Gto's

3 Pages 659 Words

The Pontiac GTO was born in 1964. It became known as “The Great One”, “The Goat”, or just “The Legend”. The 1964 GTO almost did not make it off the production line. In the early 1960’s Pontiac had a policy that the weight of the car would determine the engine size. Then in 1962 a few Pontiac engineers decided to take a chance and change the rules. The problem they had is that at this point in time not many new vehicles made it through the critics. So the engineers decided to make the vehicle a Lemans instead of a GTO. The Lemans had been around for a while so it made it easier to pass by the critics. When they brought out the new Lemans it came out with a GTO option. One of the things this option included was a 389 cubic-in engine, which in the eyes of the critics was too powerful.
Pontiac did not know how the public would react, so they only projected 5,000 GTOs’ would be sold. In 1964 the Pontiac sold over 32,000 GTOs’ instead of 5,000. The sales of the GTO were astronomical compared to predictions. This made Pontiac think twice about the GTO. Pontiac decided to bring the GTO out as a model of its own.
In 1966 Pontiac came out with its new GTO model. It was no longer a Lemans with a GTO option. For this year Pontiac completely redesigned the GTO. It was less boxy and had more of a streamline design. The 1966 GTO was the last vehicle with the tri-power carburetor. This carburetor was a monster in producing power, but was a terrible gas hog. The 389 cubic-in engine was still the powerhouse that ran the vehicle. This year Pontiac sold over 95,000 GTOs’.
The biggest difference in the 1967 from the 1966 GTO was the new 400 big block engine with the Rochester Quadra-jet (two double barrel carburetors connecter together).
Then in 1968 Pontiac completely redesigned the GTO once more. This year the GTO became more aero dynamic. They still had the 400 big blocks, but the Rochester Quadra-jet carburetors were no l...