-> The Pontiac Tempest did not seem to have these same handling
-> problems. Friends who had them had no real problems and they
-> were quite fast too. Pre-cursors of the GTO which were, of
-> course, front engine rear wheel drive 'normal' design
-> automobiles. 

 I had a 1963 Pontiac Tempest Convertable. It had the 4 cylinder engine
with a 4 barrel carb. A little underpowered but with the Transaxle in
hte back and the engine in the front it was fairly well balanced. The
326 V-8 was a nose heavy hog but of course quite a bit better straight
line performance. Saddly the Ideal setup was the BOP aluminum V-8 engine
but it was dropped after the 1962 year in favor of the 326 V-8.
Interestingly after that BOP engine got shortchanged here in the US GM
sold the rights and production machinery to Rover and they used it for
many years. And as I recall they only recently dropped it in favor of a
BMW V-8 as BMW now owns Rover.
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