How does one build a brand, propelling it from near-obscurity to the hottest one on the market? How does one create a legend, one that became the icon of a whole era? Ask John DeLorean and Jim Wangers, who along with a few other Pontiac execs, ad men and engineers created the GTO, which fueled Pontiac’s rise into its most successful years ever.
Hint: it’s not the engineering.
There were only a very few auto execs in Detroit in the 60s who ever really got what was happening in the contemporary American automobile market or what was about to to it happen in the future. John DeLorean got it the most. And that’s simply because he transcended his engineering background and made an effort to learn marketing and connect with the LA in scene, the trendsetters of the nation at the time. He was the only one who was ever really cool, (along with a few other mixed-bag qualities) and cool is what it’s really all about; certainly so in 1964. The car market has always been driven about perception, prestige and sizzle ever since GM surpassed Ford in 1925 with cars that put the emphasis on style, color and image over unvarnished utility.
The GTO was DeLorean’s greatest hit, but it was a rather fleeting one. That’s because he was trying to do the impossible: create an American performance car (and brand) that could stand out from the humdrum, cookie-cutter limitations put on the divisions by thee top corporate execs. DeLorean wanted a brand that reflected the best engineering as well as the best image, because he knew that standing still is dying. And he must have known that American cars would need to eventually stave off the inevitable tsunami of imports. The GTO, with its conceit of being a genuine Ferrari-beater with world-class performance was intended to be an American performance car that could appeal to a wide spectrum of potential buyers, not just the Woodward Avenue stop-light racers. DeLorean was gunning to have Pontiac be the American BMW before BMW came and stole that market segment,
It all worked for a couple of years, but then the tectonic shifts in American culture caught up with it, and it turned out just to be another American car. That was not going to work after about 1968 or 1969 so; from about then on, the American automotive market, mirroring the cultural changes, split forever into imports and domestics. And Pontiac’s rise was doomed. By 1970, Pontiac was utterly lost (with the exception of the Firebird), and began a long tailspin as the Great Brougham Era, that reaction to the action by the Silent Majority which took its death grip on the American auto industry. Which is as good as dead now; might as call it the American truck industry.
Of course the big question is what would have happened to Pontiac had DeLorean stayed at Pontiac instead of moving to Chevrolet in 1969. We’ll never know, but even JZD couldn’t magically move mountains. It just wasn’t going to work out in the long term, one way or another. So it’s probably best he left when he did.
Back when he was just an engineer at Pontiac, DeLorean was obsessed with the idea of giving Pontiacs the qualities that made imports so desirable. There was the concerted effort to give the ’59 big cars independent rear suspension, which never happened but led to their wide track, a critical component (along with their styling) of the success the big Pontiacs would enjoy in the coming decade. 1959 was the year Pontiac sales started their climb up the mountain.
The 1961 Tempest did get independent rear suspension, even if it was a bit crude in terms of it being swing axles as a result of borrowing the Corvair’s transaxle and mating it with a flexible driveshaft to the half-a-V8 four cylinder up front. By 1962, with the arrival of the LeMans coupe, the combination of the high-output Trophy four, an available four speed stick and big 15″ wheels and tires, DeLorean and Pete Estes had essentially created an American BMW before BMW had created the their seminal “Neue Klasse” cars, which were the vanguard of a line of cars to be the key to their success, especially in the US. We covered this chapter in some detail here.
Pontiac went even further in 1963, by adding back the other bank of cylinders of the Trophy Four, or in other words dropping in Pontiac’s V8, in a new smaller version, advertised as a 326, but with 336 CID actually. In the compact LeMans and with 260 hp, it had a very healthy 12:1 weight to hp ratio. Since it still had its rear transaxle, weight distribution was not at all bad. The only compromise was that the Corvair-sourced four speed transmission was not up to the husky V8’s torque, so only a three-speed manual or the two-speed Tempest-drive automatic were on tap.
This was the direct antecedent of the GTO. With a four barrel carb and four speed, it would have been quite worthy of the name. As it was, there wasn’t anything quite like like it. But even this was just a mild foreshadowing of things to come.
The introduction of the GTO in the spring of 1964 is an event that has been chronicled to death, and we’ll try to avoid doing that again here. Let’s just say it was a reflection of the degree of independence that a quite small Pontiac management team pulled off by the virtue of keeping its head ducked as much as possible in relation to GM’s lobotomy-inducing corporate management structure. Once it was clear that the taboo GTO was a hot seller, who on the 14th floor was going to take the GTO’s daddies to the woodshed? Sales trump all; even insubordination.
