Great Cars: GTO

in the 1950s Pontiac was facing a crisis it had to change or vanish its cars were dull and something new was needed now they decided make good-looking affordable cars that went fast this simple idea saved Pontiac and spurred the development of one of the great automotive icons the GTO [Music] a new gto hit the streets in 2004 30 years of the original faded away the reintroduction of America's first muscle car gave fans something to celebrate at the 2004 GTO National Convention to welcome the new GTO the organizers set this year's event in the center of GTO country Pontiac Michigan Pontiac was a spawning ground of the first duty over 1,000 people made the journey to share stories look at one another's cars and soak up the legend of the GTO [Music] they discovered it had its roots in post-war America [Music] the American economy took off after World War two pent-up demand abundant jobs and the money people had saved during the war triggered enormous sales for car makers [Music] under the guise of national defense President Eisenhower pushed through the creation of an interstate highway system [Music] these new roads fueled the growth of suburbs and transformed Americans into commuters suburban i'ts loved their cars who started spending more and more time on the road the car makers had finally retooled after the war and were now turning out an endless array of new cars the competition got tougher and tougher Jim Wangers an account executive for Pontiacs advertising agency had an insider's view the car shortage had kind of been diminished after World War two and you know during that immediate post-war era everybody would drive whatever they could get their hands on but by now the market had been fulfilled and people became more selective when goos found out that Pontiac was in trouble it's cause were boring reliable but dull reality was that the car was a nice time and by now this was mid 50s you couldn't sell a nice car General Motors other divisions Chevrolet Buick those 'mobile and Cadillac was zooming ahead but Pontiac was stuck it's future was at stake it was actually the mid 50s that ultimately led General Motors to the conclusion that this division needed to a major change not only in its product development but in the way in which the car was imaged in the car was marketed [Music] GM executives began to think about killing off Pontiac but GM's president Paulo Curtis wanted to rescue it [Music] he knew just the right person for the job the son of a former GM president bunkie Knudsen when bunkie took over Pontiac in July of 1956 he was sure he could transform it he just wasn't sure how olds mobile had a pretty good name for luxury a nice comfortable size and Chevrolet which had a pretty good name for good quality entry-level low-priced merchandise were squeezed in Pontiac from both top and bottom and Pontiac had nothing to offer except just another nice car Newton did a little polling he asked his kids what they thought of Pontiacs they polite they told him he had a lot of work to do his son was only 15 but Newton knew that Pontiac had to appeal to the kids his age they were part of the baby boomers who change everything ignore them at your peril that was the stroke of genius that was the one thing that Pontiac saw the management team at finally act and I like to think that I was kind of part of a contribution factory we saw what was going to become the greatest market segment ever to hit this country which was so the group we now call the baby boomers Newton felt the boomers would respond to good-looking affordable cars that had real performance fortunately Pontiac had a strong v-8 one way to get attention was to win some races nobody believed that these stodgy cars could win but Newton was determined to try well they made up their mind that Graham wah which is what laughing we called it the nice tire you know that was built to last 100,000 miles conservatively styled conservatively powered they decided that they were going to turn grandma into a teenager [Music] Knutson launched an assault on Florida's Daytona speed week and race in February of 1957 he hoped this would serve notice that Pontiac was changing Monte was a car guy he understood performance I understood young people they understood performance cars he understood that racing at that point was a very important thing to help build images Newton's team turned up the sand and started to break records one car clocked in at 140 1.2 miles per hour the fastest time ever for an American car in its class [Music] the speed tests and qualifying heats on the beach were just a warm-up at full main event the Daytona 500 [Music] at the time this Raggett contest was run on an oval course carved out of the beach and the scrub brush nuisance cars were pitted against experienced teams from Ford Chrysler and Chevrolet no one believed Pontiac had a chance but lap after lap they showed they could compete they kept fighting by the finish cotton Owens a Pontiac driver flew across the finish line and captured a win [Music] the gods had smiled on Pontiac Newton and Pontiac were on their way [Music] to keep building Pontiacs image he assembled a team that shared his passion for performance he poached pea testes