Would a, "Old School", Type of Pro Touring car be accepted as "Pro Touring"?

[rogue]

Originally Posted by tyoneal

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Rogue:

It's nice to hear from you, how are you getting along these days? How is your new pup doing? Have you posted any more "Golden Coffin" pictures, or video lately?

I know early on in this project you may not have liked the ideas for this car.

"I wouldn't mess up a 65 riviera trying to make it something its not. Its a gentleman's musclecar, leave it at that. AC and all the bells and whistles."

That said, (and I do appreciate your honesty) I've really tried hard to keep the, "Things are only Original Only Once" option intact, while being able to be somewhat creative, and still embrace the Pro-Touring goals of the build.

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Here were my original Goals:

I have an idea for doing a "Retro-Pro Touring" Car like you would see from maybe the late 1970's and 1980's before everything could be easily found to to have all the bells and whistles on it.

For instance, I have a 1965 Buick Riviera that is numbers matching and while it needs a paint job the interior and the body are in great shape.

I really want to have a Pro Touring Car with it, but I do not want to destroy the originality of it.
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Does this solution come close to meeting these goals? By your or anyone else's answers, (It's ok to "bash my ride", if I fell short of my goals with this project)

I honestly do appreciate everyones opinions of my efforts. Kind of like a peer review from the other people who really enjoy PT cars. (I use the term "Peer" loosely, as I'm positive most people here have a ton more experience than I do)

FWIW: I love the car, and I think my Grandfather would have a blast with it. (Now that that is said)

So being straight with an opinions will not make me feel bad. I really wanted to see if I could pull this idea off, based on the parameters I set, and the opinions of the group.

Has this attempt succeeded, or Failed based on my stated goals?

Whatever is decided, please give a reason for your decision, if you wouldn't mind. This is a learning exercise for me.

Thanks,

Ty O'Neal

BTW: Here is the Original Rendering against a finished product.

I've been real good and real sick. Thansk for asking. Ups and downs. Somedays I'm fantastic other weeks I'm down for 5 days in a row. Recently my pump went dry for a weekend and I spent the weekend fighting withdrawals instead of checking into the ER. Bad mistake. Doc said I was playing with my life. Just lots of sweating, swearing and lack of sleep and PAIN, lots of it.

The car looks fantastic.

Years ago I wanted to protour one, but after learning what protouring really means to most people, nope. I'd bag it and run astro supremes and skinny whites with lakepipes traditional 60s style. But thats just my opinion.
Love this one minus the striping:
http://www.rodandcustommagazine.com/.../photo_03.html

Wheels and tires is all a riv need, the bags are neat because rivieras look MEAN low
That said I may buy one after selling the mini. I need to own one before I expire.

[rogue]

another in 60s traditional style...

[rogue]

mmmm sexy

[rogue]

[tyoneal]

Rouge:

The car looks fantastic.

Thanks.

"Years ago I wanted to protour one, but after learning what protouring really means to most people, nope. I'd bag it and run astro supremes and skinny whites with lakepipes traditional 60s style. But thats just my opinion."

And I appreciate your input. I now understand where you were/are coming from.

You enjoy a combination of the 50's Lead Sled Styling, mixed with some Low Rider attitude. Right?

Is this pretty close? I love the 49-51 Merc's. Were my pockets a lot deeper, that would be one car I would have in my garage.

I hope someday you can get a riv. I think you would really enjoy it.

I hope your get to feeling better, for longer segments of time. I've mentioned you to my wife, and showed her your Camaro along with the Videos you've made. You have a fan believe me, she likes the cars I'm working on, but she can't wait for me to get the 69 Camaro on the road so we can enjoy that car the way you have yours.

The old Camaro I had was the car she and I started dating in, and like me we share many memories about that car.

I look in the rear and I must of been a really skinny Sh*t back then, or very motivated. Probably both.

Please stay safe, and if you feel like it, shoot me an email with an update.

Also, any tips or suggestions ALWAYS pass those along.