The reality of substituting a slightly larger displacement version (389 CID) of Pontiac’s V8 in the new 1964 A-Body Tempest and LeMans instead of the externally identical 326 version was not exactly a radical or complicated undertaking. And as it came off the assembly lines, in the overwhelming majority of the time, meaning without the full complement of optional HD parts, the GTO was hardly a screamer.
The 325 (gross) hp four barrel base engine was essentially identical to the 330 hp version as used in the full-sized cars, and the optional tri-power 348hp version had been used in the big cars a couple of years earlier, before the 421 took up its role as the top power option there. This was not a genuine performance power plant: the heads were not particularly good, and sported rather modest 1.92″ intake valves at a time when Chevy’s smaller 327 engines had 2.02″ intakes. The 389 had a power peak only slightly more than 5,000 rpm, and would float its hydraulic lifters at 5,500; the Chevys would spin happily to 6,000 and more.
In fact, the GTO was never really a successful drag racer. The legendary 1962-up Mopars with the 426 Max Wedge dominated the top of the pecking order, and of course the new 426 hemi was already available for racers in 1964 and would become optional in street cars in 1966. And then there was Chevrolet’s new “porcupine” 396 and 427 engines, whose heads offered much more potential.
It wasn’t the GTO’s engineering that made the legend. It was the bold decision to offer it in the first place, with an advertising campaign that was absolutely brilliant. Nothing like it had ever been seen before; it was the very leading edge of sexy and cool mid 60s thinking; its significance would take some time to penetrate the thick skulls of the 14th floor.
DeLorean’s key partner in his crime was Jim Wangers, embedded in McManus, John and Adams, Pontiac’s ad agency that was a critical component in their rise from near-death in 1958 to almost selling a million cars in 1969. And the work that Wangers did in collaboration with DeLorean was typically brilliant, as in this magazine insert from the GTO’s introduction:
This was the epitome of cool advertisement work for its time. Understated, yet blatant. Sexy without being overt. Positioning the GTO as an all-round performance car rather than targeting the hard core drag-race or NASCAR set, who might be more likely to puncture holes in the veil of the actual GTO.
Contrast it to this ad for Olds’ new 4-4-2 package. Day and night. Or find any other ad from 1964 that is as sophisticated and hip. Maybe a few Corvette ads.
And this was just the start. GTO and Pontiac advertisements became legends in their own right during this period. And it worked, hugely. The timing was absolutely perfect, as the first baby boomers were just hitting 18. And even if they weren’t buying them, they were influencing a lot of decisions. Wangers got that, and DeLorean got the religion from Wangers, in thrice-weekly 6:30 AM session which DeLorean set up so that he could learn the black magic of marketing. And Wangers assures us here that JZD was a quick study.
Yes, the GTO was our thing, even if it was being created by guys in Detroit two, three, four and five times as old as us. But they had their ears on the ground, and knew just what was…our Thing.
And in large quantities, at that. Although it’s instructive to note how GTO sales exploded and peaked in only its second full year (1966) and then began its terminal slide. Why? it took a year and a half for everyone else to respond to the GTO, and boy, did they ever. Chrysler had its Plymouth GTX and Dodge the R/T, both of which came standard with the 440 and optional with the 426 hemi. Good bye, GTO!
And Chevy came out with its very popular SS 396, which was cheaper and could also be faster if the 375 hp solid lifter version was specified. Buick and Olds also fielded competitive cars, as did of course Ford. Given all of that, it’s not surprising the king of the hill took a bit of a hit.
But the real body blow came in 1968, by Plymouth’s 1968 Road Runner. This new creation not only co-opted the lead in cool youth-oriented marketing, but it was a brilliant packaging job that made a muscle car even more affordable right at the time the kids were starting to be able to afford new cars. Who wants to pay for all that chrome and doo-dads?
But the RR also marked the cultural watershed; there was a reason VW was selling some 400k Beetles at the time. For a rapidly growing number of young adults, the RR was now for “the others”. It’s not exactly what you’d pick to drive to Woodstock.
Meanwhile, the GTO was becoming more grown-up by the day; five years old going on fifty. Nice styling, but the goat had lost its edge. Whitewall tires too. Yup, we kids noticed that there was an ever-larger contingent of middle aged buyers who wanted the GTO’s cachet to rub off on them. No wonder there was a 265 hp two-barrel low-compression 389 available as a delete option in 1968. Not cool. But you wouldn’t see the nice upper-middle class woman down the street driving a Road Runner. It was the beginning of the end for the GTO.
Pontiac had been caught off-guard, and responded with The Judge in 1969. Sure, we’d take one. But we also knew exactly what this was: Pontiac desperately trying to recapture the youth image that the Road Runner had stolen away in 1968. And it wasn’t really working. Of course the Road Runner would soon enough get eaten up by its junior offspring, the Duster 340. The youth performance car market was always looking for the next cheap thing, by its nature.
