That is really cool. I just dug through the notes I made while talking to Tony Branson and I had written down 9.17 @ either 152 or 153 mph.
That's fast....and it is really cool!! Doesn't matter if it's 1970-71 or 2019-20, 9.17 at 150-something is F A S T!! Pretty cool that it was Hemi vs. Buick long before The 50 Fastest...and "Buick's run like they are tied to a tree!" Big Thanks to everyone for sharing!!
It’s ‘Lost Musclecars’ by Wes Eisenchenk. (I googled ‘tony branson racing nc’ and it popped up; I think I have a copy somewhere). Patrick
I do know where there is another 4 bolt block. I will not say where and the guy will die with it (His words). It came out of the Kenne-Bell camp. He did offer to loan it to me to put in the Reynolds car. BTW, the Reynolds car is the only documented Stg2 car that received the full complete Stg2 parts including a whole painted hood with a prototype scoop and air pan, gear sets, even roller rockers and light valves directly from Buicks engineering department for testing purposes. With inter-department letters, letters going back and forth between Jim Bell and Denny Manner, with updates on the successes. Pete Reynolds told me after blowing up or if they had some kind of a major malfunction they would ship the engines back to Buick through Bill Trevor to evaluate what went wrong. Then Buick would ship a new engine back to Jim to restart the testing process. And so on and so on. They did all of this through Bill Trevor's GM training center as the "back door", because of the factory racing ban. Even Doug Jones says they bought there Stg2 heads from a dealer back in the day. But they definitely had ties and were good friends with Bill Trevor, Where the J/B car came from. So I'm sure there were some Stg2 testing info coming and going between the three. And Bill Trevor is the one that spec'ed and ordered the Reynolds/KB car through Reynolds, originally for Pop to compete with. But NHRA re-classed all the Stg1 cars, so it was then decided to make the car into a Stg2 test mule for Buick at the same time car #4085 GSX was to be delivered to Trevor. Dave Benisek as the driver raced that GSX Stg2 against a factory built ram air 4 GTO...Dave won. Doug said at one point during the racing (that day?) they blew up the rear end. Got a complete one from Trevor's training center just down the road and changed it out in the staging lanes.
Oh, I have two sets of Stg2 heads. The actual original vertical boss prototype heads used on the Reynolds/KB car for the testing. And the production Stg2 heads. Both never saw a grinder.
It's been quoted here somewhere that it was a 455 ram air test motor that the factory Stage 2 beat by 2 or 3 car lengths. Just wondering if it was a true fact.. Thanks!
Man!! I love reading about all this stuff, it's soooo fascinating. I really wish I was able to grow up in that era The 80's-90's suck a$$ compared to back then. Keep the good story juices flowing please
Before you trash the ‘80s and ‘90s too hard, let’s ask some members what kind of deals they found then... I bought a ‘68 GS400 coupe, rust free but rough, for $600 in ‘91. I passed on a pretty nice ‘69 GS400 ‘vert because $5500 was too much in ‘88. Bought a ‘70 GS455 coupe with fire damage for $250 and a pretty solid engineless ‘68 Wildcat Custom with buckets and console for $250. Consoles were $50, 15” rallies were $25/each from the junkyard. I bought a ‘79 Trans Sm 400/4speed from the original owner for $2500, and a low mile 403 T/A for the same money, Who else has stories? (Sorry for the ‘jack!). Patrick
I will clear up what I mean. The cars in the 60's-70's were waaaaay cooler than the 80's-90's and the muscle car scene was booming. The HP races were top secret hush hush awesomeness no matter what manufacturer you looked at GM, Ford, Dodge
Oh, I agree that the horsepower arms race was way cooler before the insurance companies, EPA and OPEC shut the party down. I just meant that, as a young man on a tight budget I realized old school was way cool; you could buy or build any number of pre smog rides, look cool and run 13s for under $5k, when new stuff (other than the intercooled Regal) was $15-20k and two seconds slower. (Now back to our regularly scheduled Stage 2 thread). Patrick
I graduated High School in 76 and we were buying all kinds of "Muscle Cars" for $800 or less. I bought my 67 Mustang Convertible for $350, and a friend bought his 69 Nova SS 396 4-speed car for around $750 to $800. No one wanted them after the gas crunch, but we sure had fun. Even had a real 69-70 Judge in the student parking lot. It's sad to say this, but if a car got totaled, you just went out and got another one. There were that many around. Duane
Duane and I are the same age (well, 9 months apart but graduated same year). I paid $1850 for the GSX Prototype in 1978 but had to borrow $2200 as it needed tires. Wonder why??
Brad, the fact that the X was a ‘used car’ and driven like the street beast it is adds so much ‘cool’ to it. It’s a shame a lot folks will never know the glory of a loud big block muslecar driven balls out. (Much less your story with your car). Patrick
It pretty much ruled the north side of Columbus back in the day. At one point, after an engine "malfunction", Len Immke Buick rebuilt it with Stage 2 pistons. Man, that thing LOVED Sunoco 260! While I picked my adversaries carefully, never did go down to any real defeat. Even at GS Nationals street racing a 440 6 pack Chrysler product in 1981. To say they were surprised would be an understatement.
