GTO: Pontiac's Great One

by David Newhardt, David Newhardt

In 1963 Pontiac's Chief Engineer John DeLorean and his two favorite staff engineers, Bill Collins and Russ Gee, came up with an inspired way to keep Pontiac cars in the performance a big engine into Pontiac's upcoming Tempest intermediate body.Thus was the GTO born. Through cunning, resourcefulness, and outright trickery the minds of Pontiac managed to get this rocket into dealerships and out onto America's highways, and to introduce that most iconic of American automobiles, the muscle car, to the nation’s most discriminating drivers. This is the story of the GTO, of the people who made it a reality and a sales sensation, of those who owned and loved the cars.And it is, above all, a story of the cars themselves, from the initial option package offered for the 1964 model year through the high-performance late-model standouts.With color photographs, drawings, and detailed stats, this book is not so much the story of a historic car as an illustrated biography of American muscle.

Genres: Cars

336 pages, Hardcover

First published May 17, 2009

Reviews

[Jose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although at the start Darwin Holstrom has a bone to pick with Pontiac's "Earlier Buyers" According to him they were all elderly and he was laying the supposed elderly-Pontiac link Heavy at the start of this 2nd edition?(same amount of pages as hardcover?Bad Binding,Made in China Softcover "Revised"?edition)the book is still so refreshing despite it's minor faults,The Book and the subject is what MBI and Quayside should continue to focus on.I was not privy sadly to have been around during the REIGN of The Great One or "Goat" and Woodware avenue,The book is heavy on pictures,some ads, and Funny diatribes against Ralph Nader(someone I can't stomach and apparently neither can the author).I want to know what exactly was Revised though Since I don't have the 1st one The big Nice hardcover with some sort of Hologram flash dust jacket that seemed more cooler and presentable. I enjoyed Reading the Book from The TEMPSET/Le Mans/GTO TO an Option only to Ventura GTO to it's sad demise and it's resurrection and to it being dropped again sadly and Pontiac's Demise Sadly thanks to GM and Even Photos/Info on the 1977 Can-AM car and briefly the Trans Am/SD455/FORMULA AND Turbo Trans Am. These were the days before the Killjoys and liberal establishment hippie fascists wanted to rule over all with a Fist and Destroy Detroit and The American Performance Car,you have them to thank for that.

[Joe Robertson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book considering that back in 1970 I owned a 400-cubic inch, 350-horse GTO. I had to sell it to go to collage but it was great while I had it.