Meanwhile, John DeLorean was off to Chevrolet, which he would find was a whole different kettle of fish than Pontiac. A giant one, and one that would do its best to boil him. There was no Jim Wangers and he had to suck it up with Chevy’s ad agency, Campbell-ewald. In a complete turnabout from Pontiac, DeLorean was now forced to put his reputation on the line with the Vega, a car foisted on him from a corporate development group. It was all a setup for his eventual demise on the 14th floor. No more rogue division General Managers running amok.
Although the GTO was undoubtedly a huge propellant in Pontiac’s rise these years, there was a casualty too. The 1963 Grand Prix had been a big hit in 1963, the year it really came into its own. One could say it was the GTO’s big brother. But once the upstart sibling showed up, it soon fell into its shadow.
GP sales swooned during the GTO’s heyday, unlike the Buick Riviera. But then the GP was never as distinct as the Riviera, as it was really just a Catalina with a distinct roof and trim. And as the big Pontiacs become wide and poofy during the middle-late 60s, so did the GP, and as such lost any real appeal. The market was changing fast.
DeLorean’s brilliant repackaging of the Grand Prix for 1969 as a mid-sized car unleashed a giant trend towards mid-sized semi-luxury personal coupes, a trend that would propel that class right to the top of the charts in the form of the Cutlass Supreme. I take it back: the ’69 GP was really DeLorean’s Greatest Hit, in overall commercial terms outside of Pontiac.
The GTO story is huge, and I’m struggling to boil it down to an easily digested one. Let’s take a break from those lofty image and perception issues and the legend that was created to take a look at this ’65 GTO that I found in the parking lot of Joe’s Garage in Eugene. I’ve long wanted to find a ’64 or ’65 that wasn’t the usual overdone-restomod fare, and this is as close as it’s likely going to get in the modern era. It looks like GTO one might find in about 1970 or so.
Externally, there weren’t a lot of visual cues to differentiate the GTO from its Tempest or LeMans stablemates. But young eyes are quick to notice these things, and we did, from some distance. from the front, the was of course the “GTO” in the grille and the hood scoop. From the sides, there was the engine badge on the lower front fender.
Yes, it spelled out “6.5 Litre” in the way Ferrari would have spelled it, which of course they didn’t on any stinkin’ badges. But it all added to the Pontiac’s international aspirations/pretensions.
And of course another GTO badge on the rear fender. But compared to the way most muscle cars were soon sporting over-the-top graphics and gigantic scoops on all sorts of places, this was very understated.
And the interior was too. Well, the $295 GTO package was just a few performance upgrades; there was really wasn’t much different as far as the interior goes. The wood-grain steering wheel was optional, as was the console. And if one didn’t order the console, the two-speed automatic had a column-mounted lever.
Speaking of, an automatic GTO of this vintage was almost embarrassingly modest in its actual performance. But then there were plenty of folks who wore not into worrying about that sort of thing, right from the get-go.
Let’s get specific: despite being the best American performance sedan/coupe of the times, the GTO in its standard form had some serious deficiencies. The little drum brakes were inadequate, the steering was woefully slow, the stock engines weren’t exactly wild tigers on the hunt, and the stock suspension settings were not exactly in Ferrari territory. Yes, the extra cost options were available to address these to one extent or another, and as we’ll see in the famous Car and Driver road test (to be posted after this CC) of a couple of very carefully prepped ringers, the GTO could be made to really hustle.
And to make that happen, Pontiac had a special arrangement with the nearby dealer Royal Pontiac to effectively be their outlet for race-ready parts and cars, since the corporate edict of no more official racing activities had gone down in 1962. Royal was the de-facto racing department for Pontiac. And all the performance cars that were available for the media came from Royal Pontiac, conveniently enough. Pontiac became king of the ringers. But it’s the perception that counts, and Pontiac was scoring.
Why would I shoot the rear seat of a GTO? Because it’s there. And it so reminds me of a kid that worked with me at a gas station in 1969 that drove a LeMans exactly like this one without the GTO badges. But one can dream.
And the GTO was the dream car of its time. DeLorean’s dream of an all-conquering affordable American performance car that would beat back Ferraris on the track, Mopars on the strip, and BMW 2002s on the canyons of LA and other hip cities was just a wee bit too lofty. And when everyone woke up, things were never quite the same. But we were all innocent in the mid-sixties, and more than ready to buy into a whole lot of dreams. Including a Tempest with a bored out engine. We just needed to be seduced properly.
