January 2012 - Alamo Area Chapter of the Pontiac

PONTI-YAKKIN
Volume 12, Issue 1
January 2012
Official Newsletter of the Alamo Area Chapter of the Pontiac-Oakland Club International
CLUB OFFICERS
President:
Alfred Flores
(210) 435-6333
Vice President:
Thomas Rauschuber
Treasurer:
Mike Prescher
Secretary:
Penny San Marco
Newsletter Editor: Penny Bryant
Website Editor:
Thomas Rauschuber
The purpose of the Alamo Area Chapter
(AAC) of the Pontiac-Oakland Club International (POCI) is assisting Pontiac and Oakland
Car owners with the restoration and enjoyment
of these great cars through sharing of knowledge, and promotion of social activities.
Membership in the international body is a prerequisite of chapter membership. Local chapter
dues are $12.00 per year. Membership entitles
you to receive our monthly newsletter “PontiYakkin”, free personal car/parts for sale/wanted
ads, inclusion in club-sponsored events, and
voting rights on chapter issues. Members are
encouraged to submit articles for use in the
newsletter. All materials are subject to approval, editing, and space limitations. Articles
used are the opinions of their author and not
ACC or POCI.
To submit ads, articles, or request information,
please call one of the above listed club members or contact us at:
AAC Pontiac-Oakland Club
PO Box 34654
San Antonio TX 78265-4654
www.classicpontiac.org
January 10, 2012
Meeting @
Grady's No. 7
327 E. Nakoma
210 343 8070
From the President
Submitted by: Alfred Flores
I hope everyone had a great Christmas. For those that
could not make our annual Christmas party, all I can say is you
missed one of the great club functions of the year. Hats off
certainly go out to Mike and Angie Prescher for their hard
work in preparing a wonderful Christmas dinner. Mike was
able to reserve the meeting room at his target shooting club
and this location worked out well for everyone. We were able
to decorate the room and arrange the room to give our party a
more personal touch.
Once again this year, members were tested on their Pontiac
knowledge with my rendition of Pontiac Jeopardy. I came up
with 30 questions within 6 categories that included Members,
General Pontiac knowledge, Technical know-how, Full size
Pontiacs, GTO’s and Firebird’s. This year the big winner was
Thomas Rauschuber with a narrow victory over Mike Grosso,
Frank Eskamilla, Raul Pena, and Chuck Duffin.
We also had our ever popular white elephant gift exchange.
Everyone had a great time unwrapping and swapping the more
popular gifts amongst each other. I was very happy to end up
with one of the only two bottles of Pontiac grape soda here in
Texas. These can only be purchased at the newly opened
Pontiac Museum that Frank and Penny San Marco attended.
Hopefully everyone was just as happy with their gifts.
Our club will be faced with some interesting challenges for
2012 since Jeff Butz has said he will not be able to head our
club car show efforts this year. Jeff has done a great job the
last few years and I will be asking for a volunteer or several
members to team up to take on the duties of organizing our
annual car show. I hope to have a member or members to step
up as soon as possible since we are already inquiring about
alternate show locations for the 2012 show.
We will discuss this and many more topics at our club meeting this Tuesday Jan 10 at Grady’s BBQ. Hope to see you
there!
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News from POCI
Dave Bennett, President of POCI died unexpectedly on
12/29/1011 from injuries that occurred in a fall. He sustained irreversible brain damage and was kept on life support until his
family could gather. He passed away later that day. According to Penny San
Marco, AAC-POCI member, “Dave Bennett was one of the nicest, most hands on
president POCI has had in our association with that organization. He will be sorely
missed.” Les Iden POCI VP has been named to be Interim POCI President. Mr. Iden
wrote that “Under Dave’s leadership & direction POCI has greatly increased transparency in all facets of their operations while becoming customer focused and the
POCI Board is more approachable. I will sorely miss my friend Dave. “
REPRINTED FROM OLD CARS WEEKLY NEWS AND MARKET PLACE
The recent and untimely passing of David J. Bennett,
president of the Pontiac-Oakland Club International,
was brought to our attention by Don Keefe, editor-inchief and creative director of the POCI‘s publication
“Smoke Signals.” The following obituary of Mr. Bennett
comes courtesy of Mr. Keefe.
David J. Bennett, the president of the Pontiac-Oakland
Club International since 2008, died on Dec. 29, 2011, at
approximately 9:00 p.m., Central Time. He’d taken a
dog out on a leash in the middle of the night, slipped on
the ice and fell and hit his head. He was 65.
Bennett, from Burnsville, Minn., was born in Syracuse,
N.Y., on June 25, 1946, to Dr. David W. and Gertrude
(Patnode) Bennett. He graduated from Syracuse University and ran a successful environmental and chemical
consulting firm. His love of Pontiacs came at an early
age — his first car was a ’58 Chieftain and he also took
delivery of a new 1964 Ventura. His collection of fullsized Pontiacs included two ‘61 Pontiacs, a ’63 Pontiac
and three ‘64 Pontiacs, including his original Ventura.
Dave worked his way up through the ranks of the Tomahawk Chapter and into POCI hierarchy, becoming a
board member more than a decade ago, vice president in
2007 and president in 2008. During his tenure in those
positions, Dave instituted a number of reforms designed
to streamline the day-to-day operations of the club, bring
total financial transparency and an unimpeachable election process to the organization. The “old boys club” era
of POCI came to an end and the club entered a new era
where bringing more value to the member was and is the
focus.
As well as being a longtime Pontiac fan, he was also an
avid motorcyclist, hunter and fisherman. He represented
fishing organizations as a member of the Clean Water
Council and was past president of the Lake Superior
Steelhead Association and was secretary and board
member of the Greater Lake Superior Organization. He
had also been a charter member and chair of the Trout
and Salmon Stamp Committee.
Dave was preceded in death by parents and daughter,
Jennifer Lee. He is survived by wife, Linda; children,
David, Lucas, Sarah (Mark), Cinda, and Elizabeth;
grandchildren, Ruby Rose, Lauren, and Tiffany. A memorial service will be held at The Church of the Risen
Savior in Burnsville, Minn., on Jan. 6.
Dave was a towering figure in the Pontiac hobby and his
legacy will continue on through the POCI for many
years to come. He will be greatly missed by his family
and friends as well as the Pontiac community at large.
