Click on the File Name to Download It. Click on the Chapter Name to Visit their Website. Location - Key Info. Cactus GTOs - Arizona. Club meetings are generally held on the last Wednesday of each month. Southern California Gathering of Goats. The idea to form a GTO club headquartered in the San Fernando was a direct result of the Gathering Of The Goats club being too distant to regularly attend their weeknight meetings.
Nor Cal Goats - California. At the time, many GTO clubs weren't sure what to do with the new cars. Contact Mary Robinson at psttoastee msn. Heart of Illinois GTOs. The purpose of the club is to promote pride in ownership and preservation of the greatest American muscle car ever produced The club's members primarily come from the Indianapolis, Indiana area and surrounding counties. The purpose of this chapter is to keep its membership informed of upcoming events and meeting times and to promote the preservation of the Pontiac GTO.
We sponsor cruises and shows, and we host regular meetings and tech sessions. Our club is based in Louisville, Kentucky and is centered around Pontiac enthusiasts of all types. We are open to all models and years of Pontiac so feel to come by no matter what type of Pontiac you drive. The clubs founding members had a common interest and that was Pontiac GTO. We are dedicated to the restoration and preservation of all classic Pontiacs.
Our purpose is to provide an opportunity for people with the love of GTOs, new and old, to meet and have fun together. It is not necessary that you own a GTO to become a member. The vehicles in our club range from national award winners to project cars to quarter milers an everything in between. We're trying to preserve the memories of the muscle car era through car shows, drive-in movies, dinners, fund raisers, cruises and whatever else we can do to help our members enjoy their vehicles.
Our members cars are Tempests, Lemans', G T's, and GTO's from , and of course the brand new series beginning with the Hidden headlights were deleted in favor of four exposed round headlamps outboard of narrower grille openings.
How to Restore Your Pontiac GTO, 1964-1974 by Donald Keefe (2012, Paperback)
The nose retained the protruding vertical prow theme, although it was less prominent. The suspension was upgraded with the addition of a rear anti-roll bar, essentially the same bar as used on the Oldsmobile and Buick Gran Sport. The front anti-roll bar was slightly stiffer. The result was a useful reduction in body lean in turns and a modest reduction of understeer. Another handling-related improvement was optional variable-ratio power steering. Rather than a fixed ratio of Turning diameter was reduced from The base engine was unchanged for , but the low-compression economy engine was deleted and the Ram Air III and Ram Air IV remained available, although the latter was now a special-order option.
A new option was Pontiac's engine, available now that GM had rescinded its earlier ban on intermediates with engines larger than The , a long-stroke engine taken from the full-size Pontiac Bonneville line, was only moderately stronger than the base and actually less powerful than the Ram Air III. Its advantage was torque: Car and Driver tested a heavily optioned , with a four-speed transmission and 3. Car Life' s Turbo-Hydramatic , with a 3. The smaller displacement engine recorded less than 9 miles per gallon of gasoline The Judge remained available as an option on GTOs.
Striping was relocated to the upper wheelwell brows. The new styling did little to help declining sales, which were now being hit by sagging buyer interest in all musclecars and by the punitive surcharges levied by automobile insurance companies, which sometimes resulted in insurance payments higher than car payments for some drivers. Sales were down to 40,, of which 3, were The Judge. The GTO had another modest facelift, this time with wire-mesh grilles, horizontal bumper bars on either side of the grille opening, more closely spaced headlamps, and a new hood with the dual scoops relocated to the leading edge, not far above the grille.
Overall length grew slightly to A new corporate edict, aimed at preparing GM for no-lead gasoline, forced a cross-the-board reduction in compression ratios. The Ram Air engines did not return for Motor Trend tested a GTO with the , four-speed transmission, and 3. The Judge returned for a final year, now with the HO as standard equipment. Only were sold before The Judge was discontinued in February , including 17 convertibles—today the rarest of all GTOs. On the base LeMans line, the GTO package could be had with either the low-priced pillared coupe or hardtop coupe.
Both models came standard with cloth and vinyl or all-vinyl bench seats and rubber floor mats on the pillared coupe and carpeting on the hardtop, creating a lower-priced GTO. The LeMans Sport, offered only as a hardtop coupe, came with Strato bucket seats upholstered in vinyl, along with carpeting on floor and lower door panels, vinyl door-pull straps, custom pedal trim and cushioned steering wheel, much like GTOs of previous years. Other optional equipment was similar to and earlier models.
Planned for as a GTO option was the ducktail rear spoiler from the Pontiac Firebird, but after a few cars were built with that option, it was cancelled. Most of the drop was attributable to the new rating system which now reflected an engine in as-installed condition with mufflers, accessories, and standard intake.
The engines were relatively little changed from A very rare option was the HO engine, essentially similar to that used in the Trans Am. Despite its modest 8. Only cars with this engine were sold. Some sources discount the single convertible and the three anomalous wagons, listing the total as 5, Once again an option package for the LeMans, the GTO shared the reskinned A-body with its "Colonnade" hardtop styling, which eliminated true hardtop design because of the addition of a roof pillar but retention of frameless doorwork.
Rear side windows were now of a fixed design that could not be opened and in a trianglar shape. The result was the use of prominent and heavy chrome bumpers front and rear. In contrast, the Pontiac Grand Prix and Chevrolet Monte Carlo, which were also derived from the intermediate A-body, were much better received because of their squared-off styling and formal rooflines with vertical windows.
Pontiac's sister division, Oldsmobile, received better reviews from the automotive press and the car-buying public with the similar-bodied Cutlass. The base LeMans coupe featured a cloth-and-vinyl or all-vinyl bench seat while the more lavish LeMans Sport Coupe had all-vinyl interiors with Strato bucket seats or a notchback bench seat with folding armrest.