Make sure you check out Don Andreina’s superb portrait of John DeLorean and the Birth of His Namesake Car
CCognoscento Jim once showed me an article saying JZD thought Art Fitzgerald’s and Van Kaufman’s marketing art was getting old, and it was a deliberate decision not to use them for the youth-oriented GTO. A few snuck through though. Great read Paul.
Part of Pontiac’s GTO advertising onslaught was the May 1965 release of a rock and roll record called “GeeTO Tiger” by the Tigers. The flipside was car noises from the proving ground. It doesn’t appear that the single made the Billboard Top 100.
Ronny & The Daytonas went to #4 on the charts with “Little GTO” in 1964, which was quite an achievement since it was during the British Invasion:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o_FSicQWimU
As for the car, my fave rave GTOs are the ’65s (especially w/the Hurst mags) and the ’66s (w/the Batmobile looking rear end). Even though I was very young @ the time, looking at pictures of these cars in my big brother’s car magazines blew my developing little mind.
The Daytona’s “Little GTO” was approved by Pontiac (only in the 1960s would a GTO be considered “little”), but the Tigers’ song was actually commissioned by Pontiac as part of their “tiger” advertising campaign for the ’65 GTO. Pontiac and Hurst also had a contest which the prize was a specially-prepared GTO (see picture and note the tiger tail). You had to figure out the number of times “Tiger” was mention in the “GeeTO Tiger” song and write a short paragraph about why you wanted the car to be eligible.
In the 1960s my uncle in New Jersey was a salesman at a Chevy dealership. During one of my visits, my cousin had a record called “SS 396” by Paul Revere & the Raiders. I assume this was commissioned by Chevy.
It was, as were the flip sides, “Corvair Baby”, later changed to “Camaro”.
First record I ever bought. No need to play the YouTube, it’s still in my head.
Gotta wonder why Pontiac felt the need to commission a song about a GTO so shortly after “Little G.T.O.” was a genuine hit that didn’t involve product placement deals. It was a way better song too. Curious about what sort of “technical consulting” Car Craft magazine did… probably the songwriters didn’t know enough about GTOs to write the lyrics, kind of like how Brian Wilson brought in race car driver Roger Christian to write the wonderfully detailed lyrics to “Shut Down”, “Little Deuce Coupe”, and other classic Beach Boys car songs.
The song that followed “Little GTO” on the January 1964 Ronny & the Daytonas album was about a Studebaker, probably recorded a few weeks before they turned the lights out in South Bend for the last time.
Well it seems that I have lost my exclusive franchise on GTOs around here. But for such a great car (and such a great Monday morning read) I cannot be upset about it.
The 64 GTO was not unattractive, but the 65 simply nailed it. Every single visual change to the car was an improvement – something that cannot often be said about a second-year styling job.
The car you found is the one that pops into my mind the moment someone says “GTO”. But I suppose there is a reason for that. It is cool to imagine that the navy blue one that lived next door has survived this nicely.
This piece also reminds me of the test of 1963 hot compacts I found a few years ago where a supercharged R-2 4 speed Lark got outrun by what was (in theory) a 326 3 speed Tempest that was both heavier and less powerful. After poring over those test numbers for awhile I came to conclude that the test car was actually the first (secret) GTO.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/automotive-history-1963-days-popular-science-tests-the-hot-compacts/
I think you are right JP, the 65 is the defining model of the GTO line. The 70 is the one that comes to my mind, perhaps my thinking was that the 65 looked too much like a full size Pontiac to be sporty at the same time.
I once read somewhere that the sixties musclecar was a marketing man’s wet dream, and nowhere is that more apparent than with the GTO. More than the car itself, the marketing is really where JZD’s legacy resides. Soon enough, all the other car companies would jump on the bandwagon, with Chrysler having some of the most outrageous ads in the late sixties and early seventies, with wild, colorful, op-art stuff like the Dodge Scat Pack and Plymouth Rapid Transit System.
In fact, some of the best anecdotes in his book are from the GTO. I recall him talking about how GM upper management killed an ad for the 1968 GTO which had a young boy with a pail of water standing in front of a GTO in a driveway with the caption, “A Boy and His Goat”. GM executives were aghast at the suggestion of calling one of their cars a “goat”. They had no clue that it was actually a term of endearment with the street crowd. Instead, they came up with The Great One scheme. Not bad, considering the popularity of Jackie Gleason, but one can only wonder if they had allowed the ‘goat’ ad to run.
As it was, there were a couple of instances where GTO ads only ran once due to some rather flagrant untoward references. One was the famous two-page ad of a couple of guys sitting in GTO in the highway turn-around median of what was obviously Woodward Avenue with the caption, “You know the rest of the story”. GM management did, indeed, know the rest of the story as how the ad was an obvious reference to street racing. The ad only appeared that one time.
