Issue 11 June 2013 Edmonton Chapter Alberta Iron Indians Pontiac Club Poncho Paper S P E C I A L P O I N T S O F INTEREST: First Cruise Of The Season Members Rides Page 3. Support Our Sponsors. Feel free to send articles to newslet- ter . Remember it is all about enjoying Pontiacs and having fun. INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Bodnar’s Collection 2 Members Ride 3 Pontiac Race News 6 Editor, Classifieds 8 World Of Wheels 10 Mr. and Mrs. Bodnar’s Private Collection Of Beautiful Vehicles' and Memorabilia. A Big THANK YOU From The AIIPC EC Members! Presidents Corner 10 Sponsors 11 It all started 40 years ago Words cannot give justice to Danin’s amazing old- Around Town 12 when Edmonton machine the Bodnar Collection, but can fashions dress shop col- shop entrepreneur and inven- merely help reportage with lection. Ron’s toy truck ALL Pontiac S & S 14 tor Ron Bodnar acquired a tin AIIPC Edm.Chpt. V-P Jerry collection lines the walls June Meeting Dates 15 Lincoln toy fire truck that Stanic’s photo coverage of the of a small room, along caught his eye. club’s invitational tour of the with old Meccanno sets. CFB Cruise 12 The Bodnar family private museum, conducted by Ron His collection of Daisy BB VIN Information 16 collection of things from the and Danin Bodnar recently. guns and cap pistols in late 1800s through the mid- Danin Bodnar began chip- six-gun holster copies of Sponsors Story 19 1900s now fills about two- ping into the collection in the Hollywood cowboy idols Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Sponsors 23 thirds of a 26,000 square-foot 1970s when she acquired a museum in the Argyll Road snappy white 1957 Thunder- Hopalong Cassidy and the Important News 24 district of southeast Edmon- bird. My wife, Donna, was still Lone Ranger – hard to ton. And it’s still growing. talking days later about imagine any collection Cont. Pg 2 P a g e 2 Alberta Iron Indians Pontiac Club Bodnar’s Collection W W O O W W ! ! anywhere that could be more tures Mustangs and 1950s Chevy room; one for Orange Crush; Canada Dry. complete. ragtops. Replicated gasoline stations. There’s another room featuring Juke box- Another of Ron’ pride and joy An awesome collection of immacu- es – Wurlitzers, Rock-O-Las. collection is that of the Franklin lately restored gas pumps, air pres- The Stan Reynolds Museum in Wetaski- car. He’s got several beautifully sure pumps, old fire station pumps win and the Bodnar Family Private Collec- restored, the latest of which is a and some of the most sought-after oil tion in Edmonton. Yeah, we could be 1932 coupe. He’s working on a company signs ever created. known as Motor City North, you know 1914 Franklin. There’s a couple of rooms display- that? The museum, of, course, fea- ing Coca Cola soda fountains and cold Coke dispensers. There’s a Pepsi --Garry Cooper I s s u e 1 1 P a g e 3 Member’s Ride Bob Day’s 2009 G8 GXP Instant Classic or Collector Car Oddity Y O U D E C I D E 2009 Pontiac G8 GXP Manufactured by Holden/GM, Elizabeth, SA (Suburb of Melbourne, Australia) Engine: LS-3 6.2L V8 309KW (415HP) 563Nm (415 Ft/Lbs torque) Transmission: 6 speed manual shift Rear wheel drive Speed: Governed to 262KPH (155MPH) Heritage: The most powerful Pontiac sold out the front door of a Pontiac dealership in North America in stock form EVER. Owner: Bob and Cheryl Day Lloydminster, Saskatchewan Story On Page 4 Alberta Iron Indians P a g e 4 Pontiac Club Poncho Paper Member’s Ride Continued From Page 3 Canada The Holden car company is located in Elizabeth, SA a suburb of Melbourne Australia and is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Motors in America. For the past 40 plus years a 4-door sedan has been their flagship Cont. Pg 5 The Edmonton Chapter AIIPC Executive Executive Committees President: Dave Scragg [email protected] Sponsorship: Shawn Genge John Dampf Vice President: Jerry Stanic [email protected] Dave Scragg Secretary: Liam Hicks [email protected] Terry Beuerlein Special Events: Cliff Riles Treasurer: Terry Beuerlein [email protected] Dave Scragg Sponsorships: John Dampf [email protected] Martin Sharren Shawn Genge [email protected] Special Events: Cliff Riles [email protected] Newsletter: Jerry Stanic— Photographer Garry Cooper— Editor Memberships: Bill Moffat [email protected] Dave Scragg— Typesetter Martin Sharren [email protected] Shawn Genge-- Racing News Apparel: Doug Kandt [email