This week’s Parting Shift celebrates one of the most mighty and awesome factory drag machines of the early 1960s, the Pontiac Catalina Super Duty with a four speed and a 421. The video was taken at the 2012 Pontiac Tri-Power Nationals at Norwalk. This car looks immaculate from the inside and it sure sounds great when the driver lets the clutch out, the tires fight for traction and then he rips the shifter through four gears. They must have been having some sort of a nostalgia stocker battle or something at the race because the Pontiac is taking on a Chevrolet and while the Chevy gets out of the hole first, it encounters some sort of mechanical issue and the Poncho flies by right about the time both cars are at half track.
The 421 sounds really strong with both carb wide open and it pulls hard through the lights. The driver has to give the big wheel some pretty hefty steering inputs on the big end and finally he gets both hands on that tiller once the four speed is plunked into high gear. The bonus in this video is watching and listening to the car drive up the return road. Steeply geared, the thing sounds super mean after making the turn off and rumbling back towards the pits.
These cars of the early 1960s are my favorites, even more so than their better known and later produced brethren. Cars like the SD Catalina were not produced to mass market, they were produced to seek and destroy factory competition on a highly public level and they barely had any sort of veil covering the fact that they were nothing more than factory racers. It was the era before the racing ban was scrapped so all of this was back door stuff and that makes it even cooler.
This is an awesome example of a true super car in 1962 being used as the boys in the engineering department wanted it used…on the strip!
Very nice!
Something unique about the 421 SDs . . . AFAIK they were the only motor to ever have cast aluminum exhaust headers for weight savings.
Is it me or is he short-shifting? It almost sounds like he’s out of it at 4500 or so…
He’s obviously good with a stick so it’s not like he doesn’t know the car…
And if he’s just trying not to blow it up, that’s fine too.
Pontiacs were torque makers and never known for high RPM. I owned one (’61 389 Catalina) that would float the lifters a little over 5K..not sure about this engine, but even GTOs were not reving much over 6k.
the 421 was built nascar. high rpm was no big deal.the ones i worked on had angled trans.
I wonder why he crossed the line to the left in front of the other car? Looked like a great otherwise.