Why Some Classic Pontiacs Came With Rare 8-lug Wheels

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The Pontiac marque put together a beautiful beardown tally during its lifetime, delivering its first car successful 1926 and yet stopping accumulation successful 2010. That's erstwhile GM had to trim a number of brands, besides including Hummer and Saturn, arsenic portion of its post-bankruptcy reorganization. But during overmuch of its existence, Pontiac had a noticeable attraction connected performance.

It was nan Pontiac of nan 1960s that really group nan foundation. The marque began to musculus up pinch Super Duty Catalinas successful 1962 and 1963, giving them V8 engines derived from NASCAR racing. In fact, a Catalina won nan Daytona 500 successful 1962. The highest-HP motor ever put successful a Pontiac Grand Prix from nan factory came nan aforesaid year. The swinging '60s besides saw nan debut of nan Pontiac GTO — considered America's first musculus car — and nan Pontiac Firebird and Trans Am.

Beyond going fast, though, during these years Pontiac besides put immoderate thought into slowing you down. This was nan impetus down nan brand's innovative eight-lug wheels, engineered for improved braking capacity pinch old-school drum brakes. Let's spot really it each worked together to create 1 of nan decade's astir unique features.

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Just truthful we're clear, what we're talking astir present is nan number of instrumentality studs attached to each instrumentality hub. For example, nan emblematic instrumentality hub has 5 studs to which you equine each wheel, utilizing 5 lug nuts arsenic fasteners. The Pontiac wheels, obviously, usage 8 per wheel, but that's not really nan large deal. The large woody is wherever nan holes for nan instrumentality studs are located. The attachment points for astir wheels are adjacent to nan halfway of nan wheel, which is astir shaped for illustration a disc. The Pontiac wheels were much for illustration heavy metallic rings, pinch nan holes for nan instrumentality studs located connected nan soul portion of nan ring.

Most modern cars person stopped utilizing drum brakes, but they were modular backmost then, and they activity by having nan brake shoes use outward unit to nan soul aboveground of what's called nan brake drum. The drum, successful turn, is located down nan instrumentality — retired of nonstop interaction pinch caller air. As a result, drum brakes were notorious for heating up and losing braking power. Pontiac's upgrade was to move nan brake assembly to nan quiet abstraction successful nan halfway of its eight-lug wheels, letting nan passing breeze do a amended occupation of cooling nan brakes.

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The thought of mounting nan brake-drum assembly successful nan halfway of nan instrumentality didn't travel from Pontiac. Bugatti's Type 35 title car from nan 1920s tried putting brake drums astatine nan halfway of its instrumentality rims, arsenic did a Panhard introduction astatine LeMans in 1956. Pontiac first utilized Bugatti-style wheels successful its eye-popping 1953 Firebird XP-21 conception car, and nan brand's forward-thinking brain-trust astatine nan clip — including legends like John Delorean, Bunkie Knudsen, and Pete Estes — decided to push them into production. They were really designed by GM technologist Clayton Leach, who had antecedently worked connected V8 engines for Pontiac and Chevrolet.

The vanished merchandise was a 14-inch alloy rim astir an 11-inch finned aluminum brake drum, produced by nan brand's instrumentality supplier astatine nan time, Kelsey-Hayes. They were offered arsenic a $120 action connected full-size Pontiacs for illustration nan Bonneville, Catalina, and Grand Prix from 1960 to 1968. You tin still way down these wheels, too, though they're a small much expensive. A caller group showed up connected eBay for $1,200. Not bad compared to Rolls-Royce's ridiculous $13,000 wheels.