car camera footage. The in car footage is cool because you can read the mph readout on the GPS. 210mph is crazy. Great DVD, 45 minutes of video, but whoever put it together for them spelled Camaro wrong on the jacket. :_paranoid

Hi Scott, any chance you could post some video clips of it up here for us to see? thanks..Nigel:thumbsup:

I would say big red! It gave the stance,big wheels and attitude for all 1 gen cars. If you say big red was too "race" just compare it for the IImuch nova. Both has tube chassis,full race suspension etc etc.

But i do have old 80s hotrod magazine wich had features like "canyon carvers" with 1. and 2.gen camaros with wide fender flares and wide road race tires. Suspensions tuned by Herb Adams and Guldstrand ( anybody remember these
guys???? )

Yep i would say these were first ones :
http://www.racehome.com/images/blog/blog-hotrod.jpg

Really cool cars and totally different from terrible 80s styled cars of that era.

this pretty much sums it up.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...66566094931403

I'm sick of 150k builds personally. trailer queens.

Also, "What is Pro-Touring?" ;) :rofl:

http://media.nextautos.com/wp-conten...llengerhll.jpg

Let's not forget Brock Yates and Cotton Owens in 1972.


And HIM....

http://www.autoblog.com/media/2006/0...os-resized.jpg

dun dun DUN!

Here's the intro, it's huge, 23mb. It had to be that big to keep the resolution high enough to be able to read the GPS. :thumbsup:

Click here to watch the video

I don't know if they are going to sell this DVD or what. There's nothing about it on their site, www.BigRedCamaro.com

Novette
 

how about this one Novette for the early 1980's
http://www.auto-nomics.com/documents/HR_0685.pdf

:thumbsup: I remember that car. Is that nova still around? Lil John and his son built a 69 camaro also.

Thanks for posting that up Scott, I really enjoyed that:thumbsup:

Pluckin awesome Scott!! Got my pulse going!!!

Who started Pro-Touring ??

That's an easy answer. Dick Guldstrand.

It was Herb Adams for me, LOL

Want to look at the dates on my catalogs LOL .

I have catalogs from both guys and I just happened to find Herb 1st. My Camaro was one of the best handling car for miles and was also the least expensive build. When I got the 1st set of Comp T/A BF Goodrich tires I was putting Porsches along side the curbs as their understeer pushed them to the concrete bump in the side of the road !!!!!

It is much harder to be ahead of the competition these days compared to then. Having knowledge and good tires was key then ,now you really have to have a lot more car and really know how to drive to stay ahead.

Man do we go back !!!

Rupp is that you:lol: -

I thought is was Bo and Luke Duke-:D

anyways- i remember reading about the canyon carvers in Cali- i thought it was cool but I didn't get it- I was too busy dreaming of tunnel rams and weld wheels and drag racing- and then there was Big Red and the Red Witch -

true Pro-touring started in the early eighties but - Red Witch and Big Red made it stick- lets not forget the press that Jeff Smith produced with his 65 Chevelle- He is probably the one that deserves the most credit for bringing it mainstream-

Honerable mention is Mike Adams and Sullivan (do you remember "baby bolt?"=Chris

I remember first reading about the term in the mid 90's Chevy High Performance magazines when Stielow was building his cars like Red Witch and the Thrasher and Kyle Tucker built his Twister Camaro. They even had some sort of emblem with a wheel/tire and wings on each side.

Chris Butera '69 Camaro and early nova with Corvette suspension:unibrow: :unibrow:

It's true. I was there.

"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.