Here it is, the Car and Driver review of the ultimate ringer, in the form of a so-called 1964 Tempest GTO. 0-60 in 4.6 seconds? Sure! 1/4 mile in 13.1 @115mph? Why not?
C&D did acknowledge that their two testers were “Bobcats”, meaning a set of modifications to the engine by Royal Pontiac to optimize performance. But that wasn’t all of it. It is universally acknowledged that these cars had 421 SD engines to start with, as well as every HD component Pontiac could quickly slap a part number on, including a “NASCAR Suspension” and other such goodies. As a result, these tested cars were wickedly fast; almost certainly as fast or faster in many conditions than its namesake, the legendary Ferrari 250 GTO. And of course the lesson is that making a big splash in the media is much more important than truthfulness. DeLorean and Wenger were of course way ahead of their time.
Here’s a PDF (below) of the complete review from the March 1964 Car and Driver. Buckle your seat belts!
pontiac-tempest-gtopontiac-tempest-gto-from-magazine-ilovepdf-compressed
A “Real World Correct” explanation why so many new GTO “Supercar” buyers got whipped by a 383 Mopar.
Which makes me wonder if the college-age kid of the next door neighbors experienced the same thing. His navy blue 65 GTO 4 speed was followed by a 68 Plymouth GTX. I have no idea what powertrain it had, but I never heard anyone over there complain about it.
Being as there were no complaints, the GTX almost certainly had the 440, and probably the Torqueflite, as well. A rare Hemi-powered car usually didn’t last long and, even then, they were maintenance-intensive.
The 440-4v/auto combination (in any Chrysler product) was definitely plug-and-play.
Agree 100% with rudiger.
Mopar’s 440/Torqueflite powertrain was smooth and powerful in any car it was installed in; be it a Plymouth Satellite GTX, a state police Dodge patrol car or a Chrysler Town & Country station wagon.
When I was a kid our next store neighbor had a ’66 Town & Country wagon with the 440 TNT and Torqueflie. Recall him bragging after a vacation that it would effortlessly cruise at 90 on wide open western highways- while pulling a 4,000 lb. Airstream trailer.Still recall the beautiful melody of that 440 as he would back the Airstream up the incline of his long driveway.
CPJ: Yeh, 1960’s/1970’s Mopars had their own distinctive melody to those who were sharp enough to notice the difference.
From the “Nang-Nang-Nagggggg” of Mopar’s “Highland Park Hummingbird” gear reduction starter, to the well oiled metal-on-metal “ooooooooooh” sound of a Torqueflite automatic in first gear, to the distinctive “Bumm-Bumm-Bummmmmm” sound of a big (or small) block Mopar V8 engine at idle, to the “sucking-birds-out-of-the-trees” ROOAARRRRR of a wide open Thermoquad 4-barrel carburetor’s huge secondaries catapulting Mom’s heavy station wagon up an expressway on-ramp….
Mopar powertrain songs are permanently embedded in the synapses of my brain; since grade school childhood.
Ahhhh yes, the retentiveness of an already confirmed car kid’s young mind.
No matter what car the MoPaR big blocks were installed in, they were outstanding in performance.
In the early 1990s I owned a 1965 Imperial LeBaron with a Ghia limousine body [#9 of 10 built]. While not equipped with a 440, it was equipped with the Police Interceptor 413 with the dual point distributor. I had recently found the limo and bought it from the original owner’s estate, and it had been driven a genuine 5,700 miles.
I entered the Imperial Ghia limo in a big “MoPaR only” car show held at the [now closed] 75 and 80 Drag-a-way in central Maryland. I had raced at that track years ago with a few wins, driving a 1969 GTX with the 440 6-pack engine most of the time [and with higher times, a 426 Hemi], so I knew the track well, and had been an approved driver there.
This outing was the first time the limo had been shown, and I had only owned it for a few weeks. Several high performance MoPaR guys were pouring over the driveline on the limo and told me about it’s hi-po engine. They were encouraging me to run the limo down the track, and when the track manager gave the okay to run it [alone, no other car involved], I gave in and said OK.
17.7259 seconds. In a stock 3-ton Imperial limousine! I’ll never, ever, forget that number! A few days later when I took the limo out for a drive, I noticed a thumping in the right rear tire. Yep, tread separation, probably from the run down the track. I ended up replacing the original M-78X15 tires with truck radials because that tire size was no longer available in a bias belt, but I did keep the original tires, selling them with the limo..
By real-world, sixties musclecar standards, the GTO was a bottom-feeder, with the only car it was able to beat being a 390 Ford.
But it didn’t matter. It took until 1969 before musclecar shoppers finally realized that the GTO really wasn’t ‘all that’ and sales would drop, for the first time, from first to third place, finally being bested by the new, bargain-basement Road Runner and Chevelle SS396. It was all downhill from there.
