Читать книгу Lost Muscle Car Dealerships - Duncan Scott Brown - Страница 28

Richard “Dick” Herman Guldstrand was born in Los Angeles on December 1, 1927, to an engineer father and vaudeville mother. Dick tinkered with cars and was a hot rodder as a teen. He also demonstrated his mother’s knack for showmanship during the Korean War when he was assigned to the USO as a singer. An electrical engineering degree from UCLA got him into an aeronautics company.

Dick “threw it all away” to race Corvettes under sponsorship of Los Angeles–area Chevrolet dealerships. He made it onto Roger Penske’s team in SCCA racing. Dick not only raced and won often in Corvettes in the 1960s but he also had a knack for understanding the intricacies of the big-block Chevy engines and was skilled in chassis engineering.

Peyton Cramer had a ready-made, tried-and-true team available to follow Dick Guldstrand’s program. When Ford diverted production of Shelby cars to its factory plants, Shelby’s workers were left idle. Peyton scooped up most of the former employees from Shelby American to carry on in the same mode over at Dana Chevrolet.

One particularly notable addition to Peyton’s team was Don McCain. Don was a former Shelby West Coast representative who was running the Mel Burns Ford Performance Center. He fervently supported the concept of street supercars, and in February 1967 he joined the Dana team as a sales manager. He began to actively campaign the 427 Camaro on the drag strips and continued to be an integral force behind further development of the Dana Camaro.