The other ad was actually after Delorean had moved to Chevrolet. It was a commercial that ran during the 1970 Super Bowl halftime when the GTO was now going to be called “The Humbler”. The ad featured a very short-lived option where baffles in the mufflers could be controlled from a dash-mounted switch. With some jazzy background music, it showed a GTO so equipped menacingly rumbling through a drive-in filled with cars. Like the earlier Woodward Avenue ad, the intent was obvious as to what was going on (the ‘Humbler’ was scanning the scene for a race). The commercial never ran again and the muffler option was quietly pulled after a scant three months.
The Humbler commercial is posted on Youtube. 🙂
Compelling article, Paul!
One thing that jumped out at me is the option of three 2BBL carburettors.
My experience with Alfa Romeo and its two side-draught 2BBL Solex carburettors was that I had to adjust the valve in each barrel almost every week. Otherwise, the motor would start to run rougher and rougher over the time. It could take me anywhere from ten to twenty minutes of individually adjusting the valves. I had to rely on sense of feeling to know how much to adjust since I’m deaf.
If I had used Weber instead of Solex, I would not have to do weekly adjustments. My father thwarted the opportunity to buy used Weber when holidaying in Italy for 100,000 lires (which was very cheap in 1984). So back to the weekly adjustments.
Now, three 2BBL carburettors in a V8 motor. How do you arrange the manifold for the combined of six barrels and eight cylinders?
Triple 2s had been available on several higher performance US V8s since the late 50s. I don’t think anyone would ever argue that they were simple or trouble-free, but perhaps the more compact layout of a V8 versus an inline engine helps. From the 3×2 manifolds I have looked at, the front and rear carbs serve the end-most four cylinders and augment the center carb for the middle four.
The ones I’ve seen use the center one in normal driving, and the outer two don’t have idle circuits or chokes and only flop open under hard acceleration.
That gives better driveability under most conditions. In fact a friend of mine had a 56 Chevy with the outer carbs for visuals only. It drove just fine on only the center carb.
And Olds valve covers just for the irony. 🙂
Yeah; they basically operate like a six barrel carb. The center one has a choke and does the low speed work, and the other two come in like secondaries. After high-CFM four barrels came along, tri-power setups largely disappeared, although curiously Chevy went back to them with their 427 for a few years.
Although not explicitly mentioned here, 1966 was the last model year when Pontiac offered tri-power (which was available not only in GTOs with the 389, but in any of its full-size cars with the optional 421 c.i. motor).
Also, starting with the 1967 GTO (the year that standard displacement went from 389 to 400 c.i.), the Turbo-Hydramatic was offered in place of the wretched two-speed auto. That had a lot to do with the wider appeal of automatic GTOs (with whitewall tires, etc.) in later years.
GM hierarchy initiated a ban on multiple carburetors after the ’66 model year so Pontiac & Oldsmobile (442) gave it up for ’67. The Corvette, however, was given a pass just as the Vette also received a pass for its ’66 displacement exceeding 400 cubic inches (427). Up to that point > 400 C.I. was reserved for full size cars only.
As an aside, the ’67 SS 427 Impala was supposed to be a triple carb set-up using the L68 427 C.I. motor at 400 HP, note the attached image with the three “chrome stacks” centered on the hood. The multiple carburetor ban nixed the tri-power 427, forcing the use of the standard 385 HP, single four barrel version; the tri-power hood, however, remained.
That makes sense. Thanks for explaining more!
An interesting aside to the multiple carburetor setups is how the secondary venturis on the additional carbs operated, whether via vacuum or mechanical. The mechanical ones were the most dramatic and are how the famous 1969 Road Runner Six-Barrel (Six-Pack on the Super Bee) worked. Those things really howled when all six venturis opened wide and were sucking in air through an unsilenced air cleaner all at once.
In fact, I suspect that was the true rationale for open hood scoops back in the day. The vast majority didn’t have any real performance benefit. But, man, was there a visceral appeal by the noise they made.
One of my earliest gearhead memories is of a particular maroon ’64 GTO. I remember being at a local McDonalds (one of the early outdoor hamburger stand-style McD’s with the big golden arches) with my maternal grandparents. I was maybe 5 at the time, so this would’ve been ca. 1965-ish, but I remember this almost like it happened yesterday. A young guy sauntered over to his royal maroon GTO, got in, started it up and revved the engine and it was LOUD, probably sporting glass packs. That got my attention, and then he proceeded to exit the McDonalds and accelerate hard down main road out front, rowing up through the gears, that 389 emitting the most glorious racket I’d ever heard. I remember my grandparents not being impressed – quite the opposite – but I sure was. I’ve been a hard bitten gearhead ever since.
