The Gray Ghost was Pontiac’s True Trans-Am Star
Most of us at Hagerty Media weren’t around to witness the 1971 SCCA Trans-Am season first-hand. We learned about the legendary cars and drivers from history books, our fellow enthusiasts, and from the next best thing, seeing these cars in action at events like the Rolex Motorsports Reunion and Velocity Invitational. It was at these recent events that we came to appreciate the 1964 Pontiac Tempest known as the Gray Ghost. It’s been restored and raced at several events over the last 10 years, and now it’s up for sale.
General Motors suspension engineer Herb Adams built the Gray Ghost from his wife’s daily driver with help from fellow GM engineers Tom Nell and Joe Brady. Despite being larger than the competition and lugging around a full frame, the car was shockingly competitive and surprised a lot of spectators and many of the fastest drivers in the series, placing in the top five in three of the six races it entered. Keep in mind that these races often had 20-30 entries. Those three top-five finishes placed the Gray Ghost ahead of every single Camaro in the field.
Because of its recent racing schedule, we don’t have to work hard to imagine how strange it must have been in 1971 to see the newest, hottest pony cars from Ford, Chevy, Plymouth, and AMC in the same race as a 1964 Pontiac Tempest. The Tempest, at least one generation in styling behind and a size larger than the rest of its competition, was an entirely different beast. Despite having a car named after the race series, Pontiac bowed out of Trans-Am competition for 1971. While the Mustangs, Camaros, ‘Cudas, and Javelins were vying for car buyers’ attention with their vibrant paint schemes, the understated Gray Ghost was a passion project. Adams’ smarts, along with the driving skills of Bob Tullius, made the car a contender.
Operating on a shoestring budget compared to the factory-backed teams, the underdog Gray Ghost is a monument to hot-rodding creativity and ingenuity. We hope that the next owner is as active as the car’s current owner, John Hildebrand, has been. This piece of racing history is best appreciated at speed.
The best book on this is Blood, Sweat and Gears. It is the story of the Ghost and the Trans Am Adams raced before leaving GM and doing the Fire Am and Cheverra.
I have a Herb Adams suspension on my Fiero. He did it for Showroom Stock but it was only raced a couple times.
Those were times when things were much more simple and money was not as hard to come by to field the costs.