Really? All this talk of muscle car popularity and the name PONTIAC doesn’t pop up? Having come of “car age” in the 60’s I can tell you how I, and most of my peers felt. Prior to 1964 whenever you talked about hot rods the ultimate car that came to mind was the ‘32 Ford Roadster, hands down. Fords ruled in our minds from the 1928 Model A to the 1940 Ford coupe. There were a couple of “big car” factory hot rods (think the original “Super Duty” Pontiac) but not enough of them. But then in 1964 something happened and that something was the birth of the GTO. We ALL fell in love with that car and we all wanted one. 1964-1967 ruled the roost. Yeah, Ford had that Mustang, but there were too many of them with six cylinder three speed manuals for us to really get into them. We referred to them as a Ford Falcon in another body style. Chevy Malibu wasn’t bad and when the SS came out we all took notice, but again there were cheap engine-tranny (can I use that word?) combos (230-6, power glide) that made us sneer. Not so with the GTO. If you owned a goat it was a mean mother. Pontiac chintzed-out on the auto transmission in 64-66 but they finally wised up in 67 with the his/hers Turbo 400. Today a fully restored GTO will bring over $100k and it doesn’t seem that there are many unrestored ones left. Go to a car show and you’ll see Mustangs, Cameros, and all that Mopar junk (heheheh) but the car that people spend the most time looking at is the GTO. It was the king then and is still the king, hands down!