GM’s reaffirmation of the AMA racing ban was in spring of 63, not in 62. Henry Ford II renounced the AMA ban in 62. Chevy and Pontiac had factory supported cars at the 1963 Daytona 500. Chevy had shipped its Z11 Impala drag cars to dealers and some Mark IV 427s to stock car teams. Pontiac had shipped Super Duty Catalina and 421 Tempest drag cars to dealers. The Corvette Grand Sport program was stopped and the cars were pushed out the back door.
“Yup, we kids noticed that there was an ever-larger contingent of middle aged buyers who wanted the GTO’s cachet to rub off on them.”
So Warren Oates WAS the typical GTO buyer by 1971. Who knew?
Trust me guys, watch Two Lane Blacktop. That and Vanishing Point are THE two best musclecar movies made.
And another shot
I have a love/hate relationship with 2LB. Great cars, great scenery, great time capsule of early 70’s America.
Acting? So-so. Plot? The ending confused me greatly when I was 18. Now I get it, but it’s gimmicky..
Wilson and Taylor were not the best actors 🙂
After the movie came out, Esquire magazine proclaimed 2LB to be “the movie of the decade”. It was certainly iconic and a great period piece as to how the USA once was. But best of the seventies? That’s a stretch.
One of the more interesting tidbits was the list of characters. I don’t think anyone ever actually referred to one another by name throughout the movie.
The Driver (James Taylor)
G.T.O. (Warren Oates)
The Girl (Laurie Bird)
The Mechanic (Dennis Wilson)
I also liked one particular scene where Dennis Wilson walks into an auto parts store and matter-of-factly asks for a rebuild kit for a 1970 Rochester Quadrajet. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a scene before or since that took place in an auto parts store.
2LB is one of my favourites, it’s a great movie. While Wilson and Taylor aren’t the best actors, Warren Oates is very talented and the movie is an excellent period piece. I always thought that 2LB was a better movie than Vanishing Point.
I also like the comparison of the “homemade stuff” compared to the “Detroit machine”. The ’55 Chevy was built with blood sweat and tears by two talented individuals compared to the GTO where someone just plunked down a cheque. The real deal vs the poser. One of my favourite lines about the GTO is when James Taylor says “There’s a lot of cars on the road like yours. They get to look all the same. They perform about the same.”
I think Wilson and Taylor’s level of acting chops was perfect for the characters. Their dialogue and delivery is as mumbled and awkward as any real life gearhead would be, and they contrast excellent with the seasoned veteran that was Warren Oates, who was constantly “acting” to every hitchhiker with one fabricated story or another.
I don’t know if I can pick it over Vanishing Point though. Vanishing Point I liked instantly, and as I rewatched it numerous times since the message I interpreted from it got deeper and more interesting with each viewing. TLBT was another challenging existential flick revolving around fast cars, but I was bored to death on first viewing, and I pretty much got the deeper story right off the bat.I saw both movies at exactly the same time mind you, I was 13ish though and TLBT has grown a lot on me as an adult, there’s a lot of human nature captured in it that becomes much more noticable with age.
Imagine a car show at an old drive in and showing those two as a double bill after sundown…
Makes me want to find an old drive in and have an annual show! Or talk to the owner of one.
Great article, Paul! It is funny, 60s Pontiac and the GTO were and still are Muscle car era icons, but you absolutely never hear about their racing excursions the way you do Chevrolet, Ford, Dodge, and Plymouth. Be it drag racing, stock car, Trans Am etc. and what GM engines are the go-to engine to use for a high performance build in ANY brand? Small block Chevy and Big Block Chevy.
The fact that the 60s Pontiac myth has carried on to date despite the products not necessarily being the true tigers of the market really does show to how impactful and influential their marketing was.
Meanwhile, the GTO was becoming more grown-up by the day; five years old going on fifty. Nice styling, but the goat had lost its edge. Whitewall tires too. Yup, we kids noticed that there was an ever-larger contingent of middle aged buyers who wanted the GTO’s cachet to rub off on them.
Reinforced by Two Lane Blacktop, Warren Oates character is actually named GTO in the credits
Profits are what fuels the auto industry. Setting the right tone for the car is important, I think that all Pontiacs got a little glamour from the GTO. I know that I felt that way about my Dad’s ’64 Tempest wagon. Pontiac had earned their performance image with the “Super Duty” Catalinas in the early ’60’s. The GTO added the sex appeal to the mix. GTOs became the gentleman’s muscle car, much like the rarer Hurst Olds Cutlass. The GTX and the in house Shelby Mustangs were the same thing. A basic car loaded with options, that’s where the money was.
