Conference napalm::musclecars

    
    Hammer,
    
    All I know of Baldwin Motion is that they are located on Long
    Island, NY, and turned out some impressive performers.
    
    However, they also tacked on a lot of REALLY cheesy looking add-ons 
    and wacky paint schemes.  In fact I think they did some incredibly
    gross looking Monte Carlo SS's and Camaros in the mid-eighties.
    
    Perhaps they are still around.
    I have an original baldwin motion ad circa 1967-8 that lists goodies
    for the Camaro.
    
    Tom
    
    PS. So, you have determined the car is a Baldwin Motion model and
    not a Yenko???  How did you determine this?

    
     I would really be questioning "This guy is selling for $5,500.  with
    all paper work...and the car is Worth $75,000."
    
         What makes a Yenko or a Baldwin worth that much...I'd rather
    own a Cobra, or a Shelby.
    
    /Bob
    

      Back in the late 60's there were a number of "specialty" dealers such
    as Baldwin Chevy in Long island, Nickey (I believe the K was backward)
    chevy in Chicago, Yenko chevy in Penn, Mr Norm's dodge in Chicago,
    there was a well know Pontiac place around Detriot (forgot the name).The
    big difference was that Yenko was factory backed and offered the full
    warantee with the cars while the others did not. The exception would
    be an actual COPO from Nickey or Baldwin. I remember seeing some
    wild stuff at Norms such as 440 six pack dart/demons, Hemi dart/demons
    etc..My cousin (in Chicago) still has his factory lightweight hemi
    dart he got from Norm's that we used to play with at US 30, Oswego
    (sp.?), Union grove etc..
      The cost reflects the "rare" issue, a super clean Shelby is not cheap
    and a Cobra is out of sight..As for straight line performance a Shelby
    was no match for any of the above, put them on a road course and things
    changed a bit.
    
    Jim

Baldwin - Motion was an outfit (actually, two outfits) in western Long Island
(near Queens, I think) that sold upgraded Chevy products, and upgrade kits if
you already had the Chevy. They provided installation with their kits, if you
wanted it. Joel Rosen (I think it was Rosen) had family ties at Baldwin
Chevrolet, and he set up a related business called Motion Performance. He also
had close ties with Marty Schorr, who was the publisher back then of CARS
magazine - a relatively small nutbook that was fairly narrowly focused
around hot musclecars and "eastern" drag and strret racing. Marty did about all
he could to publicize Motion Performance, with scads of road and street racing
"tests", and references throughout the magazine.

Motion Performance had Phase I, II and III kits for many Chevrolet products,
but they concentrated almost exclusively on big blocks. They also did the
super tuning for all the Chevy products that CARS magazine tested. Al
Kirschenbaum (an eastern Mopar drag racer of some note, working out of a Long
Island Dodge dealership) did the super tuning for the Mopar test cars, and
Nunzio (still at it in Brooklyn) did all the Pontiac prep. I don't know who
did the Ford prep, but believe me, *somebody* did. CARS used to get mid 13s
and maybe 104 mph out of about any 440 they tested, and the Motion cars
mostly went easy 12s. The Cobra Jets were also mid 13s cars, if memory serves.
You had to take most of this stuff with a grain of salt - especially the
results of any of the Motion tests. It felt as if Marty got a cut of everything
Joel sold.

The Motion Performance offerings never got a lot of attention, outside of CARS
magazine. Not at All like Nickey or Yenko, who got national coverage from Hot
Rod, etc.

My feeling would be that a Motion car could be fun, but forget about major value.

Bruce

PS - The Pontiac dealer in Michigan that Jim mentioned was Royal Pontiac, in
Royal Oak. Jim Wangers was the sales manager at Royal, and he was the guy who
had the original idea for, and convinced Pontiac to build, the GTO, against
GM corporate edict, I might add. Royal Pontiac did the "Bobcat" engine
tuning kits, and they built a number of 421 GTOs, some of which innocently made
it out to the nutbooks for road testing. This was why some of those early GTO
tests were such eye openers (I.E. - the 12 second Car & Driver car).

    
    Ya, I heard of a Royal Oak GTO around that I could snag.  That was like
    a year ago and I wasn't really up on what the Royal Oak cars were.  I
    should dig into it and see if that car is still around.  I think it was
    a '67 GTO and I don't care much for that body style so I didn't put
    much effort into investigating.
    
