John DeLorean sounded nonchalant, almost too blase when the subject turned to his aborted 1966 Corvette-killer, a tasty little pocket roadster he called Pontiac Banshee (or XP-833, if you’re into official General Motors experimental designations). There was no hyperbole, only the facts as he recalled them 32 years ago.
“Our thrust was to bring Pontiac into the modern age,” he said by phone from his adopted hometown of Bedminster, N.J. “We created Tempest and GTO. We had success drag-racing these cars, and I felt Pontiac should produce a high-performance two-seater similar to Corvette. I thought Banshee was the answer, but Ed Cole, who was then head of GM’s Engineering Policy Group, disagreed. Cole thought Banshee would be devastating to Corvette and used his not-inconsiderable influence to have the car killed.”
John Zachary DeLorean. Still out there, still tossing bombs.
The very name DeLorean triggers quick-cut images of early 1980s popular culture. DeLorean with Johnny Carson. DeLorean and his namesake gull-wing sports car. The controversial drug bust and trial. Envision the stylish trophy wife, Christina Ferrare, at his side. The acquittal and retreat from public life.
But forget DeLorean’s great fiasco for a moment.
Consider this question: What of the old man’s life at GM?
Delorean, 72, joined Pontiac in 1956 as director of advanced engineering. He was named president of the Pontiac Division in 1965 and went on to head Chevrolet in 1969. He left GM in 1973 after being named group executive of the Car and Truck division.
And what became of the two prototype Banshees he secretly built at Pontiac?
Highland Park car collector Joe Bortz holds the key to this puzzle. Bortz, whose collection of Detroit concept cars is second to none, owns the metallic white, 8-cylinder Banshee and drove the beast as recently as 1996.
“The Banshee handles like a Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta,” said Bortz, who bought it several years ago from a source he declines to name. “I ran the Banshee hard from Highland Park to Milwaukee. I took I-294 and had the car clocked from 0 to 60 in 4.4 seconds.
“The Banshee showed less than 400 miles on the odometer and hadn’t run much, but it snapped my head and handled like a roller skate. I’ve driven hundreds of cars, but none like the Banshee. There’s no doubt in my mind, DeLorean would have hurt Corvette sales with the Banshee.”
Possibly. But why? The Corvette Stingray was hardly trash in 1966. That year the top-end model had a big-block 427-cubic-inch power plant and heart-stopping acceleration.
DeLorean’s answer was a 421 HO (high output) Pontiac engine shoe-horned into Banshee, whose 90-inch wheelbase made it nearly a foot shorter than Corvette, with a corresponding reduction in weight. The verdict: Banshee with a Saginaw four-speed tranny was lighter, faster and, if one accepts DeLorean’s contention, would have been cheaper to produce.
“I disagree about it being a Corvette killer . . . . I think the Banshee would have been great for Corvette,” said DeLorean. “I’ve always felt healthy competition sharpens everyone. The Banshee would have forced a better Corvette from Chevrolet and added to GM’s bottom line.
“Ed Cole obviously disagreed with me, and I felt worse than frustrated. I felt we’d done everything expected of us with Banshee. I thought it was an obvious go. We had a program; tooling costs were reasonable. I couldn’t come up with one good reason not to build the car.”
Cole, who went on to serve as president of General Motors in the mid-’60s, died in a plane crash in 1977. James Roche, GM chairman in the mid-’60s, saw DeLorean’s built-on-the-sly Banshee displayed at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in February 1966 before the New York Auto Show and was so shaken by its superior styling and its potential threat to Corvette that Pontiac sources say he ordered the Banshee removed and destroyed.
DeLorean would neither confirm nor deny the story. But Dee Allen, director of Pontiac communications, and Mark Hitchins, manager of communications for product, say they’d heard the Roche/Waldorf tale from several sources, as had Jim Madison, chief archivist and president of Pontiac Historical Services.
“Leave yourself some wiggle room on this story,” said Madison. “I think you have the general facts about the Banshee, but some retired engineer could read your story and come out of the woodwork to dispute DeLorean’s version.”
“Though I doubt that would happen because I think John has a sharp memory. I saw him last spring at a Pontiac/Oakland owners convention in Denver. He’d been invited before and I would have bet he wouldn’t show this time, but there he was with (former Pontiac engineer) Smokey Yunich. He spoke to the group and took questions, and he had the answers right there.”
Allen, who began as an engineer with Pontiac in the mid-1950s and worked his way up to the top slots at Pontiac and Chevy before taking a senior management position with GM in the early 1970s, explains how DeLorean could have built the Banshee prototypes against Cole’s orders:
“In those days GM divisions were pretty much self-contained, so there was no need for DeLorean to involve anyone else. He controlled everything at Pontiac, right down to the foundries that produced the engines. Building the Banshee in-house would not have been a big deal.”
An intriguing bit of industry folklore on a par with the Tucker or Buckminster Fuller’s revolutionary Dymaxion (both of which were rumored to have been sabotaged by sinister forces in the auto industry), Bortz has the only true evidence–a devastating pocket missile the size of a Miata, but with acceleration to make your ears bleed.
Indeed, the thought of owning a Banshee in 1966 at a little over $3,000 is almost too much for the senses. (In fact, the 6-cylinder prototype, owned by a collector who insists on anonymity, is rarely, if ever, seen.) Bortz displayed his Banshee last summer at the Museum of Science and Industry as part of his dream-car collection, and the car is now in California for a museum show.
And what of DeLorean? Was he really that much of a loose cannon at GM? The man who fathered the muscle-car movement of the 1960s–was he that difficult to work with?
One possible answer comes from Bill Prout, director of sales and marketing at Callaway Cars, builders of the Callaway Corvette: “I’d ask DeLorean about the Trans Am. I’ve always heard he got his hand slapped at Pontiac for making the first Firebirds and Trans Ams faster than the Camaro.”
And DeLorean, who greets every question with the same even-toned response, offered the bare hint of a chuckle at Prout’s comment. “Sure, that’s true about the Firebird and Trans Am,” he said. “Mr. Cole did not care to have them run faster than the Camaro . . . and I heard about it more than once.”
Troublemaker.
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PONTIAC BANSHEE (XP-833)
– Wheelbase: 90 inches
– Weight: 2,615 pounds
– Engine: 421-cubic-inch, 405-h.p. HO (high output)
– Transmission: 4-speed Saginaw (with hydraulic clutch)
– 0-60 time: 4.4 seconds
– Top speed: Never attempted
– Body: Fiberglass
