All posts by Jeff Gapp

1960 Pontiac Catalina

Wayne Gapp and the 1960 Pontiac Catalina

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I was chatting with my Dad over the weekend and he noted that the first car that he raced was a car similar to the one below a 1960 Pontiac Catalina 2-door hardtop (coupe)

1960 Pontiac Catalina

Here’s a description from the ‘conceptcarz.com’ web site:

The Pontiac Catalina was a lightweight, fullsize vehicle outfitted with powerful engines offered in coupe and convertible form. Throughout its production lifespan, the mechanics and aesthetics varied. In the early 1960’s the base engine was a 2-barrel 389 cubic-inch eight-cylinder engine that produced nearly 270 horsepower. The four-barrel version raised the rating to 333 horsepower while the three two-barrel version produced almost 350 horsepower. The Super Duty ‘SD’ 389 cubic-inch engine raised the performance to over 360 horsepower. With a Borg Warner four-speed or Hurst three-speed manual gearbox, the Pontiac Catalina was a serious machine. Depending on the configuration the Catalina was capable of going from zero-to-sixty in around eight seconds with the quarter-mile run accomplished in just over 15 seconds.

1974 Ford Maverick

Hot Rod Magazine – Ford returns to its roots – Gapp and Roush ‘Taxi’

Hot Rod magazine create a post on their web site titled “Ford returns to drag racing roots”.

Included in that post is a gallery of images and in that gallery? A great picture of the 4-door Maverick called the ‘Taxi’.

See the article here.

See a link to the image here. Note that some of the caption information included with the image is incorrect.

I’ve included the image below but you should go read the whole article. I happen to agree that IF Ford were to spend even a portion of the former budget dollars on NHRA Stock/Super Stock they could be very successful building up their brand in the Sportsmen ranks.

HR TaxiAtBristol

Racing

Wayne Gapp and the Stars of the East Coast funny car circuit

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Check out this article. 

There are a couple of interesting things here: 

1. Drake Viscome. I’ve emailed a little bit with him. Cool guy!

2. This line: 

Viscome’s cars always were Ford-powered, initially with engines from Wayne Gapp, then Gapp & Roush, and finally Ed Pink.

Most people don’t know that my Dad started a engine building business in the late 1960’s called ‘Performance Engineering’ and was one of the few people who built Ford engines for Drag Racers across the country. The building for that business was located south of Michigan Ave around Outer Drive and Park in Dearborn, MI.

The picture below was taken there. That’s also why when you see pictures of this car the back has ‘Performance Engineering’ on it.

Boss429Mustang

Later, when he was promoted within Ford Motor Company, he brought Jack Roush into the the business and changed the name to ‘Gapp & Roush Performance Engineering’.