Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions about the "good old days!"
1. It is obvious from all of the pictures that Stewart has posted that Donnie, you and the rest of the "Missle" team did alot of thrashing on the small block parts in 74 and maybe into 75 to make the W2 heads work in the yellow car. I heard that the Rod Shop guys were also doing alot of testing in the Thomson C/G Colt on the small block PS engine. As I recall, Bruce Meihls was saying they actually had very competitive PS times in 1974, but the blocks just would not stay together. Thoughts?
2. Do you have any knowledge of the five Colts that Dan Knapp built for Chrysler? I know that one went to the MIssle program, and was finished by Butler and finally ended up with Lynnwood Craft. A second car went to Desantis and Crider for the C/G small blacok car. A third went to Jim Thompson/Rod Shop and was known as the B/G car, and a fourth chassis went to Bob Riffle/Rod Shop, but sat in the rafters of the shop for a whlile, and was then sold. Any idea where the fifth one went?
Thanks!
Mark Panos
Mark,
We did work pretty hard on the 'A' engine package with the yellow test car. The wire car was to have been our 'race' car for the '75 season but things sort of fell apart before we finished the car.
The 'A' engine program worked out pretty well as far as making the car go quick enough. My memory is not too clear on ET and MPH that the thing produced but I know we managed to use up a fair amount of parts that year. 1974 was a full year of testing for the Missile crew. Donnie match raced his own Hemi car with Clyde but for the most part Oldfield and I were totally immersed in the testing throughout the year. As far as what Thompson and the Rod Shop was working on I really can't say for sure - they had some pretty good success with their program but I honestly did not pay close attention to what they did.
Now, the Dan Knapp Colts... Dan built the Colt that I took out to Butler's place during the summer of 1973. THAT particular Colt was built specifically for the D5 Hemi. Because of the head configuration and some other issues, we could not easily switch to a 'normal' Hemi. I went back to Butler's place in the fall to pick up the car and by the time I arrived back in Detroit, the decision had been made to shelf the D5 program and the car was immediately put into storage at the Performance Parts Warehouse in Centerline. I remember delivering the car over there and seeing it being forklifted up onto an upper shelf in the warehouse. Later, Donnie got that car back and cut off the car at the firewall and rebuilt the front structure to accept a normal Hemi. Stewart can tell you better which Colt that ended up being in Donnie's stable.
As far as where these cars went I also do not know. Dan Knapp and I worked together at SVI from about 1981 to the time he passed away in about 1984 - he was one heck of a great guy and very talented car builder. He also built the chassis on the wire car for us.
