OK, not your usual GRM fodder, I know, but I checked out a very clean 62 Tempest LeMans yesterday with the "Indy-4" and a 3spd. I'm really thinking about these cars now, I've searched out a bunch of info on the Hamb and the Pontiac forums, but needless to say, there's not much info on making one of these into an autox/road race/rally car.
I'm thinking that with the IRS and good weight balance, one of these could be made to handle about as well as anything else from the era. The thought of building it for vintage rally really has me going, but was there any history for these cars in motorsports other than drag racing? So far, that's all I've been able to find.
Some came with the alloy Buick/Rover V8 so from a balance and power perspective I'd look into one with that or swap in a Rover 4.6 version. The 63s had a 326 option but it was all iron so balance might be out the window, though with the 4 being 1/2 an iron V8 probably easier to swap. 4 speed was a rare option iirc BUT since the transaxle was supposedly Corvair based you MAY have a shot at using a more common 'vair version-though I wouldn't count on it. "Rope driveshaft might have to be ditched too but do some searching on that since there was at least one drag car based on this platform ( a wagon? ) so it might be OK. This is all off the very top of my head,YMMV.
Didn't Herb Adams build one up (his wife's apparently) for the 1971 Trans-Am?
I could be wrong, but wasn't it Buick's version of this compact sedan (the early '60s Special) that came with the Buick/Rover V8 and not the LeMans? (The Special also used the Buick 3/4ths of a V8....the first GM product to use it.) In the '60s, each GM division still had and used it's own engines. BTW, the Special had a conventional tranny.
If you want one for weight balance (presumably because it has the rear mounted trans) why not the aluminum V8? The 215 is getting tough to find parts for reasonably cheap, but are still out there, or if you didn't have to stay bone stock you can stay with the theme and use the Rover 4.6 which is strikingly similar but with lots of modern improvements (Rover bought the engine design and continued improvements on it for many years). The auto trans and ropeshaft (or whatever they called the cable driveshaft) are also a bit hard to find parts for from what I understand, but obviously there are plenty of torque-tube type transmissions these days if you're interested in swapping transmissions around. Since you're talking vintage stuff I'm not sure if you mean vintage stock or just vintage sheet metal/chassis.
Bryce
Herb Adam's car (The Grey Ghost) was a '64 Tempest - basically a '64 GTO, with a conventional drivetrain. Buick, Olds and Pontiac all used the 215ci aluminum V8 (Pontiac just used it in 1961 and 1962, then switched to the Pontiac 326 in 1963.) The Olds version had different heads and intake but essentially the same short block; Pontiac used the Buick 'nailhead' version.
The Tempest / Lemans transaxle was inherently not very good for handling, as it had swing axles like the early Corvair where there weren't any driveshaft joints at the wheel end. There were camber compensator arms that could be bolted to them to improve things (again like an early Corvair) but there was only so much you could do with them.
Edit: They improved the rear suspension geometry on the 1963 cars so they didn't jack up as much when cornering, so that's probably the year to start with. They have more room in the wheel wells for bigger tires, too (although they're still pretty tight by today's standards.) They use a weird bolt pattern, too, so aftermarket wheels are limited.
They were and still are popular for drag racing. There were a few (about 12) factory race cars that used a specially modified transaxle and a 421 Super Duty V8, but the handful of those that still exist are worth something like $600k these days. Most people building race cars out of regular production cars just tear out the whole drivetrain and put a conventional rear end in them.
There was at least one car that was successfully used for road racing, a '63 driven by Paul Goldsmith and prepared by Ray Nichels that won the continental race at Daytona that year. He was about FIVE MILES ahead of the second place car, probably one of the most lopsided victories ever. It was supposedly bought after the race by Mercedes-Benz, who took it away and it was never seen again (although personally I think that story is a myth.)
Probably the best source of info is the 61-63 Tempest tech section of the Performance Years Pontiac forum. http://forums.performanceyears.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=427 There are some guys there who have been driving (and drag racing) those cars since they were new, and they know them inside and out. There's also the Little Indians chapter of the Pontiac club, at http://www.littleindians.com/ but that site is probably more devoted to restorations.
Thanks for the replies.
If I end up bringing this home, I doubt I'll bother with an engine swap(unless I stumble into a nearly-free Rover V8 & it's a bolt-in swap). Although I was thinking a C5/6 Vette drivetrain would be sweet! 
I figure a good set of swaybars, with some properly matched springs & performance/racing shocks would go a long way toward making it handle well. There's someone making brackets for a front disk conversion that uses all off-the-shelf modern components(mostly S10), so I'd probably look into that too.
Thanks!
The Porsche 924/944/928 and some of the Alfa's used a torque tube with a transaxle in the back. The 944's mostly used an Audi FWD transaxle in the rear.
So an Audi FWD 5-speed, Porsche 944 Torque tube, V8 adapter and you'd be in business for cheaper than a Corvette drivetrain.
Either way, it could be a cool car.
I just stumbled across this photo on the Hamb. No one there seemed to know anything about it, do any of you guys recognize the venue?
Road race Tempests
Interesting - I've never seen that picture before. The track looks like it's in the Southwest somewhere (kind of dry and desert-like in the background) - maybe Willow Springs?
hmmm, what ties pontiac into ferrari? could the venue be "Le Mans"?
OK, well after a bit of research, it looks like those-2 cars are part of the 4-car Nichels & Goldsmith team that ran Daytona & Sebring.
Race cars on hauler
Another pic
I found out that picture is in the Paul Zazarine book "Pontiac's Greatest Decade" (page 36). The caption is as follows:
"AJ Foyt stands next to his race-prepared 1962 Tempest at the Daytona Motor Speedway on November 2, 1962. Team owner Ray Nichels had entered Foyt's car in the GT +5.0 Liter along with several other Tempests for the three hour Dayton Continental race. Unfortunately, Foyt's Tempest expired after two laps due to engine failure."
