Ace Wilson’s Royal Pontiac Raced at Detroit Dragway
Ace Wilson’s Royal Pontiac, located in Royal Oak, Michigan. Just a very short distance from Woodward Ave. Growing up and cursing Woodward in the 60s & 70s we would go into Royal Oak and past Royal Pontiac looking if we could see any of his race cars.
This is just a brief article to acknowledge some of the big name racers, along with our local racers. Together they made Detroit Dragway one of the top dragstrips in the 60s & 70s.
Ace Wilson and Milt Schornack opened Royal Pontiac in the 1950s. They also started the famous Pontiac Racing Team. The leader of their racing team was Arnie “The Farmer” Beswick. You can see our Arnie Beswick article HERE.
Do you remember the Royal Bobcat GTOs? The decals. The diecast cars & models.
Royal Pontiac was an iconic name in drag racing and for Pontiac.
From John O’Hare
“Royal Pontiac won the Super Stock trophy at the 1960 NHRA Nationals, at Detroit Dragway. Then in 1961 they came out with TWO Super Stock cars. One was “S/S Stick”, the other was “S/S Automatic”. Both would show up at Detroit Dragway as seen above, one in front of the other”.
Royal Pontiac is now gone, but we remember & thank them for all they did for drag racing.
Here is a Pontiac site that has a good article on Royal Pontiac. http://www.pontiacpreservationassociation.org/inductees/2019/ace-wilson’s-royal-pontiac.html