The college kid (I was a freshman in high school at the time) up the street from our family traded his very early Porsche 911 in on a new ’69 Road Runner.
I was aghast! I looked down my collective nose at him….until he gave me a ride in his new Road Runner.
I understood totally & completely why this happened!
GTO was a ‘trendy fad car’, also, with all the licensed products, like “GTO cologne” and the “Little GTO’ song. The Monkeemobile and Judge TV connections.
Those who bought 60’s GTO’s since they were “in style”, moved on to ’69+ Grand Prixs, F bodies, imports, and other PLC’s in 70s and beyond.
The high insurance surcharges didn’t help sales after ’71.
Mother MoPar knew how to build motors for sure. I agree with the comments about the 440/4v engine. On the street it was very strong and consistent, especially with the Torqueflite 727. People always gush about Hemis and if they mention the 440 it is usually the 6-packs, but I’ll take that 440 4-bbl. thank you. But the award for most underrated engine should go to the 340. A superior engine in my book to the small blocks from Chevy or Ford.
I do think some of the anti-GTO comments here are overdone, however. Yes the 440 MoPar was a stronger runner, but I must admit the GTO was otherwise a better car. As much as I admire the MoPar engines, the GTO was better built, handled better, was the style leader, and to be fair MoPars were much more prone to rust. I know first-hand how merciless the Dark Lord of Oxidation is! As the Packard ads used to say “Ask the man who owns one.”
they later did the same w/ a Catalina 2+2, beating the Ferrari
and you covered it:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-capsule/drag-strip-classic-1965-pontiac-catalina-22/
I looked back at the 1963 Tempest test I linked in the GTO CC earlier today – Popular Science got an 8.1 sec 0-60 time out of that a (supposed) 326 and a 3 speed. A 4.6 0-60 is something indeed, even if it did take a thoroughly modified SD421 to do it. Who knows what other mods that car had.
I love the stories of the “special” dealers that some of the manufacturers worked with. There was Royal Pontiac in the Detroit area and Mr. Norm’s Grand Spaulding Dodge in Chicago. Also Yenko Chevrolet in Pennsylvania. I cannot recall knowing if Ford or Lincoln-Mercury had one of those specially dialed-in dealers.
Tasca Ford in Rhode Island was the Ford “dialed-in dealer”. The Cobra Jet Mustang originated from there. It’s still in business & into performance:
https://www.tascaparts.com/ford-racing-parts/
Not quite as well known as Tasca, Romy Hammes in South Bend sponsored Dick Brannan who took delivery of the first Thunderbolt in 1964.
I grew up just down the street from one of Tasca’s locations and always knew they were into racing, but never realized they invented the Cobrajet!
8.1 is “pushing the envelope”, in my opinion.
I am guesstimating about 9.4 in the “Real World”.
Unless it wasn’t really a 326. After all, the cars in today’s tests seem to have been 421s that “identified as” 389s. 🙂
A friend bought a new red convert, tri-power 4 speed. Wasn’t fast enough so he procured a Latham axial supercharger w/4 sidedraft carbs and proceeded to bolt it on in his backyard. We were all aghast at how fast it was for about 20 minutes, when the engine blew. Pushed it back to his yard where he put everything back together and towed it to the Pontiac dealer the next morning. He told them he was going around a corner when the engine suddenly stopped. Apparently Pontiac told it’s dealers to be very liberal with the warranty and they said they will order a new block, oh and would he like a 421 block for a few bucks extra?
Of course he said yes. I understand that was quite a common occurrence.
In the April 1984 issue Car and Driver revisited the story. They obtained Dan Gurney to drive. Gurney had also driven and won, in the first Cannonball run. In this article they pretty much admitted the chicanery and retested the two vehicles. Of course a standard GTO wasn’t too impressive, especially when it came to handling. Car and Driver used the original match up just for hype. I will admit that I enjoyed C&D for quite a few years after that. The current crop of Pony cars are just amazing, and you can order them in any configuration from very rich vanilla to Hell Cat like habenero.
My SS boasts stock straight-line performance numbers slightly better than the tested GTO, and like you say, it’s ea$y to drive even faster cars home right out of the showroom. We truly are living in the Golden Age of muscle cars.
That review is astonishing. Those would still be credible numbers 54 years later. Of course finding 102 octane will be problematic, but any truly authentic survivors are pampered show queens running 110LL AvGas
High octane racing gas is pretty available today, at a price. 100 “low lead” avgas still has more lead than the 102-104 Chevron Custom Supreme I ran in my 327. Avgas makes cold starts difficult, fouls spark plugs and makes the oil milky with lead sludge.
