Great Looking 61 Tempest Wagon Ebay

Great Looking car, I always wanted a 61 or 63 Tempest, but no roomor $$$ at the moment. Seller does not say if this car has the 1bbl or 4bbl engine so I assume it is the 1bbl version. Also very Base car, no Pwr Steeringor Brakes, and does not even have the optional roll down rear window. But I do Like it. Bid to $5000 with reserve not met at time of posting. I have never seen a 61 with Seat belts, and by the look of the new hardware in the underside picture I think they are recently added. That and probably the passenger side rear view mirror as well. But I still like it!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pontiac-Tem...0f265c69d&item=141505709725&pt=US_Cars_Trucks

 

Sawed off 389's look cool. The color combination can't be improved. Looks almost too good to be true, from the outside, though. Time to have a magnet and portable sonar device, upon housecall

 

When I was a kid, an old man down the street drove a dark green 4-door sedan '61 Tempest. I thought it was a really good looking car; although my dad hated it, saying the 4-cyl and transaxle combo made it slow and prone to problems.

The wagon version sure is nice looking, slow or not!
Pete

 

That's a pretty slick little Poncho! I like the all-red interior with the white exterior. I even like the wheel covers, though I'd probably put a nice period wheel on it, to dress it up.

 

Interesting thing about the Tempest - While Chevy, Olds and Buick used 13" wheels (standard) on their new compacts (Corvair, F-85, Special, respectively), Pontiac put 15" wheels standard on theirs........

 

Larger diameter tires have lower rolling friction. Maybe, Pontiac wanted to outdo the others in fuel milage. However, if they really wanted to do so, they wouldn't have sawed a 389 in half. Instead, they would have developed an entirely new engine which had nothing to do with high-performance V-8's or had borrowed an engine from one of their overseas affiliates:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vss97WP90D8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuC4QdHeMps

 

I understand what you are saying, but the main reason to use 1/2 of a 389 V-8was Tooling Costs, and common parts (though only the head, Push Rods, piston/Rod assemblies, timing cover, and some gaskets and small parts directly interchange) The main advantage was it could be made on the same machining and production lines as the 389 V-8. They were already spending alot of $$$ on the chassis and driveshaft that was unique to that car.
Besides they were notgoing for ultimate MPG, remember the average US car got around 12 to 15 MPG Highway at the time, the Slant 4 Tempest with a 1bbl Low compression engine would get 25 MPG highway, some freinds of mine claim over 30MPG with a manual trans cruising at 60-65mph. So a 100% increase in gas milage was pretty good compared to a 389 2bbl Catalina. The Big I-4 also had a lot of low end torque, but was not the smoothest engine to come out of Detroit!!!!!!!
If I could find a 215 V-8 Powered 61 Tempest Wagon, or a 326 Powered 63 Tempest Wagon I would be very Tempted. But the Big I-4 is just a little to strange and hard to find parts for. Even for me,and I love odd ball Pontiac's!!!!!
Still Like this car though.

 

To handle all the torque of the eights, the transaxle would have had to be completely modified which would have been another cost burden. I wonder if one of those equipped with the Powerglides have ever been converted to use the THD:

http://www.curbsideclassic.com/curb...-before-bmw-built-theirs-and-almost-succeeds/

The sawed-off 389 is cool. But, supposing there was a fuel shortage in the early 60's using the generous crank bearings designed for a V-8 and the generally heavier weight due to components which were originally designed for a larger engine would have forced auto makers to design friction surface areas to a minimum, like they do nowadays, as well as using light alloy components, where possible.
Here's a rare last of this type Tempest with the 4 barrel carb and dual exhaust. Note the strange intake manifold which looks like it has a dead end ehaust manifold cast onto it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tva3ycstdEE
Nice thing about those fours is that you can use aftermarket parts from the eights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYkb542laiM