from automobile and snapped up a young engineer from the remains of Packard John DeLorean DeLorean was a little wild but he was the best engineer Newton had ever met and he knew what young people wanted this dream team started building cars to ride the coming wave of baby boomers while in the late 50s most of those baby boomers were kids they were 10 11 maybe 12 years old they were just now coming into their own as an entity and Pontiac was the first one to kind of recognize this because mr. Knudsen himself understood it as I as a manager and as a marketer the first effort hit the streets in 1959 the new long low and white look became known as the white track one of the most significant things about it is you could look at that car and immediately see that it had that wider tread it was almost kind of a sewing message of its own you looked at the car and say oh yeah there's one of those wide track pants the new look and racing success gave Pontiac the boost it needed it jumped from sixth to fourth place in sales [Music] Utzon was rewarded with the top job at Chevrolet but his team stayed to finish the work at Pontiac by 1962 they not Rambler out of third place and were in line just behind Chevrolet and Ford they were going strong then the corporation dropped a bombshell a ban on racing it was an era when racing deaths were increasingly common the big three auto companies didn't want the bad publicity associated with sponsoring something dangerous they also feared that the public would pressure the government to add costly safety features to their passenger cars the easy route quit racing this was a death sentence to Pontiac but DeLorean had an idea he liked the power of Pontiacs large 389 cubic inch engines and thought these big power plants would be great in a smaller car in other words take the biggest engine and stuff it into the smallest chassis which is a trick the hotrod community had been doing for years well Bonnie ACK decided to do it as a manufacturer it was more than GM's anti racing rules allowed but he snuck it past them and had a hot new car to launch in 1964 he called it the GTO it was a stealthy introduction no fanfare but the dealers knew what DeLorean was doing and they quickly ordered 5,000 GTOs the muscle-car era had begun [Music] the car was at the right place at the right time and of course when it hit the marketplace it was an overnight smash people liked the lack of Chrome its aggressive stunts and most of all its blistering performance it had a list of options that allowed a buyer to fear toward speed or more luxury cruising DeLorean wanted something that was part BMW and part of hot rod [Music] young American drivers weren't looking for a European road car they wanted something that was fast and good-looking the perfect cruising machine and the Pontiac GTO was the absolute teenager's dream because it was a $2,500 car that could sit there and kind of thumb its nose at just about anybody out there no cars costing twice as much by 1965 it was a major success sales had jumped from 30,000 in 1964 to 75,000 by the end of the year DeLorean rode the gto to the top he was named at Pontiacs general manager [Music] Pontiac sword with the GTO success it touched the nerve of the growing cruisin scene GTOs started to dominate Detroit's Woodward Avenue the epicenter of the area's praying performance car culture but the GTO didn't have the turf to itself Chrysler Ford and Chevrolet introduced cars to compete while challenged DeLoreans GTO still ruled woodward avenue and its meeting grounds the drive image this was a very very famous drive-in site the name of the drive-in was the totem pole and used to be a real serious hangout for most of the young folks were out cruising looking for girls as well as a race which they could almost always find it was really quite a thing with the drive-ins everybody pulled into the driving you'd line up to get in to get a spot and you would chip in the money Cook was 15 cents hotdogs were 50 cents hamburgers were 45 cents and he would use his share one because you didn't have enough money cuz you had to buy gasoline it was 18.9 during the Gaspar's almost every night over 2,000 street races would come out these baby boomers love their hot cars and wanted to see what they could do four-on-the-floor producers and the 389 meant Pontiacs and the cruising would work Detroit's Woodward Avenue was and still is perfectly suited for cruising but fueled by a heavy mix of burgers fries and cokes blended with raging hormones and stirred by performance cars young people engaged in a high test mating ritual on streets all over the country [Music] well we would wait there for a certain person to come through we wanted to go race and then we would follow them out and go line up on the next traffic light as many as four abreast and have at it it was the car culture the competition bragging rights was so important of who he knew because it lasted forever DeLoreans engineers designers and executives also got into the act they leave work and head down to Woodland to see how their cars fared against the regulars [Music] we had very famous names coming out here john delorean george tellurian a very famous names that all started out here I