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Originally Posted by autoxcuda
 
I agree.
What year did Guldstrand open up his own shop?
What was his function at Dana Chevrolet. Did he do motor upgrades, handling upgrades, and/or just work on their racecars?? |
His shop was first opened in 1968 named Guldstrand engineering in the infamous "Thunder Alley." Thunder Alley was originally an alley off Jefferson Blvd. in Culver City. Don't quote me on it but I think they moved to Burbank in the 90s.
I first discovered their shop getting some racing gloves and shopping for seats for the camaro. The safety and motorsports shop Werks 2 is next door to Guldstrand. I knew he was a legend and I was shocked to look over and see him in the shop, in a lab coat, still wrenching on cars. Awesome, it was right then I decided to have them rework my subframe and keep my car semi-traditional. Having someone like him put his stamp of approval on a car is worth more than any performance mod. I think its great he still loves being in the shop every day and dealing with the customers. He's a real firecracker. Wish I could get him out to a track day for some driving lessons and I'd even let him flog my car. It'd be awesome.
Considering he was the one that pioneered the suspension changes of the first gen camaros for the Penske Trans Am cars, I'd say hes the grandfather of everything we're doing today. Making muscle cars perform like they should!
As far as Dana Chevrolet:
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Dick Guldstrand was very familiar with the 427 big block Chevy motor and the L-88 427 as well.
He previously raced the first L-88 Corvette at the 1966 24 Hours of Daytona for Roger Penske.
During the time that these photos were taken, a 1967 factory L-88 Corvette was being prepared
back at DANA Chevrolet to enter the 1967 24 Hours of Le Mans. He co-drove with Don Yenko and
Bob Bondurant at that legendary race. So setting up a street driven solid lifter 427 or even the
mighty L-88 427, was a piece of cake for Dick Guldstrand.
Dick Guldstrand was known as a chassis tuner. He was able to extract superb handling characteristics
from early Corvettes. Dick applied this same knowledge to the Camaro. Naturally, the suspensions were set up
to handle these massive amounts of power. The Dana Camaros could not only go fast in a straight line,
but they could also corner with the best of what was on the street back in 1967 and 1968.
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