This one, spotted last October 17th, was still getting the groceries at the Target in Nottingham Maryland….
Looks to be an all original (and was according to the owner) example, but I don’t know enough about the ’65 GTO to make a positive ID. Considering all of the ‘tribute cars’ out there, one can’t be too sure these days.
Interior shot:
One more… (I have a few more than these, but don’t know how to post at the cohort for a future write up by one of you esteemed auto-journalists ;o)
Great car, fine write up! I had no idea such a significant car hadn’t been given a full CC treatment yet. Definitely on my short list of cars for my (large) dream garage!
I just wish DeLorean would’ve been able to sway the accountants who essentially doomed the Chevy Vega before it was ever built. He apparently tried…
It wasn’t really the accountants. There was a lot of badly executed technology in the first cars, and some dumb decisions. Ed Cole had authority for those.
Yes, wasn’t the Vega the first car designed outside of GM’s traditional Divisional structure? GM Central Engineering was in charge of the Vega project and Chevrolet engineering was basically lacking a seat at the table. Unfortunately it would be Chevrolet Division that would have to sell it and service it and deal with the recalls and unhappy customers, even though it had virtually no say in the way the thing was engineered.
The Vega’s development reminds me of the way an econ professor once described the central shortcoming of communism: When it is fifteen degrees (F) below zero outside it is too cold to go to the barn to milk someone else’s cow. Likewise, GM Central Engineering made all of the engineering decisions on what was going to be someone else’s car.
The sixties’ GTO and Mustang are a case study in how marketing and image are the things that sell cars. While well-designed and stylish, neither of them were anywhere near the top for performance dynamics. Chevrolet, Chrysler, and even Buick and Oldsmobile were the performance leaders and won the car magazine review contests (except for the tuned ringers that Pontiac routinely supplied)..
But it was Pontiac and Ford who were winning the sales wars, and that’s what counted.
Growing up in Seattle, my older lady neighbor, Mrs. De Voe had a gold over black ’65 GTO. I was very impressed, though I always wondered what she wanted with such a hot car.
I never knew the 326 was actually 336. Better to learn that 50+ years late than never. It always struck me as odd that Pontiac would have a V8 just one cubic inch smaller than Chevy’s 327, when Pontiac was a more premium brand. I do think the comparison with BMW is interesting, but I’m sure the Nueue Klasse (1st reference) wasn’t on JZD’s radar in 1963 and by the time the 2002 (last reference) was launched, both the GTO and BMW were already in different categories. I think 🙂
Great write-up Pau! The GTO was definitely a huge marketing success, and while some of it was JZD and Wanger’s magic, the GTO was also good car. Sure there were other faster cars, but the GTO had a great overall package. It had the style, good power, better than average handling (for an American Car) and performance but most importantly was streetable. The Max Wedge Mopars ruled the strip, but they weren’t exactly the most stylish or streetable cars And while previous SD Pontiacs were very strong strip performers, they really were not much more than street legal drag cars.
There were other quick cars of the era too, like the K-Code Fairlanes, or L65 Chevelles, but these were only engine options , not a complete package. And how many beyond the gearheads knew about them. The 389 may not have revved like these little high winders but on the street the low end power was really where it was at.
FWIW, Wanger’s did assist Royal with campaigning many GTO’s at the strip and they did fairly well. The key seemed to be they required deep gears to run good times.The Pontiac V8 was good design and I’d argue in the 400 cubic inch class it was one of the stronger engines.
I think it’s also important to mention that when James McDonald took over from JZD in 1969, the direction of Pontiac as a whole changed. While Wanger’s had JZD’s ear, McDonald wasn’t interested in performance. He quickly dismantled Pontiac’s image built over the last decade with cost cutting and lack of a brand direction.
Oops, I should have proofread my post. It should be L79 327. I also meant to type Wangers not Wanger’s along with my other typos.
Have to chime in on the L79 327. Many consider it the pinnacle of the SBC, particularly in the lighter 1966 Nova SS. The next year, the Camaro arrived and the L79 Nova SS, while still potent, was downgraded from 350 horsepower to 325, and relegated to second tier status.
The L79 was one of the first really decent hydraulic cam performance engines. If there were failings, it was the smallish 585 cfm Holley carburetor, and a pricetag around $3000. That was a lot of money for a compact Nova in 1966.
But for that princely sum, you got one of the 10 best street machines of the sixties (as recorded by an article in Car and Driver). That includes stuff like the big-block Mopar 440-6v and Hemi, 375hp SS396 Chevelle, and the Ford 428CJ. That’s some heady company. Those ’66 L79 Novas were a force to be reckoned with and were the inspiration for another of one of the best small-block performance V8s, the Mopar 340, which reached its peak in 1971 when it got the new Thermoquad carburetor.
