The original muscle car

With good looks, respectable performance and a reasonable $2500 asking price (roughly the same as a first-generation Mustang and nearly half that of a 1967 Camaro) the Tempest LeMans GTO captured the imagination of buyers and introduced the public to the idea of a factory-built hot rod. To understand the extent of the original GTO’s appeal you need only take a look at what followed in its wake. The Mustang, Camaro and Charger were all aimed squarely at the same, youthful demographic.

Such was the GTO’s success it became a standalone model in 1966, selling nearly 100,000 units that year alone, a feat that made it the best-selling muscle car of its time. As the enlarged 400 cubic inch (6.6-litre) V8 arrived in 1967, the GTO seemed firmly established, multiple facelifts and a slew of performance upgrades (which included four-calliper disc brakes, a four-speed Muncie transmission, cold air intakes and additional aero modifications) enabling it to keep pace with virtually all of its contemporaries.

It was in the 1970s that the GTO hit the buffers. Part of the problem lay with insurance companies, who saddled GTO buyers with hefty surcharges. This became so serious that GTOs were soon costing more to insure than they did to buy, an issue that would later plague fans of the Ford Sierra RS Cosworth on this side of the Atlantic.

The results were as clear as they were grim. In 1971, Pontiac sold just 10,532 GTOs before stripping it of its standalone status a year later, reducing the name to an optional extra, this time for the compact Ventura.

But if the insurance companies put the GTO on its knees, it was OPEC that delivered the coup de grâce. As fuel prices soared in the 1973 oil crisis, the hunger for cumbersome, inefficient muscle cars simply disappeared. With fuel economy now at the forefront of every manufacturer’s thinking, Pontiac was forced to adapt accordingly. The 5.7-litre V8 found in the ’74 Ventura was good for just 200bhp, which was no one’s idea of a good time. As sales dipped to just 7058 in 1974, the GTO was duly axed.

The list of muscle cars that were overwhelmed by the events of 1973 is long, but the difference is that most of the big names were just put on hold. The third-generation Mustang was unveiled in 1979 with the compact Ford Fox platform serving as its underpinnings, while the third-generation Camaro was actually able to retain some of the dynamism that had distinguished its predecessors. Motor Trend magazine even went so far as to name the Z28 version its Car of the Year in 1982. By contrast, Pontiac was left with little more than a name to milk. A smattering of concept cars bore the long moribund initials and repeatedly hinted at a prospective return, but it wasn’t until 2004 that a successor would finally emerge.

Preceding both the fifth generations of Mustang and Camaro, which sported entirely new platforms and powertrains, the 2004 GTO was, in essence, a rebadged Holden Monaro. Chairman of GM North America, ‘Maximum’ Bob Lutz, drove one during a visit down under, and declared it a worthy heir to the GTO, a sentiment not shared by many of his colleagues. To put it mildly.

Desperate to maintain the regional autonomy between General Motors’ North American and overseas divisions, the idea of an Australian import did little to charm the executives. According to Lutz’s autobiography, such was the disdain for his proposal that he was presented with a heavily re-engineered Ventura as a possible alternative. It came with a small block V8 and had been ‘switched from front-wheel drive to rear-wheel drive’. Lutz was unimpressed by what he considered to be a brand new car, the development of which would nullify his primary objective: profitability.

The debate meant a prolonged gestation for the GTO, so that by the time the finished product emerged in 2004, a full three years had passed since the unveiling of the original Monaro, and its conservative styling was already ageing poorly. Another problem was the Australian Dollar which was worth about $0.57 when the project got underway but skyrocketed to $0.80, a rise that ‘destroyed what was to be a very nice profit and caused final pricing of the GTO, initially targeted for around $25,000, to rise above $30,000, ensuring a lukewarm marketing acceptance.’

Lutz’s brainchild may have been doomed but that didn’t make it a bad car. It housed the same 5.7-litre LS1 V8 as the C5 Corvette and was, in its final 2006 guise, good for 400bhp and 180mph flat-out (figures which put it some way clear of the rejuvenated 2005 Mustang). But while the Ford’s styling successfully aped the design of its forebears, the GTO’s did not. Able though the car was, the public wasn’t swayed and at the end of 2006, with sales having dropped to 11,268, the Pontiac GTO was killed off for a second, and final time.

The GTO’s limp send off would turn out to be a grim precursor to the fate of Pontiac itself. The brand’s next two high-profile offerings came in the form of the 2006 Solstice Roadster and 2008 G8 saloon, capable vehicles that also became victims of circumstance. As the financial crisis tightened its grip on the industry, performance cars were persona non grata once more. GM was badly hit, reporting barely imaginable losses of $37.8 billion in 2007, necessitating a $30 billion bailout from the US Government.

But survival came at a hefty price. The company had to drastically cut not just product lines, but entire brands, spelling the end of the road for Saturn, Hummer and even poor old Pontiac. The last ever Pontiac – an inconspicuous G6 saloon – rolled off the assembly line in January 2010, an underwhelming final act for a company that, with the GTO, had arguably done more than any other to create the legend of the muscle car, the United States’ most memorable contribution to the automotive world since the Ford Model T.