protected] I s s u e 1 1 P a g e 5 Member’s Ride Continued From Page 4 vehicle. Since 1979 that sedan has been the Commodore. The Commodore has always been built in a right hand drive configuration and been sold in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. It has also been re-badged and sold in India as a Chevrolet Impala and in China as a Chevrolet Caprice and the United Kingdom as a Vauxhall. More recently the car has also been marketed in the Arab Emirates. General Motors needed a four door rear wheel drive car to sell into the very lucrative North American police cruiser mar- ket and they didn’t have one. So in late 2008 General Motors began importing the re-badged Commodore to America to sell as the Pontiac G8. This required the vehicle to re-configured to a left hand driving position. The first and only time that has occurred. Three models were offered, the G8, the GT, and the GXP. The Holden Commodore has always been a 4-door sedan with a V8 motor and rear wheel drive. In more recent years Holden has introduced a V6 engine to attempt to improve fuel mileage and driveability. Australian cars have always been built as V8 rear wheel drive cars. In fact there is a racing series in Australia and New Zealand called V8 Super Car for only two cars models, the Holden Commodore and the Ford Falcon. The series consists of 28 races annually and draws an average of 70,000 spectators per race. The cars are run on alcohol and deliver 690HP and run to 190 MPH making them at least the equal of Nascar in America. The Ford-Holden rivalry has always been fierce. Australian cars have always been more European in nature, all about speed and road handling. Much more so than American cars whose focus has mainly been straight line horsepower and speed or luxury. Holden decided the best way to proceed with an American high HP version was to obtain a number of the LS-3 V8 6.2L motor and transmission set-ups used in the American Corvette and install them in the Holden as a limited production model, the Holden VE Commodore SS V-series. That car came to America as the G8 GXP car. It was meant to compete with high-powered European style sports sedans such as Audi, BMW and Mercedes at about half the price. The GXP car was tested and found to have a 0-60MPH time of 4.6 seconds and a quarter mile time of 12.7 seconds with a top speed of 109.6 MPH. Not bad for a four door grocery getter. In early 2009 the GXP car was brought to America in limited numbers. From a U Tube Pontiac Promo a total of 1829 GXP’s (awaiting confirmation Pontiac.Ca) came to America out of a total of 38,159 G8’s produced in total for America and Canada between 4 July 2007 and 18 December 2009. The other models offered were the standard G8 with V6 256HP and the G8 GT with the 6.0L V8 361HP. Only the G8 and G8-GT were brought to Canada in late 2008 and early 2009. Pontiac intended to introduce the G8 GXP and the Pontiac Ute (think El Camino) to be called the G8 ST (Sports Truck) and possibly an Estate (think station wagon) and if market sales would support it a G8 Coupe after midyear 2009. That never happened as General Motors decided to cut the entire Pontiac line in March of 2009. If you come across a GXP car in Canada it was imported from America. The pictures of the G8 ST and the G8 Coupe I saw on the net were amazing. From the photos they must have made a couple of each as concept cars. We can ply “If only” for as long as we want but that isn’t going to make it happen. I wonder what they did with the concept cars. The usual practise is to crush them after the project dies to keep them out of the publics hands. Go figure. You will remember that two things occurred in early 2009. First the markets tumbled and secondly the world went into recession. As a result General Motors along with other motor companies in America came perilously close to bankruptcy. So close in fact that they had to be bailed out by the American Government. At the time our local General Motors dealer- ships were very concerned as to what their outlook might be especially since General Motors had announced the inten- tion to eliminate at least 100 dealerships Canada wide. This resulted in local dealerships not being able to access new product to sell. You might also remember that their lots were nearly empty for a number of months. In order to obtain product to sell they determined to go south and buy whatever they could.