The bottom line is, while the GTO was the original musclecar and outsold them all, once the competition caught up, it just wasn’t in the same league.
I am not sure you read my post correctly? I said the L79 cars were quick, I just said they didn’t have the same bottom end power as a Pontiac 389. And while a ’66 L79 Nova was no doubt a quick car, we’re discussing intermediate muscle. I brought up the L79 and the K-code because they were both available in the intermediate offerings. Undoubtedly, both were quick, but both were high winding engines and neither were a big sales success.
I will agree the GTO was not the top dog muscle car, I don’t agree with your assessment that it was bottom of the barrel either. For the most part GTOs were 14 second cars, not the fastest, but not the slowest. FWIW, lots of guys run GTO’s in the Pure stock drags today and they do okay. In fact, a 400 powered ’68 GTO made the top ten in 2017, which is impressive since the majority in the top ten are Hemi cars and 427 Chevys.
The closest I’ve come to one of these GTOs was a Tempest from that era that a friend’s dad drove in the early 70s. I know it had an inline six of some sort because it had a leaky radiator and he had to fill it with coolant regularly.
It’s a wonder anything got done at GM with all of the byzantine internal politics and rules.
65 GTO in midnight blue with redline tires and a reverb speaker in back. When I was in high school every teen-aged boy (and a few girls, too) I knew wanted one soooo bad. The exhaust note alone was intoxicating. I guess it was in good part marketing but as VinceC says, the Goat was a good car with style and performance. Every time I fire up my G37 I know it was the GTO I never had – but a far better car in every conceivable way except one: it will never be a legend.
“But the real body blow came in 1968, with the Plymouth Road Runner “…
Mmmm, the RR may hurt a bit, but 1968 was a still a great year for GTO sales and ’69 was decent as well. The real killer, for not only the GTO but muscle cars period, came in 1971, when the insurance industry got wise to the mayhem and destruction these cars were piling up. Insurance premiums for one of these often rose to over $1,000/yr., at a time when $10K a year was a good salary. The young male target demographic, scraping all his might to buy one, found out he couldn’t afford to drive one.
I loved muscle cars, and had four friends and cousins back in the day that had new ones. Within four years all were totaled/stolen, with a good friend dying in his 3 month old Duster 340. The party was fun while it lasted but was unsustainable. Even without crushing insurance premiums, the gas crisis a few years later would have put the kibosh on these.
Excellent article about an iconic car. Well done. And as a former creative director, I find the advertising absolutely brilliant.
Does that GTO brochure (3rd page) really say “If all this dismays you, then you’re almost certainly a candidate for one of our 27 other Pontiac Pontiacs”? Hello, proofreaders….
Paul, will we be getting an update on your Arizona adventure?
I was on a cruise thru the Panama Canal when I saw you were leaving and I didn’t have the bandwidth to offer some ideas. I do hope you didn’t try the old Mt Lemon control road out of Oracle in your new rig. Everything on the internet understates the difficulty of the drive.
Dave
The real “Holy Grail” was the right sized Pontiac Tempest with the barely produced combination of the light alloy 215 c.i.d. Buick/Oldsmobile V8 and with the rope drive rear 4 speed transaxle, and a camber compensator to tame the rear swing axles. That, in mind, assuming no significant production flaws, would really have been a tasty treat to experience before the existence of the BMW 2002. Too bad I never had the opportunity to experience that combination, but this is the stuff of my dreams.
The A-body GTO to follow after the abandonment of the rear transaxle had no appeal to me. A good friend, my friend George’s father had a GTO that I had a chance to drive on occasion–despite great power and torque, it wasn’t my cup of tea with weight, size, brakes and handling ill suited for the driving that I liked –like Paul my heart and inclinations had already gone over to the foreign side, especially rear engined air cooled cars, even with their delightful handling quirks.
After those drives I never desired or aspired to own an American muscle car. Then two years ago, while my son and I were driving the Haggerty Olds 442 and their fast, but gas guzzling Camaro SS 396 (talk about range anxiety)on the mountain roads of Colorado and Northern New Mexico, that experience affirmed my aversion to muscle cars like the GTO which were essentially useless on twisty downhill mountain roads.
But the Buick (the later Rover V8) in a smaller Tempest with the transaxle drive, that could have been a potential American Lancia if the build quality would have been acceptable, and maybe that is where JZD initially was taking Pontiac before GTO fever and marketing took Pontiac and GM down the alternative path leading to the deadly sins and ultimate systemic failure.
Robert Frost’s, “The Road Not Taken” comes to mind, and, “That has made all the difference”.