Dennis Kirban
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2009
Kirbsan Update
Here is a bit of GM/Hurst trivia for the group....what you may or may not realize is GM never allowed any company name in the 1960s to be visible on a GM car or truck with one exception....that exception was tires.....until Hurst came a long.
Hurst scored their first GM account with Pontiac timing was perfect in the form of the 1964 GTO....Hurst was a powerful name back then. Just happen to be in my neighborhood where I grew up. .
However for 1964 Hurst had to take a backseat and was not permitted to have their name on their chrome stick.....here they scored their biggest account landing a GM car line Pontiac and could not showcase their name! Make matters worse Pontiac to save money and time used their own linkage which was sloppy compared to the positive threaded Hurst rods and buttons.
You can only imagine how Hurst felt....great on one hand, yet I am sure not happy on the other hand....the situation got better for 1965 as Pontiac quickly realize the power of Hurst not only did they have a superior product, but their advertising was everywhere in every car magazine.
So with the 1965 model Hurst was able to have their name showing visible on the chrome stick....The first company allowed to do this on a GM car outside of tires....(from what I understand). .
It wasn't long before Hurst landed accounts with Olds, Buick, Ford, Mopar, AMC......the one division they did not land was Chevy which stuck with the funky Muncie shifter.....keep in mind in 1966 alone Pontiac made 80,000 plus GTOs and a good chunk of them were 4-speeds. Our cars equals maybe 20% of that number just against 1966 GTO sales. .
By far Pontiac cranked out the most 4-speed cars over Buick and Olds......
My wife worked at Hurst in 1969 in the PR department drove our 1964 4-speed GTO to work every day....that was the beginning of how I started....
true story...
denniskirban@yahoo.com
It surely would have been nice had Hurst made a nice shifter for our cars....ours has remained unchanged since 1978 crude to say the least, built partly with plastic internals that break.
Today I handle license agreements for small companies for Hurst.
The every day public may not know the Hurst name but one of their most famous products is very well known....the Jaws of Life which they developed in the late 1960s...a life saving method that is second to none. I have actual photos of them testing it for the government in DC.
Here is a bit of GM/Hurst trivia for the group....what you may or may not realize is GM never allowed any company name in the 1960s to be visible on a GM car or truck with one exception....that exception was tires.....until Hurst came a long.
Hurst scored their first GM account with Pontiac timing was perfect in the form of the 1964 GTO....Hurst was a powerful name back then. Just happen to be in my neighborhood where I grew up. .
However for 1964 Hurst had to take a backseat and was not permitted to have their name on their chrome stick.....here they scored their biggest account landing a GM car line Pontiac and could not showcase their name! Make matters worse Pontiac to save money and time used their own linkage which was sloppy compared to the positive threaded Hurst rods and buttons.
You can only imagine how Hurst felt....great on one hand, yet I am sure not happy on the other hand....the situation got better for 1965 as Pontiac quickly realize the power of Hurst not only did they have a superior product, but their advertising was everywhere in every car magazine.
So with the 1965 model Hurst was able to have their name showing visible on the chrome stick....The first company allowed to do this on a GM car outside of tires....(from what I understand). .
It wasn't long before Hurst landed accounts with Olds, Buick, Ford, Mopar, AMC......the one division they did not land was Chevy which stuck with the funky Muncie shifter.....keep in mind in 1966 alone Pontiac made 80,000 plus GTOs and a good chunk of them were 4-speeds. Our cars equals maybe 20% of that number just against 1966 GTO sales. .
By far Pontiac cranked out the most 4-speed cars over Buick and Olds......
My wife worked at Hurst in 1969 in the PR department drove our 1964 4-speed GTO to work every day....that was the beginning of how I started....
true story...
denniskirban@yahoo.com
It surely would have been nice had Hurst made a nice shifter for our cars....ours has remained unchanged since 1978 crude to say the least, built partly with plastic internals that break.
Today I handle license agreements for small companies for Hurst.
The every day public may not know the Hurst name but one of their most famous products is very well known....the Jaws of Life which they developed in the late 1960s...a life saving method that is second to none. I have actual photos of them testing it for the government in DC.