wondered Avenue to keep the GTO on top Pontiacs engineers used what they learned on Woodward to develop a performance enhancements that dealers could sell [Music] GTOs racing was not confined to the streets even though pontiac couldn't officially sponsor racing they help drivers take their cars to drag strips the cars performed and helped to spread the word that the GTO was hot fans have reserved many of these winning Pontiacs and still take them out to show just how amazing they were [Music] in 1969 DeLorean was given the top job at GM's largest edition Chevrolet his replacement Jim McDonald didn't have the same passion for performance or feel to what young people wanted the GTO was still a winner but times were changing the new GTO Judge inspired by a comedy bit from a popular television variety show was feeling the competition Pontiacs line up started to lose its grip on the marketplace Klim a--the muscled in on their third-place roost it was clear that the 70s were going to be a tough race [Music] the 1970s were a challenging decade for America's performance cars government mandated reductions in leaded fuels made automakers lower engine compression ratios power dropped other emission controls sapped more power and then fuel economy standards prompted by gas shortages took the muscle out of the muscle cars [Music] then the police started to target the cruisers on woodland it was a hard time they eventually put signs up that said no cruising through drive is and if you went through and didn't buy an item like a coca-cola you'd get a ticket and so that was the beginning to the end of the drivers by 1974 the GTO also was history gone but not forgotten fans kept them restored them took them out for cruisers and even passed them down these were cars but memories were they not I originally purchased the GTO in 1965 I met my wife when I had one of these and I just kind of reflect on all the things that I did back in those days and I found this up in Sacramento and just started from there started rebuilding it and the thrill is never gone no one thought that GTO would return but GM's Australian subsidiary Holden was building a high-performance car that caught in Detroit style after some modifications this car was brought to the States and launched as the new gto gto loyalists were somewhat miffed because they thought their ideas about the new gto were ignored by GM many didn't like my cars looks the 40th anniversary was the first time that most would get a chance to actually see one in person and see I perform pontiac tapped a noted rally driver Rhys Millen to take the uncondensed for a test drive he showed how the GTO handled the new sport of Clifty usually when people hop out of the car that they really don't have much to say but screamin holla you know it's it's another thing to watch it from the outside but as you got to experience to sit in the passenger seat you know you see the cones coming or the barriers out there and it looks like you're gonna slide right into them but your judgement of distance and speed is so precisely you can run right up and touch a cone or touch a barrier and still be in control so it's it's dynamic it works and it's exciting sitting in here or watching it [Music] while it wasn't a classic Cruiser the writers couldn't deny its power and agility [Music] I'm impressed you're gonna sell a ton of them probably he'll sell a ton of them big slide Ellicott get a different ride of my life get back in line even drag racing legend Ani Bestwick who won the first NHRA championship in 1953 and later survived a near-fatal racing fire couldn't believe how the car perform it's a fun fun and I I could forget the styling I might not like all that well because as a performance in car it's just it's just breathtaking it's breathtaking but I'll tell you what when you get that big up like over 4000 sang co-director of GM's performance division styling department assembled a team to create a new vision for the PTO in time for the 2004 Woodward Dream Cruise we have listened to what people have said so we've digested and taken those words this art I think we've addressed the car to give it more muscle much more presence but it's still true to what a GTO is we're cinco's team members had deep feelings about the gto they wanted to make sure they got it right this time [Music] that was like that was us that was a car that people took notice of well the GTO today they don't think knows this one they'll take notice of this is got the stance it's a little more of futuristic it's got the Heritage to it that's what I like about [Music] the classic GTOs have been making us feel good for years it looks like a GTO will once again provide a new generation with the excitement of high-performance thrills [Applause] the glory days of the muscle-car era can't be recreated but they'll never be forgotten [Music]

Channel: King Rose Archives

Views: 126,394

Rating: 4.813787 out of 5

Keywords: DeLorean, John DeLorean, Pontiac, Muscle Cars, cocaine, Cruising Woodward, Drive ins, street racing, General Motors, Semon Bunkie Knudsen, Jim Wangers, The Goat, Put a tiger in your tank

Id: hxVcX-vn0-A

Length: 25min 3sec (1503 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 29 2017