I asked him about the lanyards I think it was my first question. His take was they most likely started out with the flat end lanyards and switched to the swivel end to make it common with the Shelby. He said most likely a vendor change as well could have changed to the different design. Hopefully one of the other A.O.Smith contacts can give more information on this.
He said most of the Radar wheels had the bolt paddern off just enough so they wouldn’t install on the wheel studs. In order to get the Cougars out the door back to Ford the line workers were using rubber mallets and beating the wheels on to the wheel studs to get them installed. He said that was putting a lot of stress on the center section of the wheel so as soon as the Cougar was driven and the wheel was side loaded the stress cracks would start. They were forced by Ford to use the Radar wheels and get the Cougars shipped out.
I asked if the Cougars were mixed in with the Shelby Mustangs going down the line. He said no. They were built in batches as that’s how they arrived on rail cars from Dearborn. A seperate area was setup to do the sun roof. He said he didn’t remember ever sending the G’s to ASC for the sun roof to be install. He said the very first one was install at A.O.Smith with Heinz Prechter over seeing it (that’s another story). The G cars didn’t have all the interior installed from Ford and the last process was finishing the interior.
Wow, great information Brian. So essentially he’s saying no xr7-G’s sunroofs were installed at the ASC Southgate plant and they were all done at A.O. Smith in Ionia Mi. I had thought (just me ) maybe they were installed at ASC then loaded to go to A.O. Smith after the sunroofs were installed. Now for my take on the lanyards. (hehehehe) 68 Shelbys didn’t have hood pins & lanyards. From what I have read just the prototypes used the lanyards and twist down pins together, but the lanyards were removed from the table in July 1967. So to me it wouldn’t make sense if they had the flat ones first then go back to the 67 style after they were already taken off the table for the Shelbys. By the way the information I got was off of coralsnakes website about prototype 68 Shelbys. Believe me I’m not arguing in any sense of the way, this is what happens to me when I get these senile rusted wheels trying to turn again. Keep up the good work, I’m diggin it.
Very neat information. Thanks for clearing it up so I wasn’t lost. It has been a while since I looked through the G blueprints. I don’t remember seeing the 67 type steering wheel. I love this stuff so now I’ll be looking again at the blueprints for these type of changes.
Steven
I wouldn’t read to much into what he had to say about the lanyards. He wasn’t directly involved with the G and I think he was mainly applying what could have happened given what he knew from working there. He was only directly involve on some larger issues like the wheels, sunroof install and lights. A lot of his info came from looking on the draft board next to him as Lynn was working on the G. He said Lynn was a much better artist then he was, and he enjoyed sticking his nose into what lynn was doing.
This is the only type of hood pin and lanyard that I believe to be original equipment on XR7-G’s. All the parts in this picture are original to the car except the paint.
Royce, I know this is pretty far out there but if I can get Joe (xr7S Joe) to maybe take a picture of his lanyard off the Dan Gurney black G would this shed maybe a different light on things. Supposedly that car hasn’t been altered since he has owned it. Although he did mention it was given the 1 1/2 drop in the front but that was before he took possession of it. I know it will be a long shot knowing Joe and plus he said he hasn’t seen the car in a couple years, so apparently it’s stuffed in a ware house somewhere. There’s a car show this Sunday at the Ford World Headquarters Sunday and I was hoping to run into him. I would call him but he never got back with me the last time, so I really don’t want to keep bothering him.
This is how he told the first sun roof story. To set it up you got some local farm boys working at A.O.Smith that never installed a sun roof and they are taking orders on how to do it from a german (Heinz) with not the greatest english. To top it off he said Heinz had short guy attiude and liked to force his way. That didn’t sit very well with the workers and they referred to him as “Captain Prechter”. When he first showed up at A.O Smith he was driving and old beat up VW. He really went out on a limb to buy Golde and it was his friendship with Henry Ford II that got him the contract. After the money started comming into Golde he said Heinz would show up at A.O.Smith each time with a different car and a driver. Trying to show off to the workers he was important.
He said they crudely cut the first opening with what tools they had available. They had the hydraulic pressure set to high when they clamped on to the drip rail location with the crimpping press and just about ripped the roof right off. He didn’t go into much more detail about the install and moved on to the end of the process. At that time tensions were high amoung all involveded and Heinz was insisting he will be in the Cougar as it goes thru the wash stall as his sun roof would not leak! He said they tried to talk him out of it as it was the first one they install and it didn’t go as planned and tried to discourage him by reminding him there was no seat in the Cougar as the interior wasn’t installed yet. He Insisted, so they got a milk create for him to sit on while it went thru the wash stall. He said they gave it a good wash down. The Cougar came out and the door opened and the floor was full of water and Heinz was soaked from head to toe.
I’ve never heard a bad thing said about Heinz, but his take was the workers at A.O.Smith didn’t have much respect for him.
It would be great to have a copie of the shipping records for the owners of said cars. Maybe you could share them all with Royce and he could have them available for owners that desired them.
Great investigating work Brian, very cool indeed. We’re going to have to start calling you scoop from now on. On another note, I was at the Ford World Headquarters car show yesterday and ran into Joe. Not much was really said he was entertaining a friend of his and didn’t say much, out side of he wasn’t feeling well again. Only thing he said was he’s selling off some of his parts, not so much his cars but he did say the last car he sold was a 57 Chevy.(go figure)
Reading this topic again I noticed something. The steering wheel in the prototype XR7-G from the 1968 Detroit Auto Show appears to be a 1967 steering wheel. That was pointed out in another post. I just thought it was a 1967 Cougar steering wheel but upon closer look it appears to be a two bar wheel from a 1967 Mercury S55. It appears that the “Mercury guys” raided the parts pin to make the XR7-G prototype stand apart from the factory Cougars.
Steven
[/img]le Cars, American Icons" by the editors of Consumer Guides, $13.98 at Barnes & Noble has an excellent full colir picture of another model standing between a Wimbledon White 68 Cougar and Grecian Gold 68 XR7-G. I saved an image from the page of the book on my cell phone. Unless it’s not violating all sorts of copyright laws which would spin the earth off its’ axis… I’ve shared it with this forum.