The Collector's Guide to GTO
The engine was available with any of the three transmissions including the standard three-speed manual, or optional four-speed or Turbo Hydra-Matic. The HO engine did not reappear, but GM initially announced the availability of a Super Duty engine shared with the contemporary Pontiac Trans Am SD , and several such cars were made available for testing, impressing reviewers with their power and flexibility. Sales dropped to 4,, thanks in part to competition from the new Grand Am and the lack of promotion for the GTO.
By the end of the model year an emerging energy crisis quashed consumer interest in muscle cars. Critics dubbed it "a Chevy Nova in drag. Optional transmissions included a wide-ratio four-speed with Hurst shifter or the three-speed Turbo Hydra-Matic. The GTO option was available in both the base Ventura and Ventura Custom lines as either a two-door sedan or hatchback coupe.
The base Ventura interior consisted of bench seats and rubber floor mats, while the Ventura Custom had upgraded bench seats or optional Strato bucket seats along with carpeting, cushioned steering wheel, and custom pedal trim. Bias-belted tires were standard equipment, but a radial tuned suspension option added radial tires along with upgraded suspension tuning for improved ride and handling.
The Ventura and other GM compacts underwent substantial styling and engineering changes, the latter including front and rear suspensions similar to the sporty Firebird. In the end, however, the GTO was discontinued following a corporate decision to switch to Buick V8 engines on the Ventura line, though Pontiac V8s were continued in all other division models. Sensing that the GTO should have continued on the intermediate LeMans platform rather than downsized to the Ventura line, this dealer advertised and sold an undetermined number of Pontiac GTOs. However, division officials turned down the idea of an intermediate-sized GTO, but the concept was considered and approved for production; not as a GTO revival, but as the Pontiac Can Am.
During the subsequent 30 years, Pontiac considered several plans to revive the GTO nameplate, but none came to fruition. The revived , introduced for the model year, proved to be a low seller, leading Pontiac to quietly cancel the GTO revival. Fans of the original GTO considered the appropriation of a famous muscle car by a Japanese automaker to be sacrilegious, much as sports car fans of the s had been infuriated by Pontiac borrowing the name of the Ferrari racer.
During the Detroit Auto Show, a GTO concept car with a heritage-inspired Coke-bottle shape, grille, and hood scoop, was introduced to the world. It was only a design experiment and had no engine. The concept never made it into production. The Commodore was in turn developed by enlarging the European designed Opel Omega B, which was marketed in its original form in the U. GM North America made a deal with Holden for them to produce a maximum of 18, vehicles per year starting in late and going through to the end of the model year.
It was frequently derided for its conservative styling, which many critics felt was too anonymous to befit either the GTO heritage or the current car's performance. Given the newly revived muscle car climate, it was also overshadowed by the Chrysler , the Dodge Charger, and the new Ford Mustang.
Sales were also limited because of dealer tactics, such as initially charging large markups and denying requests for test drives of the vehicle. By the end of the year, the vehicles were selling with significant discounts. Sales were 13, of 15, cars for The optional hood scoops slated for the model year were rushed into production in an effort to increase the sportiness of the car's image.
There was a Pulse Red package, available only in It gave the buyer Pulse Red paint and exclusive red embroidery on the seats. Only of these were made.
The model year continued with the addition of hood scoops, split rear exhaust, and optional 18 inch The major change for was the replacement of the LS1 engine with the LS2 engine. With this engine package, Pontiac claimed the car capable of 0 to 60 in 4. Dashboard gauge graphics were also revised. The optional dealer installed Sport Appearance Package became available and differed visually by having a deeper-set grille, different lower rear fascia that sported quad chrome exhaust tips, a modified spoiler, and modified rocker panels.
This package was available from GM as an accessory in red, silver, black, or primer for other color cars. Nonetheless, sales dropped to 11,, primarily because of a shortened model year. Revised blacked-out tail lamps, illuminated steering wheel radio controls and an interior power door lock switch,faster power seats were also added.
Production of the GTO ended on June 7, , as the manufacturer, Holden, ceased production of the associated Commodore models in preparation for their new VE Commodore platform. At this time there is no 2-door coupe variant of the new Commodore.
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Shane Wiser was the first to think of the idea of the GTO. In early , General Motors management issued an edict banning divisions from involvement in auto racing.
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At the time, Pontiac's advertising and marketing approach was heavily based on performance, and racing was an important component of that strategy. Jim Wangers proposed a way to retain the performance image that the division had cultivated with a new focus on street performance. By promoting the big-engine Tempest as a special high-performance model, they could appeal to the speed-minded youth market which had also been recognized by Ford Motor Company's Lee Iacocca, who was at that time preparing the Ford Mustang.
Many were fitted to GTOs, and the components and instructions could be purchased by mail as well as installed by the dealer.
First generation (1964-1967) GTO
The name "Bobcat" came from the improvised badges created for the modified cars, combining letters from the "Bonneville" and "Catalina" nameplates. Many of the Pontiacs made available for magazine testing were equipped with the Bobcat kit. The GTO Bobcat accelerated in 4. Overall length grew only fractionally, to Rear track increased one inch 2.
Overall weight remained about the same. The GTO became a separate model series, rather than an optional performance package, with unique grille and tail lights, available as a pillared sports coupe, a hardtop sans pillars, or a convertible. Also an automotive industry first, plastic front grilles replaced the pot metal and aluminum versions seen on earlier years. New Strato bucket seats were introduced with higher and thinner seat backs and contoured cushions for added comfort and adjustable headrests were introduced as a new option.