    When I phoned my buddy last night to ask him more about this "Yenko"
    Chevelle, he pulls a "Yenko?  Did I say 'Yenko'?  Shoot, I meant
    Baldwin.  It's a Baldwin Motion car, not a Yenko!"  But this guy
    knows what he's talking about and is 100% trust-worthy.  He has
    seen the car and the paper-work.  It's up for $5500 because it's in
    "fair" condition sitting in some guys back yard.  In other words, it
    needs complete restoration but is a very good starter (not a junker)
    and is all there.  See, my buddy that finds these doesn't MOVE on
    these things.  He has lost probably $100K in potential profits on
    some of his finds.  So when he finds something that he doesn't or
    isn't moving on, I start looking into it.  Ah, the smell of money!
    Anyways, he says such cars go for $75K.  I wonder who'd really know
    it's potential.  Any suggestions?

    After thinking a little,something doesn't quite click.on the years
    between 65 an 67 weren't the 375 hp 396 motors ratings fudged at the
    factory .If so wasn't it a little closer to 425 actual hp.If so why
    swap to a tri power 427 for 10 lousey ponies.Also If it was supposed to 
    go like a banchii for racing purposes,why 3 2 bbl carbs.1 is a whole
    lot easier to keep in synch and mechically in toon.I don't see any
    multi carbbed YENKO machines out there.So the next question is.Did 
    someone just stick in a vette 427 in it .looking for easy prey.Also
    I can't find a Baldwin motion 67 427 listed either for this car.68 and
    9 yes but no 67 I am real curious to see this documention.I am not
    saying it doesn't exist just that I am begining to dought it the
    further I dig into this.I will contact a few friends this weekend and
    bang some head together.
        

The 396 square port motors were rated at 425 hp in the '65 Vette, and 375 hp in
all other combinations through 1969. Since the engine itself was never changed
during this timeframe, and only jetting and exhaust systems varied, you could
make a case that the 375 hp rating was conservative, and the 425 hp rating was
"real".

Be that as it may, the square port 427 made substantially more power and torque
than the 396 did, even though the rating of 425 hp was the same. When questioned
about the unchanged power rating, Zora made a straight-faced remark at a press
conference unveiling the '66 Vette to the effect that the 427 was built to save
weight, since the cylinders were relieved of an unnecessary 1/8" of cast iron.
Of course, this got a big laugh, since the press knew that GM was worried about
escalating hp ratings and the bad (insurance driven) press that was being
generated at the time.

As for the 3X2 435 hp model, it actually made very close to the same power, and
a bit more torque than the 4 barrel model it replaced. The reason was that the
3X2 manifold was a low-rise, as opposed to the high-rise 4 barrel manifold. It
would be a mistake, however, to think that the 3X2 model was any harder to tune
than the 4 barrel. GM had the 3X2 setup in a number of cars in the '60s, and
they did it right. Only the center carb was used in all around driving, and it
was the only one with a choke and a full-adjustable idle circuit. The end carbs
had no chokes, and only a rudimentary dribble-port for idle (to keep fresh gas
in the carbs, mainly). The only thing you had to do was make sure all three
carbs hit full throttle at the same time, if you had mechanical linkage. Many
cars were delivered with vacuum-actuated secondary carbs, and, in that case, all
you had to do was polish them from time to time :-).

Bruce

    I have some more mud for the water. I saw a mention of a 1968
    Baldwin-Motion Biscayne in Musclecar Review. From what I was able to
    find, if you had the car and the money, Baldwin-Motion would build you
    what you wanted. So someone could have taken his 67 Chevelle 327 coupe
    to B-M in say 1969, and had them modify it to a 427 Tri-Power, for
    example. As far as HP ratings go, they are all unreliable. The
    difference between a 429 Thunderjet, Cobrajet and SuperCobrajet is
    something like 360HP, 370HP and 375HP, but the engine changes are
    enormous. You can't trust the HP, but the torque ratings are fairly
    reliable. 
                                                          John M.
    

    Does anyone know if baldwin motion still worked thier magic as late as
    1978.I met a person claiming to have a 1978 Baldwin motion Z-28 camaro
    and was wondering if he is full of sh!t or not.