1964 Pontiac Banshee: precurser to 68 ?

[Charles F.]

Just saw this on e-Bay and thought it might be of interest. Never heard of the car before, but the styling cues in the front end look a lot like the 68.

Chuck Faillace

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Pontiac-PROTOTYPE-1964-PONTIAC-BANSHEE-XP_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ6386QQihZ025QQitemZ380006717274QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

[Greg L.]

Re: 1964 Pontiac Banshee: precurser to 68 ?

Yes Charles the two cars do have similar styling cues but to be fair, it doesn't look like the 68 Corvette.....the 68 Corvette looks like it.

Most of the hard core Pontiac guys are well aware of this car and how GM didn't want an in house competitor to the Corvette so Pontiac wasn't allowed to produce it. The name Banshee was taken from a Korean War era jet but was later dropped once someone at Pontiac actually looked up the meaning of the word. The new name that they chose was Firebird.

Some interesting reading...

http://www.corvettes.nl/prototypes/page36/page36.html

http://forums.performanceyears.com/forums/showthread.php?t=543065&highlight=banshee

[Charles F.]

Re: 1964 Pontiac Banshee: precurser to 68 ?

I thought I knew what "banshee" meant, until I read your post and looked it up: noun (in Irish folklore) a spirit in the form of a wailing woman who appears to or is heard by members of a family as a sign that one of them is about to die.

Now I understand why they changed the name of the car !

Chuck

[John D.]

Re: 1964 Pontiac Banshee: precurser to 68 ?

Is this the same car that sold for about 165k at B-J a few years ago ?

[Chuck S.]

Re: 1964 Pontiac Banshee: precurser to 68 ?

...The name Banshee was taken from a Korean War era jet but was later dropped once someone at Pontiac actually looked up the meaning of the word...

Like the rest of those post-war jets, the aircraft was somewhat less formidable than it's namesake performance-wise.

That is an interesting concept car I hadn't seen before...the influence on the C3 Corvette styling is very evident in the fender peaks, the roof line, and the hood line. The front grill looks like later Dodges, and the rear looks like a Firebird. The Camaro and the Firebird did in fact have a roofline that looked like the C3 Corvette coupe sans the sugar scoop rear window. Thank heaven Larry Shinoda skipped those Opel headlight doors and that weird hood bulge that looks like an Alien about to pop out of the car's gut.

It also has an interesting removeable top; note the top edge of the windshield glass has no moldings like the old Brit sports cars. They cropped all the photos to end at the back of the cockpit...I suspect that's because removal of the top leaves the trunk space open to the air; it would look like a short-bedded Bansheemino.

[Jeff A.]

Re: 1964 Pontiac Banshee: precurser to 68 ?

Looks like the rear-end styling was borrowed for the 66 Olds Toranado

[Duke W.]

Re: 1964 Pontiac Banshee: precurser to 68 ?

...probably the same car. Pontiac built two prototypes. When I was a Pontiac production engineer in 1968 the two were inside wooden crates out in the back lot behind the engineering building. One day I opened one of the crates for a look see, but it was tough to get an overall perspective of the car and, I was barely able to squeeze down the side of the crate to see the back end. I recall at the time that the front was reminiscent of the '68 Corvette/Opel GT and the rear of the Opel GT and the Toronado connection is clear.

I was told the target base price was about $3500 - considerably less than Corvette - and that the Fourteenth Floor did not approve of the project, partially because Chevrolet pleaded that Pontiac could drop in a V-8 and undercut Corvette. The running gear was A-body. One got into the public domain in the 1980s, which surprised me. I don't know the fate of the second prototype, but I suspect it was scrapped.

DeLorean did not "design the car". DeLorean wasn't a "designer" - the guys who actually design the shape of the car. They are primarily artists although nowadays they have a much better understanding of engineering issues like aerodynamics. DeLorean was an engineer - Pontiac Chief Engineer at the time of the car's design and construction, so he may have had an engineering hand, but the actual design would have been done by a studio at the Design Center, and I have no doubt that Bill Mitchell had significant personal influence because he loved sports cars. They were "his baby", and there is a clear influence from the Mako Sharks, which inspired the C3 and Opel GT. By the time I got to Pontiac in '68 DeLorean was the General Manager.

The OHC six had a habit of wearing out cam lobes that was never sorted out, and it was more expensive to produce than a V-8, so it was dropped only a few years after its introduction in the mid-sixties.

The ad lists it as a "1964", but the serial number may indicate otherwise. I'm not sure when the cars were designed or the prototypes built, but I think the project was dead circa '66.

The "buy it now" price is a pipe dream, especially in today's economy, and the 2200 pound weight sounds low even for a pre safety standard car. Fiberglass body cars of that era really weren't any lighter than a steel unibody equivalent due to the large required frame and steel body skeleton as evidenced by Corvettes of that era.

The current Corvette's unique architecture does save weight over a steel unibody design, but it took GM 40 years to come up with a truely light weight design for the production Corvette. Consider that the current Porsche 911 is both actually "bigger" (slighly longer, but not as wide) and 200-300 pounds heavier than any current Corvette model. Forty years ago when SB Corvettes weighed about 3200 the early 911 was under 2500. Corvettes weight about the same, today, and the 911 has gained a thousand pounds.

Duke

[John H.]

Re: 1964 Pontiac Banshee: precurser to 68 ?

It was supposed to be shown at the Chicago Auto Show in 1966, but when one of then-GM Chairman James Roche's assistants pointed out to him that "Banshee" meant "black screaming death", he ordered it yanked from the show the night before the show opened to the press.

[Eric J.]

Re: 1964 Pontiac Banshee: precurser to 68 ?

bump.......

[Tony Z.]

Re: 1964 Pontiac Banshee: precurser to 68 ?

Aside from the blister on the hood to allow for engine size considerations, it is a pretty cool looking car.

[John D.]

Re: 1964 Pontiac Banshee: precurser to 68 ?

I met the owner who sold this car at B-J at a meeting in Detroit about three years ago. The story was that his father also a GM Engineer bought the car from GM in the early 70's....apparently he lobbied a Pontiac chief engineer to sell him the car since it was only talking up storage room. The price he was expecting when we spoke was nowhere near what it ultimately sold for.