1964 GTO Tri-Power

Silver 1964 Pontiac GTO two-door coupe with split grille and stacked-look headlamps, front three-quarter in the GM Heritage Center hall — 1964 Pontiac Tempest LeMans GTO sports coupe in silver, GM Heritage Center collection General Motors

Silver 1964 GTO coupe seen from the rear three-quarter in the GM Heritage Center, neon signs and collection cars behind — 1964 Pontiac Tempest LeMans GTO sports coupe, rear three-quarter, GM Heritage Center collection General Motors

Engine bay of a 1964 GTO: a blue Pontiac 389 V-8 topped by three chrome air cleaners on the Tri-Power carburetors — 1964 Pontiac GTO 389 V-8 with Tri-Power triple two-barrel carburetors, GM Heritage Center collection General Motors

Red interior of a 1964 GTO with a thin-rim steering wheel, engine-turned dash panel with round gauges, bucket seats and a white shift knob — 1964 Pontiac GTO interior with red bucket seats, engine-turned dash and floor shifter, GM Heritage Center collection General Motors

Close-up of the triangular red, chrome and checkered GTO 6.5 LITRE badge on the silver front fender of a 1964 GTO — 1964 Pontiac GTO "GTO 6.5 LITRE" front-fender badge, GM Heritage Center collection General Motors

Factory statusFactory configuration

Body stylecoupe

Trim / packageGTO with Tri-Power

Engine389 cid engine

Inductionthree two-barrel carburetors

Published power348 bhp · Pontiac advertised bhp; basis not further identified

Published torque428 lb-ft · Pontiac advertised bhp torque

Forward gears4

Transmissionfour-speed manual

Matched period road testUnknown

What this record proves

The badge is only the beginning.

Tri-Power and a four-speed take the same 389 to 348 advertised brake horsepower, and this is the configuration most people mean when they say GTO without qualifying it. Three two-barrel carburetors and a different gearbox make it a materially different car from the four-barrel three-speed.

The two GTO records exist separately for that reason. A twenty-three-horsepower advertised difference and a changed transmission are exactly the distinctions that vanish when a page treats the GTO as one thing, and they are the distinctions a buyer, a restorer, or a judge actually cares about.

As with the base package, the rating is Pontiac's advertised figure with no stated basis, and no instrumented period test is attached. The Tri-Power's reputation rests partly on magazine coverage whose test cars were not always representative of what a showroom delivered.