1964 Pontiac GTO - The First Muscle Car

The Conception and Birth of the 1964 Pontiac GTO

Like many successful ventures, the 1964 GTO or "goat" as it is affectionately called, was created due to an unforeseen circumstance. In early 1963, General Motors sent out a memo that put an end to racing. The Pontiac Catalina with the Super Duty 421 had ruled NASCAR winning 52 out of 105 races in 1961 and 1962. This translated into Pontiac moving up to third place in sales and the slogan "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday" was never more apparent.

It would be a huge understatement to say that the memo came as a monstrous shock to Pontiac executives as they realized no more racing would mean no more Super Duty 421 Catalinas and that would mean no more performance image to the young guys who were buying their cars. They had the image now and didn't want to lose it. They knew it was the young guys who have pushed them into third place in sales and they were the guys who were keeping them there.

Drastic measures were call for and in May 1974 CARS magazine printed a history of the 1964-1974 Goat with a conception of how those measures may have become a reality. It was reprinted in Popular Mechanic in 2002. It certainly created a legend that would live for the past 45 years.

They wrote that the Pontiac executives were in a meeting trying to figure out what to do to protect the sales figures that the performance had built for them, when Jim Wangers walked in. He was the account executive for the Pontiac advertising agency and a hot rodder, drag racer and part-time product planner for Pontiac. When asked if he had seen the memo and what could they do about it. Wangers said "Look, I've got this crazy idea. It may work and it may not. I think we should give it a try".