1:18 1968.5 Royal Pontiac Firebird Drag Car ACME

There is not a more hallowed name and place in the history of Pontiac performance than Ace Wilson’s Royal Pontiac. Through the efforts of “Bunkie” Knudsen and Jim Wangers, the dealership and Pontiac came to an agreement that Royal would essentially serve as Pontiac’s test bed for testing their new high performance cars and parts. Pontiac was so impressed with Royal’s results that they started shipping Royal all of their performance parts for testing instead of testing them in-house. Royal’s experienced staff could install, test, tweak, and report the results quicker than Pontiac’s own staff could!

Eventually, Pontiac was sending so many parts and cars for testing that Wilson had to do something to separate the daily routine of the dealership from the high performance activities. So he created a division called the Royal Racing Team. Pontiac had what they called specialty program cars, like the famous 1965 and 1966 Geeto Tigers and the “Mystery Tiger” and this 1968 ½ Ram Air Firebird, all of which were built and maintained by Royal. They would be featured in the enthusiast magazines of the day, and be driven by some of Royal Pontiac’s best drivers to show the full potential of these cars.

Acme is thrilled to present a replica of the Royal built and tuned 1968 ½ Ram Air Firebird! Pontiac had Royal build this car to feature Pontiac’s new “round” port head package. This new “round” port head would arrive until late in 1968, and thus the car and head package was referred to as the 1968 ½ engine package. This late arrival also meant that there were very few 1968 Ram Air Firebird 400’s built. Only 110 are known to have been produced, 98 manual shifts and 12 automatics. One thing common on all Pontiacs prepped by Royal was the license plate frame and the embossed thin stock aluminum emblem calling out “Royal Bobcat”!

Features Include: Opening hood, trunk and doors Poseable steering Highly detailed 400 engine Detailed undercarriage Detailed interior Diecast metal body Serialized plate Polished drag wheels