1962 Pontiac Catalina 421 Super-Duty - Royal Retrospective

Here's an authentic "Bobcat" Catalina on Royal's showroom floor. It started life as a factory 389/348 Tri-Power, four-speed coupe, and then received performance and appearance upgrades, including a custom "tune," an identifiable paint treatment, special call-out letters on the tail panel, and a Royal-specific eight-lug wheel/tire package with spinner-style center caps. According to Wangers, this super-rare Catalina still exists and was seen by him at the POCI Convention in Tulsa in 2007.

How did Royal Pontiac manage to spell "Bob Cat" on the Catalina's tail panel? According to Wangers, the service department ordered two B's and one O in block letters as they appeared on the Bonneville and the three letters C-A-T from the Catalina. Voil! The Bobcat was born.

The Tempest's 195ci Pontiac four-cylinder engine received the Royal treatment: richer jets, a more aggressive distributor curve, and a custom air-cleaner to top its Carter AFB four-barrel carburetor.

Royal installed a Sun tachometer on the column, to augment the sporty flair of the factory Inland Manufacturing four-speed shifter and gauges. Look closely and you can see the dealer-added FM radio mounted underneath the dash.

One look under the hood of the Bobcat Catalina and you can easily differentiate this big-car from its factory siblings. Royal used this specific air-cleaner setup on its Tri-Power Bobcats, and progressive linkage on the carburetors, three years before a similar system was introduced by the factory on the '65 GTO. In addition, the Bobcat Catalina's custom "tune" consisted of cc'ing the heads and equalizing the combustion chamber volume; milling the heads and installing thinner head gaskets to raise compression; truing the valvespring installed heights; adding locknuts for the rockers; installing blocked heat-riser intake gaskets to cool the intake manifold for a denser charge and screwing in richer jets and colder heat range spark plugs, and recurving the distributor with a faster advance to complement the other upgrades.

Royal offered its own wheel/tire package on new Pontiacs, as well as over the counter. It consisted of a color-matched eight-lug with polished-aluminum blades accented with chrome lug nuts (shown here), and occasionally an optional spinner-style hubcap (shown earlier). Royal's eight-lug wheel was paired to a "double-sidewall" Firestone 8.00x14 bias-ply tire. It offered buyers a custom look, and supposedly, a better grip for cruising Woodward Avenue.