Sedan Deliveries

[Wayne W]

Originally Posted by Rich Biebel

I never knew about those Canadian Pontiac sedan deliveries either...

The Pontiac Safari wagons were pretty std wagons and they did build some in '57 that were similar to a Chevy Nomads......I used to see one in my town and wanted to buy it to make into a tow vehicle.

My first car was a hand me down 55 Pontiac.....

[Rich Biebel]

This must be where the idea of putting a "hydro" behind a Chevy in a sedan delivery came from originally. Ads like that kind of linked GMC with passenger type cars.....and engines and transmissions got interchanged...

I can recall the logic when me and my racing partner first built our '57 Chevy sedan delivery in about 1965.....Sedan deliveries were "trucks"......Add a truck trans behind a Chevy HP engine.......must be legal and NHRA OK'ed it for a few years........Just like the over the counter stuff they also allowed....and 4 speeds in cars that never came with them....

GMC trucks mixed and matched engines and transmissions....

We had a '58 or '59 GMC ramp truck that we built from one we found laying dormant in the backyard of a truck shop.....We re-built this truck in 1969 to haul our Chevy II stocker...

It had a Pontiac engine in it......330 something cubic inch sidedraft 2 barrel with a manual trans.....

I drove that old tanker to a lot of tracks in 1970-1971....The engine was pretty strong. after I swapped a new style carb on it.....Never any problem with it.....

[Wayne W]

Lots a neat stuff out there. You should have tried getting an original 1966 Malibu SS 283 car through tech. They tried telling me SS cars were all Big Block powered. In 1976 Larry Lombardo took a second look, I guess he had never saw one.

[Charlie A]

The Hydro was allowed because it was available in the trucks and commercial Chevys and the sedan delivery was marketed as a commercial vehicle.

Crossing the boundries between production "passenger" engines available and the "commercial vehicle" transmission made for some crazy combinations in the sedan deliveries.

Now that was a rule stretcher idea that worked......for a while.