Grey Ghost Pics

[whitetop]

Here is a picture of Bob's "Grey Ghost" Funny car.
Bob, I have a picture of this car in Hot Rod or Car Craft magazine when it was at the Bryon "Bracket Nationals" ( a mega big affair at the time) in the late '70's-campaigned as the Assasin-I recognized the car as soon as I saw it. I will email it to you in a few days. Great car, keep it all original. One of my pet peeves is someone will "update" (wheels. gauges, seats etc) a famous car to run current NHRA specs. Don't do it Bob. I will probably be banished from this site for saying this but as many of you know how I like Day 2 stuff, I would jump over 50 Yenko's at a show to see this car.
Dave
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1314220&a=9759268&p=53081645

[Belair62]

No worries Dave. I am not going to do one ounce of updates.The hardest part to find may be an NOS screen door closer that operates the door! Keep an eye open for a Pontiac Hilborn unit ! I still need to find the original owner Larry Swiatek.

[Edited by Belair62 (08-18-2001 at 09:11 PM).]

[whitetop]

Here is another of pic of the Gray Ghost.For that Hilborn setup check out www.rpmcat.com (http://www.rpmcat.com) especially under Dales Stuff and www.drag.race-cars.com (http://www.drag.race-cars.com) and www.hotrodvintageparts.com. (http://www.hotrodvintageparts.com) All have very active for sale and want ads and have lots of old neat stuff on them.

Dave
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1314220&a=9759268&p=53122412



[Edited by whitetop (08-19-2001 at 02:11 PM).]

[Belair62]

Thanks for posting the pics Whitetop.....one of these days I may just get it to Elmhurst Mr70 !

[MikeA]

Good luck with the restoration!

Mike

[Mr70]

Very nice Bob.I would like to see that in person some day.
Would you take that to the Elmhurst weekly cruise? http://www.yenko.net/ubb/smilies/images/icons/laugh.gif

[Belair62]

Finally took some time and looked this thing over pretty good. I have come to the conclusion that when I do find the owner Larry Swiatek I am going to shake his hand. ANYONE who would get in a car like this back then and actually stomp on the gas pedal was truly a hero.There isn't much there to keep you safe OR going straight ! Thanks to the magazine article sent to me by COPO69 I found out this thing weighed in at a skimpy 1600 lbs.

[whitetop]

Bob
That was the good old days when the men were men, the women were women and the sheep weren't nervous!!
Dave

[Rat_Pack]

Hey whitetop I am there with you on jumping over 50 Yenkos to look at this car also. Nothing wrong with the Yenkos but there is something about those old funny cars that just gets to me. Same goes for any old drag car, just check out Kevin's 69 Nickey drag car, it is just plain BAD!........RatPack......

[Belair62]

Well gang I have good news.I found the original owner in Florida with a plain old white pages internet search ! He has movies,pictures,and his old helmet too ! Strangely enough,turns out his folks lived in my town and his dad was the head of our Public Works for years.....Small Small world...here is the tough part...it was pure Pontiac powered for 9 months.The car ran bathtub manifold dual quads..then injected Pontiac on Nitro...and then.........injected on nitro 427 Chevrolet power ! Him and I will decide which way to put it back.I am going to piss off the Pontiac folks if we go Chevy !!!!!! hanks for all who helped out on this.What would we do without internet searches . http://www.yenko.net/ubb/smilies/burnout.gif http://www.yenko.net/ubb/smilies/burnout.gif

[Chevy454]

Sounds like you have had pretty good luck with your search! As hard as searching for "regular(!)" cars is, searcing for info on old drags is equally difficult. Often times there are articles/info on a particular car, but the info is not ALWAYS correct. Or, at least that is what we are running into on our Dick Harrell funny car...lots of info, but a LOT of misinformation. Plus, since it was 30+ years ago, peoples memories have since gone or aren't quite as accurate. Oh well, part of the thrill I guess! Good luck with the car!

[GMH454]

Don't want to get shot here, but I would bite the bullet and go Pontiac. There have to be VERY few Pontiac Funnies left. There could'nt have been too many in the first place. By 1971 I think everyone, Harrel included was running Hemis (except for a couple of guys who like to run Fords and did'nt mind losing.)
Good luck with it. Awesome car!!!!

[Chevy454]

I gotta agree with GMH...I'm a true blue Chevy man, but I would go Pontiac if I were in your shoes...a Pontiac body needs to be Pontiac powered! Or at least I think so! Now, about that nitro injected Poncho...!

[Belair62]

Thanks guys.454 ,not sure if you are signed up but if not,Micky Hale set me up with the FuelCoupes group on Yahoo. There is so much info there it's unbelievable..they speak Nitro there. Go there if you haven't...Micky can help...Harrell F/C ? You dog !!!!! Ghost owner said they could not keep a rear end in the thing.Also said Pontiac was a pain in the ass since they had to MAKE theinjection work from Oldsmobile parts with help of Pontiac engineer.Post something on that Harrell F/C please.....wanna match race ? Not on your life in this car ! By the way...after this car was sold and run as the Assasin it was HEMI powered.I asked Larry what would posess him to actually put his right foot to the floor in such a crude car...he said "thats what we had and we didn't know any better" True pioneers those guys.

[Edited by Belair62 (08-29-2001 at 10:46 PM).]

[Chevy454]

Yeah, I know dad is on Fuel Coupes A LOT, but I can't remember his username. As for the match race, dad and Mo keep telling me that I'm the designated driver, but I keep looking looking at the car, then looking where that big blown Chevy is going to sit (pretty much between your legs!), and I am a little unsure. It's 30+ year old technology. Plus, it's probably good that they didn't know any better, or we wouldn't have these cool cars! I think our funny car had a Pontiac rear along the way, but when the switch to the bigger tires was made, it kept breaking, so they went 9" Ford. Plus, the quick change rear made things a lot easier.

[Edited by Chevy454 (08-29-2001 at 11:07 PM).]

[JoeC]

I say give the old Goat her original motor and name back. It had a great historic name. Knew I heard it somewhere before and found this in a search:
"In World War II the Queen Mary was conscripted into service, painted camouflage gray and converted into a troop ship capable of transporting 5,000 soldiers.
The ship was the bane of Adolf HitlerÃs existence. He put a bounty on it, offering $250,000 and GermanyÃs highest military honor to the captain who could sink it.
But the Queen Mary was fast. Its top speed was 32 knots (36.8 miles per hour), and for 14 years held the title of fastest ship on the ocean. It was seemingly invisible to the enemy. The Germans couldnÃt catch up with it, much less sink it. It was called the œGray Ghost” "

[Belair62]

wanted to refresh this since I saw Mike Garfinkel was out there tonight....

"UPDATE" I found a mint Hilborn Injection set-up so I am making a teeny bit of progress....also got a color pic from a Yahoo Fuel Group member...will see if I can get someone to post it..

[JoeC]

Gray Ghost color pic from Bob

http://members.aol.com/hotjob57679/images/ghost%20color.jpg

[supcarbob]

The Gray Ghost GTO appeared in a magazine from November-December 1966 called " The Wild,Wild World of Funny Cars". Also Larry Swiatek went to a 1968 GTO funny car after the '66 also called Gray Ghost. Cover color picture on June '69 of "Speed and Supercar". A great car and good luck on restoration !