The Only Engine Smokey Yunick Called “My Favorite of All Time”
Smokey Unic lived his life around engines that won races, broke rules, and survived punishmenT.
Most designs never could.
He built power plants for NASCAR, Indie, and anyone brave enough to trust his judgmenT.
Yet, after decades of innovation, cheating the rulebook, and redefining American motorsports engineering, there was one favorite engine he spoke about with unusual respecT.
Not the loudest, not the most famous, the one that earned his loyalty the hard way.
When Smokey Ununic called an engine his favorite, that statement carried weight forged through failure, risk, and experience.
This story begins with that engine and the mindset that created iT.
Why would a man who built some of the most feared engines in racing history choose this one as his favorite?
And what did that engine teach Smokey Unic that trophies never could?
Stay with this story until the end because this story reveals how one engine captured the trust of a man who trusted almost nothing and what that choice says about craftsmanship, survival, and pride in an era when engines were built to be proven, not praised.
The legend of the hat and the wrench.
Smokey Unic was not just a mechanic.
He was a pioneer of aerodynamics, a master of thermal efficiency, and a constant thorn in the side of NASCAR officialS.
He operated out of Daytona Beach in a shop that became a cathedral for speed.
Smokey wore a trademark battered cowboy hat and a scowl that told you he had already figured out three ways to beat you before you even sat in your car.
He was a veteran of World War II, a B17 pilot who understood that when machines fail, lives are loSt.
This perspective gave him a unique reverence for reliability and clever engineering.
Smokey was famous for his interpretations of the ruleS.
He famously built a 7/8 scale Chevel because the rules didn’t explicitly say the car had to be the factory size.
He once drove a car back to the pits after officials removed the fuel tank to check its capacity, proving he had hidden fuel lines in the roll cage.
This was a man who demanded excellence from every componenT.
For an engine to be his favorite, it couldn’t just be faSt.
It had to be a platform for innovation.
It had to be a design that allowed a builder to find hidden pockets of energy that the original engineers never realized were there.
The engine we are discussing today is the Pontiac 389 Tri Power.
While many associate Smokey with Chevrolet, his work with Pontiac in the late 50s and early 60s changed the landscape of American performance forever.
This engine was the heartbeat of the legendary 1959 to 1963 Pontiacs that dominated the trackS.
Smokey saw something in the 389 that felt different from the offerings at Ford or Chrysler.
He saw a foundation that was overengineered in all the right placeS.
The architecture of greatnesS.
The Pontiac 389 was introduced in 1959 and it immediately signaled a shift in the industry.
It was part of the wide track era that put Pontiac on the map as the performance brand of General MotorS.
The 389 featured a 4.06 in bore and a 3.75 in stroke.
On paper, these numbers are impressive, but Smokey looked deeper into the casting.
He loved the way the oiling system was designed.
He appreciated the stoutness of the main bearing capS.
Most of all, he was obsessed with the cylinder headS.
Smokey believed that an engine was simply an air pumP.
The more efficiently you could move air in and out, the more power you could extracT.
The Pontiac 389 heads featured a wedge-shaped combustion chamber that was incredibly conducive to high velocity air flow.
Smokey spent thousands of hours at the flow bench, grinding and polishing these ports until they whispered.
He found that the 389 responded to modifications better than almost any other block of the erA.
He could make a 389 breathe like an engine twice its size.
The tri power setup added another layer of brilliance.
Using three two barrel Rochester carburetors allowed for smooth cruising on the center carb and explosive power when the outboards kicked in.
Smokey mastered the synchronization of these unitS.
He knew that fuel atomization was the key to winning raceS.
He would sit for hours watching the way fuel entered the manifold, looking for any sign of turbulence.
He treated the 389 like a musical instrument, tuning it until the exhaust note was a perfect steady roar.
Dominance on the high bankS.
In 1961, Smokey Unic and driver Marvin Panchch took a Pontiac to the Daytona 500.
