We started talking about this again on the Cheetah thread so here is all the pertinent posts from the summer. This topic is fascinating. How did these 302 Firebirds come about?
Thanks George, that settles a big rumour on here about the GTO.
On the Firebirds, In 1968 some Trans Am teams raced 302 Small Block Chevy powered Firebirds under the guise that Ponticas were sold with Chevrolet engines in Canada.
The question is do you know of any Firebirds sold in Canada in 67 or 68 that had small block Chevrolet engines installed in them by GM Canada?
All Firebirds were US built back then for sure, but Canada had an export division with a CKD ( complete knock down ) program for shipping vehicles to overseas markets. The Z/28 Camaro was the result of homologation requirements for minimum build of certain components to qualify the vehicle for the SCCA Trans Am sedan series. You have not seen a 302 Firebird? Very rare bird, a few ran in the late 60's, several from Quebec come to mind, white with black hoods ( I believe Gagnon was the name on the side for sponsorship). That is about all I can say....
That is what we always wanted to know, Taking from George's "That is about all I can say....." means to me that the Firebirds came to Oshawa and were sent to CKD, where they could be disassembled and of course reassembled or modified. CKD most likely modified them with small block Chevy power and shipped them within Canada and the USA, probably mostly to dealers with connections to the racing teams. I think there had to be something like 200 cars produced in this manner to meet SCCA requirements, CKD is a cool acronym.
I may be able to shed a little more light on this subject. One of the best things about coming to Woodward is visiting all of the used bookstores that are absolutely loaded with transportation literature. One of my friends picked up a book about pony cars that has the following passage in it:
"...neither Pontiac or the SCCA had reckoned on a cagey Canadian, Terry Godsall. His 1968 Firebird easily passed inspection because of its 302 cid Camaro Z-28 engine. When officials questioned this, Godsall replied that this was a Canadian Firebird. Full-size Canadian Pontiacs like the Parisienne were built wtih Chevy engines, but not Firebirds. SCCA bought the story anyway, and let this "Firebird Z-28" compete. Jerry Titus did the driving, but scored no major wins. Had things been different, however, ther might have a protest. When Godsall updated the car to 1969 specs, the SCCA caught on. For some reason they made him put the 68 grille ont the 1969 body, felt better about that, and let him run with the Chevy engine."
Looks like those guys at SCCA were not exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer, or a bit too trusting of what us Canadians told them!
It is not the same as what GZ wrote. I know it is difficult to accept for a lot of people but GZ is saying there were many such equipped cars, not this cute story about Godsall and the stupidity of an international governing body like the SCCA. That's a joke. Godsall's family owned the distribution rights to the GM-Euclid distributor for Eastern Canada, so he was someone with proper connections. ,GZ refers to several Quebec cars and Godsall was in Toronto. The Quebec cars GZ refers to are Gagnon Springs sponsored cars out of Montreal.
I scanned a page from an old Trans Am program and you will see that Craig Fischer drove a Firebird that day for Gagnon Springs. It's obvious that Godsall didn't have the only one as GZ has already said.
I think that we must realise on the SCCA stuff in the old days there is no definitive answer, I was just showing another way it could have been done. Paperwork could be created in the old days to cover these homologation issues, vehicles could be shipped/assembled any way that was required, and CKD was probably the way it could have been 'processed' and seems the most likely to me, but in reality someone just paper stamped the application and there you go. We show F bodies being shipped through Canada to overseas destinations, but have no vin numbers for these units. Jim M from Pontiac Historic Services and I discussed this issue a while ago and we both remember this homologation happening at the time, we were younger then, but we are both too old to remember the details ( sorry Jim). So until someone can find the original document in the SCCA archives we can keep the forums running for a while longer.......
-- Edited by 73SC on Tuesday 3rd of November 2009 03:49:38 PM
I think this is the closest to the truth of the matter. These guys saw an opportunity to get a competitive Firebird going in the Trans Am series, and went for it. There was a lot of liberal rule bending done back then, and this was just part of it.
"...neither Pontiac or the SCCA had reckoned on a cagey Canadian, Terry Godsall. His 1968 Firebird easily passed inspection because of its 302 cid Camaro Z-28 engine. When officials questioned this, Godsall replied that this was a Canadian Firebird. Full-size Canadian Pontiacs like the Parisienne were built wtih Chevy engines, but not Firebirds. SCCA bought the story anyway, and let this "Firebird Z-28" compete. Jerry Titus did the driving, but scored no major wins. Had things been different, however, ther might have a protest. When Godsall updated the car to 1969 specs, the SCCA caught on. For some reason they made him put the 68 grille ont the 1969 body, felt better about that, and let him run with the Chevy engine."
Looks like those guys at SCCA were not exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer, or a bit too trusting of what us Canadians told them!
I still think that if you read between the lines of posts made by vintagegz the truth lies therin. If Godsall had the only car then fine, but he didn't.
No I don't think so. I propose that it was much like a Conroy car, The car's original drivetrain would be removed and replaced. Any special Z/28 parts would also have had to been added, brakes and suspension for example.
It is not a matter of whether these cars existed because they did, and we even have vintagegz confirmation on that, how they existed is the secret that needs to be cracked.
