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2. GTO: Pontiac's Great One

3. Description Pontiac's Great One: Contents Chapter 1 We’Re Going Racing! Historians rightly peg the birth of the Pontiac GTO to one spring day in 1963. That day Pontiac’s Chief Engineer John DeLorean and his two favorite staff engineers, Bill Collins and Russ Gee, came up with the inspired idea of mounting a high-performance 389-cubic-inch V-8 engine in the Tempest, which was Pontiac division’s version of General Motors’ then new corporate A-body intermediate platform. But if that moment marked the birth of the GTO and hence the birth of the entire muscle car era, the GTO’s (and the genre’s) conception occurred much earlier. Chapter 2 Delorean’S Outlaw Car Bunkie Knudsen not only fulfilled his assignment from General Motors–make Pontiac profitable or GM would kill it–he exceeded anyone’s wildest expectations. Thanks in large part to Knudsen’s emphasis on performance and competition and the efforts of Jim Wangers off track and on, Pontiac not only survived, it thrived. By 1961, the five-year mark of Knudsen’s tenure, Pontiac had become the number three nameplate in the American auto market, after Chevrolet and Ford. Chapter 3 Coping With Success John DeLorean took the helm at Pontiac just as the company was about to launch its strongest product-line yet. Year after year Pontiac had set new sales records, and by the time the 1966 model year rolled around, it had cemented its position as the number three nameplate in America. Chapter 4 A Maturing Car For A Maturing Audience Pontiac had reason to be excited going into 1968– the division had a completely new GTO. General Motors redesigned all of its A-body intermediate car for the 1968 model year. This was no mild facelift or reskinning of existing chassis components this was a top- to-bottom redesign of the cars. Chapter 5 Highlights And Low Points By 1970, everyone in the automotive industry knew the muscle car era was coming to an end. Smog, which was a slang term for 'smoky fog,' had become a major health concern in metropolitan areas. The federal government had taken action to curb the air pollution that was choking American cities, and this action had the support of the majority of the American people. Chapter 6 The Death And Short-Lived Reincarnation Of The Gto Like all of GM’s A-body cars, the GTO bodywork had always been on a fixed development cycle. The same basic body shape would be used for two years, after which it would get a mild makeover. Two years after that it would get a major makeover. The car had been scheduled for a major makeover for the 1972 model year, but because of the 1970 strike, the resources being devoured by developing pollution-control equipment, and dismal sales in 1970 and 1971, GM put off releasing completely updated A-body models until the 1973 model year.

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