This was the ultimate proving ground for the 389 engine.
The competition was fierce with the blue oval boys from Ford and the Hemi Monsters from Chrysler looking to claim the trophy.
Smokey had spent weeks prepping the 389.
He balanced the rotating assembly to tolerances that were unheard of in a production shoP.
He optimized the cooling system to ensure the engine could handle the sustained high RPMs of the Daytona Trioval.
When the green flag dropped, the Pontiac proved to be an absolute rockeT.
It wasn’t just that it was fast on the straightS.
The 389 had a torque curve that allowed Ponch to pull away from corners with a violence that left other drivers stunned.
The engine ran like a Swiss watch for the entire duration of the race.
When Marvin Ponch crossed the finish line to take the checkered flag, it was a validation of Smokey’s belief in the Pontiac architecture.
Smokey later remarked that the 389 was the most honest engine he ever worked on.
It didn’t have the personality flaws of the early small block Chevys, which could be finicky with oil pressure.
It didn’t have the weight penalties of the massive Cadillac or Oldsmobile engineS.
It was the perfect middle ground.
It offered the displacement needed for high-end power without sacrificing the revappy nature of a smaller motor.
For a man who valued efficiency above all else, the 389 was a revelation.
The secret of thermal efficiency.
One of Smokey’s most famous contributions to engine theory was his hot vapor engine concepT.
But the seeds of those ideas were planted during his time with the 389.
He realized that heat was energy and most engines wasted that energy through the exhaust and the radiator.
Smokey began experimenting with ways to keep the heat inside the combustion chamber to do work.
He looked at the thick walls of the 389 block and saw an opportunity to run higher temperatures without risking a meltdown.
He worked on custom manifolds that preheated the fuel mixture, a precursor to his later, more radical inventionS.
He found that the 389 was remarkably tolerant of these experimentS.
Most engines would knock or ping under the stresses Smokey applied, but the Pontiac stayed stable.
This stability is why he called it his favorite.
A mechanic wants a platform that allows for growth.
He wanted an engine that could act as a laboratory.
The 389 was that lab.
It had the best balance of internal friction and power potential.
He often said that a well-built 389 could outrun a poorly built 427 any day of the week.
This was a testament to his belief in quality over quantity.
He didn’t need the biggest engine.
He needed the biggest engine.
He needed the best engine.
The cultural impact of the 389.
The 389 wasn’t just a racing engine.
It was the heart of the GTO.
When John Delorean decided to stuff the 389 into the intermediate Le Man’s body, he created the first true muscle car.
Smokey’s success with the engine on the track provided the street cred that Pontiac needed to sell thousands of unitS.
Every teenager in America in 1964 wanted a goat with a 389 and tri power.
They wanted a piece of the magic that Smokey Ununic had mastered at DaytonA.
The 389 became a symbol of American defiance.
It was the underdog that took on the Giants and won.
It represented a time when a clever guy in a garage could outthink a corporate engineering departmenT.
This resonated deeply with the American public.
The 389 was powerful, but it was also attainable.
It was an engine for the people, refined by a geniuS.
Smokey’s affinity for the engine also stemmed from its longevity.
He noted that the 389s he built for the street would often last over 100,000 mi of hard driving without losing their edge.
This durability was a byproduct of the heavyduty components Pontiac used.
The forged steel crankshaft and the robust valve train were built to withstand the rigors of NASCAR, which meant they were nearly indestructible on the highway.
Smokey respected hardware that didn’t break.
He had no patience for pretty parts that failed under pressure.
As we look back on the career of Henry Smokey Unic, we see a man who never compromised.
He lived life on his own terms, and he demanded the same from his machineS.
The Pontiac 389 Tri Power was the only engine that consistently met those demandS.
It was strong, it was efficient, and it was capable of winning.
It was quite simply the best damn engine in the best damn garage in town.
