More cars that don't exist....

Here's some more cars that some people insist were built, but in reality never were, and the reasons why. #1. Ram Air V GTO.  In 1968-69 Herb Adams and other engineers were working furiously on a "Tunnel-Port" 303 inch Pontiac engine to run in the Trans-Am series. They felt they needed it to compete with Ford, who already had a "Tunnel-Port" 302. ( "Boss 302" ring a bell? ) In testing they figured out that the huge heads-which had ports and valves the size of a 427 Chevy-were too much for the little 303 inch engine. The 303s actually ran better with production Ram Air IV heads. With the RAIV heads they made about 485 hp; about the same power level as the 302 Chevy and Ford engines. Adams, Doug Nash, Arnie Beswick and others tried the Tunnel-Port heads on the larger 400 and 428 engines and were astounded. With an aluminum intake and a hot General Kinetics solid-lifter cam,they were making power equal to the vaunted 427 Chevys and 426 Chrysler Hemis. Adams & Company were excited and pushed to get it in production, hoping to make the GTO the "King of the Street" again like it was in 1964-66. However, for some reason John DeLorean and the Pontiac brass refused to warranty a solid-lifter engine. Adams argued that Chevrolet warrantied several solid-lifter small and big-block engines. DeLorean and the brass refused to budge, and the option was cancelled. They had parts to build about 600 engines, so Adams suggested they sell them over the counter to racers. Royal Pontiac swapped one into a '69 Judge that was featured in Hot Rod; but it wasn't a production car. Royal Pontiac Mechanic Milt Schornak campaigned a 1970 RA V GTO drag car with great success. Doug Nash built single and dual-quad intakes for the RA V and he campaigned one as well. But there was never a production version.  # 2. Boss 429 Cougar. Trying to homologate the Boss 429 for NASCAR to compete with the nearly invincible 426 Chrysler Hemi,( NASCAR rules said at least 500 units had to be sold to the public to be legal for racing ) Ford came up with the Boss 429 Mustang. Why they chose the Mustang, I don't know-The Wood Brothers, A.J. Foyt, Cale Yarborough and other Ford Nascar racers ran Torinos and Mercury Cyclones, not Mustangs. Boss 429s started life as 428 cars and were shipped to Kar Kraft for the Boss Nine conversion. The shock towers were relocated, and the suspension modified to make the huge engine fit. Ford lost money on every one. There were two Boss Nine Cougars built-for drag racers "Dyno" Don Nicholson and "Fast Eddie" Schartmann. Nicholson pulled the Boss Nine and replaced it with an old-school 427 Cammer. Schartmann campaigned his, but with not much success, the car was slow. ( By Super Stock or Pro Stock standards ). There were NEVER any other Boss 429 Cougars, ever.  # 3. 1970-71 LS6 Monte Carlo, '71 LS6 Chevelle. Morons insist that "A few" LS6 454 SS Monte Carlos were built in 1970-71. Their wrong. The LS6 was only offered in the Chevelle line in 1970. I explained in a previous post why there were no 1970 LS6 Corvettes. In 1971, for some inexplicable reason, the roles were reversed. With 9:1 compression and a 425 hp rating, the LS6 was only available in Corvettes. About 1100 were built. The option was listed in early '71 Chevelle sales literature, but was dropped before any were built. There were no LS6 '71 Chevelles. And there were definitely no '70-71 LS6 Monte Carlos. I have never seen a build sheet or window sticker for one, and no Chevrolet engineer has ever verified one. The 365 hp LS5 454 was the highest power engine available in Monte Carlos. # 4. 1971 "Stage II" Buick GSX / 1971 RA V 455 GTO. The performance of the "Stage 1" 455 1970 Buick GSX's was legendary. Rumor has it that Pontiac wanted to make a Ram Air V 455 and that Buick wanted to make a "Stage II" 455 to compete with the LS6 and LS7 Chevys and 426 Hemi Chryslers. The story is that an ultra-badass Skylark and a GTO were built by Buick and Pontiac engineers respectively and a grudge match was held on a Michigan drag strip, and both cars ran high 10s, although the Buick won by two car lengths. In late 1970-( for the upcoming '71 model year ) GM brass decreed that compression ratios be lowered across the board to run on low-lead fuels,and every GM car had the compression lowered to 8.5:1 except for LT1 and LS6 Chevys, which had 9:1. Ford and Chrysler still had high compression engines in '71. So the GM Muscle Movement was over, and the options never saw the light of day. The Buick was reportedly destroyed in a fire at the Buick proving grounds; no one knows what happened to the Pontiac. # 5. 1975 455HO Trans-Am. In early 1975, Pontiac dropped the 455 from the T/A's option list, leaving a 185 hp, 7.6:1 compression 400 as the only engine. Enthusiasts and the Buff magazines howled bloody murder. Pontiac quickly came up with a "455HO" performance package that had a 455, a 4-speed and a 3.23:1 axle ratio. Of the 23,000+ T/A's sold in '75, only 857 had this option. Another 7,508 ( out of 46,000 ) were sold in '76.  However-the engine was a garden-variety 7.6:1 compression, "station wagon" 455 that wheezed out 200 hp, not the Ram Air IV headed, round port exhaust, aluminum intake, 068 cammed torque monster from 1971-72. In fact-the buff magazines bitched about them desecrating a classic name, and the "HO" moniker was dropped for '76, and the option simply called "455 Performance Package." Anyhow-I do get tired of constantly hearing some clown talk about these "Area 51" cars. Mastermind