STORY LINE: The First Year … Detroit Sporty Performance Cars.

May 14, 1804 … Missouri River, upstream from Coldwater Creek, Missouri and  north of St. Louis. William Clark and Lewis Meriwether-along with a crew of 43 men-begin an expedition at the request of then president Thomas Jefferson, to find a Northwest Passage water route to the Pacific Ocean. In November of 1805-one and a half years after the beginning of the expedition-they saw the Pacific Ocean … the first American cross country trip.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition never did find a water route to the Pacific, but what they did was map the new Western country and may very well have given us our first thoughts of a cross country roadway. And while Lewis and Clark may have never envisioned our fancy with the automobile, let alone motorized highways, it was their ‘finding’ and mapping of our country that has given us … travel. An industrialized Detroit  put America, and for that matter, the world on wheels, and we are doing just that at an incredible pace, more so today than at any other time in our automotive life history. And it is ‘worldized’.

It was always race on Sunday, sell on Monday for the fledgling automotive world. Whether Henry Ford, Ransom E. Olds, Louis Chevrolet or any one of the thousands that attempted automobile  building/sales, racing is what garnered ‘press’ that sold cars. Many American made cars over the years possessed high performance speed characteristics: Marmon, Duesenburg, Cadillac, Lincoln, Oldsmobile, Chrysler, Studebaker, Stutz, Rambler … in both pre-war and post-war years. But one year stands alone as the first year that all American manufactures built a design specific automobile with sporty performance in mind. That year was 1962. Interesting to note … the same year that NHRA mandated factory build “stockers”-factory race cars that were available to the public, right off the assembly line.

GM, Ford and Chrysler never really followed the 1957 AMA instituted ban on racing, they just called them police packages. By 1955 all American built cars had a V8 as standard equipment or as an option and by the end of the decade, multiple carbureted engines were available across the board. So were hi-lift cams and 4-speed manual transmissions. Chrysler built specific performance cars within each model line, where GM and Ford installed factory racing engines in any body. Enter model year 1962.

General Motors built Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac cars; and for 1962 GM built a specific sporty performance oriented car in each line. CHEVROLET-Impala Super Sport, introduced in February of 1961 as a limited production trim package to showcase the new 409, was now full production available in convertible or hardtop model with any engine, 6-cylinder to 409. PONTIAC-Grand Prix was a two-door hardtop only model with a base engine of 389CID/303HP and options all the way up to the 421SD. OLDSMOBILE-Starfire was first offered in 1961 as a convertible only, added for ’62 was the coupe-both with 394CID/345HP. BUICK-now had the Wildcat in hardtop form only, with 401CID/325HP ‘Nailhead’ V8. CADILLAC-The ‘Standard of the World’ continued with the 390CID/325HP Eldorado convertible, first introduced in 1953.

Ford built Ford, Mercury and Lincoln cars; and for 1962 Ford built a sporty performance oriented car in Ford and Mercury lines only. FORD-Galaxie 500XL models were built in 2dr hardtop, convertible and station wagon models, standard with the base 292 ‘Y’ block and optional with up to the 3x2 barrel 406CID/405HP ‘FE’ Series-except wagons, which could be optioned up to the ‘FE’ Series 390.  Thunderbird offered a Sports Roadster version with 3x2 barrel 390CID/340HP. MERCURY-S Fifty five was available in 2dr hardtop and convertible with the same engine options as the Ford Galaxie XL.

Chrysler built Plymouth, Dodge, Chrysler and Imperial cars; and for 1962 built a sporty performance oriented car in Plymouth, Dodge and Chrysler lines only. PLYMOUTH-Sport Fury, that name previously used only in 1959, was available in a 2dr hardtop and convertible, standard with the base 318CID-V8 and optioned up to the ‘Golden Commando’ 413CID/420HP Super Stock RB engine. DODGE-Polara 500 2dr and 4dr hardtop and convertible with 361CID/305HP as standard and optioned up to the ‘Ramcharger’ 413 engine, the latter the same as the Plymouth Sport Fury. CHRYSLER-Letter Series 300H cars in 2dr hardtop and convertible styles with 413CID/380HP 2x4 barrel carbureted engine.

Both Studebaker and Rambler offered sporty and somewhat performance oriented autos, although they were carryover models. Studebaker-featured the Gran Tourismo Hawk V8 2 door hardtop and Lark Daytona V8, the latter available as 2door hardtop and convertible with power options up to a 4-barrel 289 Studebaker built V8. Rambler-offered the American(6-cylinder only) and Ambassador(V8) models with front bucket seats optional.

All of these 1962 sporty performance vehicles were typically V8 powered with exceptions as noted. They ALL had special exterior/interior trim packages denoting that they were in fact special-with bucket style front seating standard.

1962 was the year that launched and changed the sporty performance car interest … forever.                              

Should you have the opportunity to be in St. Louis, by all means visit the Jefferson Expansion Memorial below the Arch on the great Mississippi River. It’s a beautiful chronological experience of the Lewis & Clark Expedition … that gave us roads west.

TOP HAT JOHN can be contacted for story leads, vehicle appraisals, or questions at: P.O. Box 46024, Mt. Clemens, MI., 48046-6024; or call 586-465-1933