Take care and hang in there,

Sincerely,

Ty

[Neil B]

Originally Posted by tyoneal

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I think in the long run when starting with a numbers matching car, this is a reasonable approach for maximum enjoyment, mixed with originality, and preservation.

Is this how you see it?

Anyone else with some opinions one way or the other, please feel free to jump in. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Ty

Hey Ty, this was definitely the right approach for me. Lots of people have said to sell this car and build whatever I want from a base car. But I do not want to sell this one or have the overhead of two separate 1st gens. I wanted to make this one my own without cutting, welding, or permanently altering anything. There is a subset of the car show crowd that really objects to this type of thing, but who cares.

[70rs]

Ty,
The car looks fantastic! And, for whatever its worth I think you did a great job of hitting the mark dead on! Great blend of updated performance, but without taking anything away from the original "feel" of the car. Nice job!

[tyoneal]

Originally Posted by Neil B

Hey Ty, this was definitely the right approach for me. Lots of people have said to sell this car and build whatever I want from a base car. But I do not want to sell this one or have the overhead of two separate 1st gens. I wanted to make this one my own without cutting, welding, or permanently altering anything. There is a subset of the car show crowd that really objects to this type of thing, but who cares.

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Neil:

Thanks for the email and input. Did you keep all the parts so it could always be put back if you or some else decided to and some future date? If so, I could be wrong, but I'm not sure why the purest would even be upset. Most of the cars the purest want to do a "frame Off", rotisserie Restoration to, almost always need to be taken complete apart, cleaned/fixed/replaced, then reassembled.

Doing a build like this one I think isn't much different. You are just waiting to reassemble back to stock at a later time instead of immediately. One thing for sure though, at least on cars that are not well supported, you better keep ALL the nuts and bolts and pieces in a safe place, as they they would be almost impossible to acquire at a date sometime in the future.

Were you able to keep your parts organized and packaged in a easy to find way?

Thanks,

Ty

[tyoneal]

Originally Posted by 70rs

Ty,
The car looks fantastic! And, for whatever its worth I think you did a great job of hitting the mark dead on! Great blend of updated performance, but without taking anything away from the original "feel" of the car. Nice job!

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Eric:

Thanks for the input, I appreciate it. The next thing I would like to do is get some good performance numbers on the Car now as it is vs. what Road and Track wrote about the car when they were new.

I would hope there would be some improvement, however I'm not sure how diligent the Magazines were back then in doing the testing in such a way that it was reliably repeatable, and that the Testing Parameters haven't changed in the last 45+ years.

I guess I'll see what the car can do.

0-60 mph
0-100 mph
60-0
Lateral acceleration
40-70 mph Passing time
etc., etc.

Then if the result don't pass the sniff test, I'll repeat them and see if at least my numbers are constant with themselves. While I am waiting, I'll research to see if there was a standardized methodology for a particular test.

I know in material science they use Test according to ASTM Standards. (American Society for Testing and Materials)

This reminds me of an article I read recently regarding the accuracy of engine Dyno's with the same car moving though a series of different testing machines. The results were interesting, and as a rule were all within a certain percentage of each other, but I think the consensus was that there were NOT going to agree with each other no matter what. Some additional measurements could have been taken, but maybe what they had already used up all the space they had for the article, or they didn't want to boar the readers?

I wish they had run the standard deviation with all the data, and using statistics, determine if the differences were significant, or basically "Noise".

I know, "Geek Alert", but it is a useful exercise, and occasionally turns out some very interesting information.

Anyway, thanks a again for writing, and the nice comments of my Riv. I appreciate it.

Take care,

Ty

[Neil B]

Originally Posted by tyoneal

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Neil:

Thanks for the email and input. Did you keep all the parts so it could always be put back if you or some else decided to and some future date? Were you able to keep your parts organized and packaged in a easy to find way?

Thanks,

Ty

Absolutely. Everything was bagged, tagged, boxed, and labeled. I almost feel like I'm doing a better job of 'preserving' the original cylinder heads by storing them instead of pounding the seats with unleaded gas or re-machining them. Plus, the aluminum heads I put on in their place are more detonation resistant with the 11:1 shortblock.