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Mike Prescher
ACC-POCI Man of the Year! 2011
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8 Ferraris, 3 Mercedes
and a Lamborghini
The “world’s most expensive car crash.”
Auto fans across the world are demanding answers to
Entry form on Page 6
American Street Car Series
After many of you asked for a more central location:
GET READY!! American Street Car Series is pleased to
announce that we are coming to Harris Hill Road Raceway, in San Marcos, February 17-19, 2012, for a weekend
of cruising, racing, car showing, and more. ASCS would
love to have you guys join us and hang out with likeminded car guys. You could learn more about our twist on
our hobby.
what caused a pile-up on stretch of Japanese highway
that laid waste to a small fortune of luxury automobiles
— maybe $4 million worth.
Jalopnik reports that a group of foreign car enthusiasts
were heading to Hiroshima from Kyushu when one of the
drivers lost control trying to overtake a car on a wet,
curved part of China Road in Yamaguchi Prefecture. The
Ferrari driver reportedly hit the median and created a
reaction that caused the other cars in the lineup to
crash.
On Friday, we will leave our host hotel, Fairfield Inn &
Suites, and cruise to Dick’s Classic Garage and Car Museum. We will peruse the museum for a while, and then
we will head to Vintage Air, where we will have our traditional Friday night dinner. Saturday will be spent at Harris Hill Raceway, where we will have our day at the track
and a car show, open to all who want to participate. The
car show fee is $25/car, and the Day At the Track is
$225, and it includes one dinner. ASCS is currently trying to nail down the details for Sunday’s events.
Flashy sports cars valued at as much as $4 million became a mangled mess in a matter of minutes on Sunday
when a Ferrari leading a pack of exotic sports cars on a
trip from Japan’s southern island of Kyushu to Hiroshima skidded as it tried to change lanes.
When the smoke cleared, eight Ferraris and one Lamborghini in a 20-vehicle group driven by amateur sports
car aficionados were among the cars banged up in the 14
-car pile-up. About 10 people suffered minor injuries in
the accident on Sunday morning on a 400 meter-long
curve.
Alamo Area Pontiac Club - POCI
Chapter
on FACEBOOK!
PONTI-YAKKIN 4
GMC Trucks
from the bus and coach market because of increased
competition in the late 1970s and 1980s. Rights to the
RTS model were sold to Transportation Manufacturing
Corporation, while Motor Coach Industries of Canada
purchased the Classic design.[1]
In 2002, GMC released a book entitled, GMC: The First
100 Years, a complete history of the company.
GMC currently manufactures SUVs, pickup trucks, vans,
light-duty trucks, and medium duty trucks. In the past,
GMC also produced fire trucks, ambulances, heavy-duty
trucks, military vehicles, motorhomes, and transit buses.
GMC Truck, from a 1919 advertisement
On December 22, 1901, Max Grabowsky established a
company called the Rapid Motor Vehicle Company, which
developed some of the earliest commercial trucks ever
designed. The trucks utilized one-cylinder engines. In
1909, the company was purchased by General Motors to
form the basis for the General Motors Truck Company,
from which "GMC Truck" brand name was derived.
Another independent manufacturer purchased by GM
that same year was Reliance Motor Car Company. Rapid
and Reliance were merged in 1911, and in 1912 the marque "GMC Truck" was first shown at the New York International Auto Show. Some 22,000 trucks were produced that year, though GMC's contribution to that total was a mere 372 units. In GM's early decades, the
initialism "GMC" was simply an abbreviation of "General
Motors Corporation", and had some currency within GM
referring to the corporate parent in general. Later
"GMC" would become distinct as a division brand within
the corporation, branding trucks and coaches; in contrast, the abbreviation for the overall corporation eventually ended up as "GM".
In 1916, a GMC Truck crossed the country from Seattle
to New York City in thirty days, and in 1926, a 2-ton
GMC truck was driven from New York to San Francisco
in five days and 30 minutes. During the Second World
War, GMC Truck produced 600,000 trucks for use by
the U.S. military.
In 1925, GM purchased a controlling interest in Yellow
Coach, a bus manufacturer based in Chicago, Illinois
which was founded by John D. Hertz. After purchasing
the remaining portion in 1943, GM renamed it GM Truck
and Coach Division. The Division manufactured interurban coaches until 1980. Transit bus production ended in
May 1987. The Canadian plant (in London, Ontario) produced buses from 1962 until July 1987. GM withdrew
GMC and Chevrolet trucks are virtually similar except
for the grilles and nameplates, though their differences
have varied over the years. While Chevrolet vehicles are
sold exclusively at Chevrolet dealerships, GMC light duty
trucks have been made available to Buick, Pontiac and
Cadillac dealerships, in addition to being sold in separate
franchises with medium duty, in addition to the lightduty models. Between 1962 and 1972, most GMC vehicles
were equipped with quad-headlights, while their Chevrolet clones were equipped with dual-headlights. In 1973,
with GM’s introduction of the new "rounded line" series
trucks, GMC and Chevrolet trucks became even more
similar, ending production of GMC’s quad-headlight models, and setting the standard for the Chevrolet/GMC
line of trucks for over thirty years. During this period,
the sister models of the two companies (Silverado/
Sierra, Blazer/Jimmy, Tahoe/Yukon, etc.) shared everything except for trims and prices. GM has recently begun a divergence in design between the two lines with
the 2007 model Silverados and Sierras, which have some
differences in sheet metal and style.
Today, for the most part, GMC offers the same trucks
available under the Chevrolet brand. A Sprint, for example, was a rebadged Chevrolet El Camino, the Sierra is a
rebadged Chevrolet Silverado, etc. Alongside sister
brand Cadillac, all three share the Suburban/Tahoe SUV
platform due to Cadillac's upscale Escalade and Escalade
ESV brands, with GMC's Yukon Denali being closer to
the Escalades.
In the United States GMC trucks are
currently sold usually with Buick
automobiles, typically at lower volumes than the equivalent Chevrolet
trucks. GMC's trucks, vans, and SUVs
offer more options and standard features than Chevrolet, while Chevrolet is often offered as an entry-level
car. In Canada, GMC is sold by Buick-GMC dealerships,
usually at volumes equivalent or greater than the comparable Chevrolet trucks.
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Upcoming events
Recurring Events:

Live Oak Civic Center Indoor Car Show (By Invite
Only) January 7-8, Live Oak, TX


“Run to the Alamo” Car Show- February 18, 2012 Harris Hill Raceway, San Marcos with Cruise to Vintage Air on February 17, 2012



1st Annual Auto-Rama - Custom Car, Bike, Truck and 

Hot Rod Show. February 24-26, 2012 - Austin Convention Center

San Antonio Auto-Rama March 16, 17, & 18, 2012
Freeman “Expo Hall”

Relay for Life Open Car Show - March 25 ,
Womamack Chevrolet, Castroville, TX



month. 8 am to 10 am.

New Cars/Parts wanted/for sale
Friday Night Cruisin’ Biff Buzby’s at IH 35 &
Toepperwein Rd. every Friday night.
Castroville Cruise Night 2nd Friday of every
month at Wommack Chevrolet.
The Rim Cruise Night @ Bass Pro Shops
every 3rd Sat of the month. 1604 & I-10
Pig Stand Swap Meet on the last Sunday of each
month.
TJ Burgers in New Braunfels on Saturdays.
Cruise night in Boerne, TX every Sat. night 6-11pm
Carson’s Car Corral, 1604 & Blanco - last Sat of
Vineyards at Blanco & 1604 Breakfast at 8:00 am
every 4th Saturday
Wanted: 4 barrel air cleaner base plate any condition. Contact
Jamie Ramierez. I'm wanting to fabricate the base plate to accept
four ram air inlets. I'm trying to to what Pontiac engineers wanted to
do which was to have four inlets hence ram air IV. New e-mail is
[email protected]
AAC Pontiac-Oakland Club
P.O. Box 34654
San Antonio, Texas 78265-4654
PLACE
POSTAGE
HERE
ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED
PONTI-YAKKIN 7