With 20 degrees of initial spark advance plus richer primary jetting, I can imagine what a tailpipe emissions test would look like!
I’m intrigued by the test’s data panel. A maximum of -49 mph in reverse! Anyone here brave enough to try it? (Not me.)
Although Wanger’s was pulling a fast one on this test, C/D more than turned a blind eye. There were two cars sent for testing, a blue car for the street driving, road course and skid pad testing, while the red car was for the acceleration test. Both were tri-powered cars, but as Wanger’s later admitted, the red car was a ringer. It had a 421 swapped in place. David E Davis noticed during testing how much faster the red car was than the blue car, but that’s as far as that went. He obviously knew there was a big difference, but other than noted it to Wanger’s he didn’t seem to care. The fast times were great press to sell magazines.
By Wanger’s account, the C/D test equipment of the day was rudimentary at best and much of the testing was seat of the pants. A passenger kept times with a stop watch. They all knew the published times were pretty well bogus, but Wanger’s was happy cause it sold GTO’s and Davis was happy cause it’d sell magazines. Steve Smith from C/D has admitted that they “made up” many tests in this era and that there was little if any actual test protocols. It wasn’t until Patrick Bedard came on the staff in the later 60’s that they actually used proper test equipment like a fifth wheel and came up with consistent testing techniques.
C/D has also since admitted the Ferrari GTO and Pontiac GTO were never tested together. The two cars were never at the same place at the same time. The reason for the artist rendition on the cover is because they couldn’t photograph the two cars together.
FWIW here are some other times for early GTO’s that are probably more realistic than C/Ds.
Car Life June 1964
0-60 6.6 secs
1/4 mile 14.8 @ 99 MPH
Car Life May 1965
’65 GTO Tri power 4-speed
0-60 5.8 secs
1/4 mile 14.5 @ 100 mph
Motor Trend
’65 GTO 4-bbl Auto
0-60 – 7.2 secs
1/4 mile – 16.1 @ 89 mph
“C/D has also since admitted the Ferrari GTO and Pontiac GTO were never tested together.”
BTW Car and Driver stated that very clearly in the original article. The article detailed their failed attempts to get a Ferrari GTO at the same time. The first that had been arranged was tired from a season of racing and pulled out as it was believed not to be representative. Two others were driven but not at the same time as the Pontiacs.
The article detailed that both cars were Royal Bobcats and what was done. Supertuning cars for magazine articles was common then. What was hidden was that the red car had the 421.
The first car I bought at the age of 18 was a 7 year old ‘64 dark blue GTO. I loved everything about it, came close to washing, waxing the paint right off it. One memory I have was as a 13 year old kid riding shotgun in my cousin’s new ‘66 GTO, a gift from his dad for his high school graduation. He spent 3 or 4 nights a week street racing 442s, etc. on the rural roads west of the town where he lived. I will never forget that feeling of speed and being thrown back against the seat with each shift. It took everything I had to hold my mud.
115 MPH in the quarter, in a 3600 lb car, means that car was getting somewhere in the neighborhood of 450 HP to the wheels. Which assuming a 20% power loss between flywheel and rear wheels, puts the engine around 550 horses. Pretty far from stock, even for a 421!
“I thought they [GTO’s] all had vertical headlights!” i.e. thought they all looked like 65-67 era.
“I thought they all had 455’s/4 speeds/buckets/spoilers and stripes!”
“I thought they were like Vettes, no shared bodies with other Pontiacs”
… etc, from casual car fans.
Our neighbor bought a new 4 speed GTO soon after they came out, and he challenged the King of the fast cars in the neighborhood, a stripper Plymouth Belvedere 413 with a torqueflite and was totally humiliated in 3 out of 3 runs. He was totally embarrassed to be walked away from like his new car was. He tried to use the “It needs to be broken in more!” excuse, but I rode in both of them and the homely Belvedere was downright scary, the GTO was just, “pretty fast”. The GTO hung around until about 1984 when it was sold and restored, the Belvedere blew the engine racing on the same road it beat the GTO about 7 years eariler and was sold as a rolling chassis, as the block had a huge hole in it from a rod coming out. I wish I had been old enough to buy it, as even a weak 440 would have made a pretty quick street car. The car was set up perfectly for any big block Mopar engine with the built TF and the unbreakable Dana 60 rear end. And it had a really nice red paint job on it, too. I wonder if it’s still around…
Not the first (and only) high profile, media and advertising hyped GTO that got it’s headlights sucked out by an unassuming appearing Mopar.
The solid, reliable, powerful “Plug And Play” combo of a big block Mopar, “Industry Reference Standard” Torqueflite automatic transmission and unburstable Dana 60 rear end made more than one GM and Ford hide behind the A & W root beer shop until the Mopar went home.
🙂