1966 Pontiac GTO: The Option Becomes a Series, and the Best Year It Ever Had

Pontiac introduced its 1966 GTO models to the public on September 27, 1965, and for the first time the three letters did not hang off another car's name. The compiled production table gives the GTO its own series number, 242; in the 1964 and 1965 tables it sits inside the Tempest LeMans series. The division had a new man at the top as well. In 1965 John DeLorean, one of the Pontiac engineers credited with the original GTO, was promoted to head all of Pontiac. The Pontiac Preservation Association notes that at 40 he was the youngest division head General Motors had ever had.^1,2,3,4

The promotion from option to series was earned in the showroom. Ate Up With Motor reports that sales of the facelifted 1965 GTO jumped to more than 75,000 while Pontiac's total sales topped 801,000; the compiled table counts 75,352 GTOs for 1965. The corporation had already bent once to accommodate the car. After the 1964 GTO broke the corporate displacement limit for intermediate A-bodies, general manager Pete Estes was, in that history's phrase, slapped on the wrist, and the A-body displacement limit was raised to 400 cubic inches. A rule broken by a best-seller had been rewritten around it.^5,4

The car that carried the new series number was new metal. Over-Drive Magazine's fact sheet describes the 1966 A-body as more curvaceous, with kicked-up rear fender lines for the Coke-bottle look, a slightly recessed rear window, and a louvered taillight cover used only on the GTO. Width grew to 74.4 inches, and Motor Trend listed 206.4 inches of length on the unchanged 115-inch wheelbase. MotorCities' history adds a full-length rocker molding and six interior colors in Morrokide. New Strato bucket seats had higher, thinner backs, and for anyone who wanted the engine bay to shout, option code 522 lined the inner fenders in red plastic.^6,7,1

Under the hood Pontiac left the formula alone. The standard 389 with one four-barrel carburetor was rated at 335 hp at 5,000 rpm and 431 lb-ft; the Tri-Power 389, with three two-barrel carburetors on progressive linkage, was rated at 360 hp at 5,200 rpm and 424 lb-ft. Both ran 10.75:1 compression, and both ratings are advertised SAE gross. Motor Trend's price list put Tri-Power at $112.51. Ate Up With Motor notes the triple-carburetor engine had been rated at 348 hp in 1964 before new cylinder heads brought it to 360 for 1965 and 1966. Nothing about the engine choice was new; what was new was how many people now made it.^7,6,5

The sharpest tool arrived in January 1966. The XS Ram Air package took the Tri-Power 389, swapped its cam for the long-duration 744 grind (Over-Drive lists 301 degrees intake and 313 exhaust), and added stronger valve springs. Pontiac shipped the Ram Air pan separately for the dealer to fit, and Motor Trend explained that the package could be installed at the factory or assembled later from parts. The magazine also noted that it moved the power peak to 5,600 rpm without any change in the 360 hp rating. How many XS cars were built is not established: the figures in circulation are hedged and unattributed, so the number stays unknown.^6,4,7

A buyer could start at $2,783 for the sport coupe, $2,847 for the hardtop, or $3,082 for the convertible, the factory prices in the compiled table. Motor Trend printed different list prices, $2,826 and $3,059, on its own basis. From there the magazine's price list read like a menu: $182.98 for the all-synchromesh four-speed, $193.44 for the two-speed automatic, $36.60 for a limited-slip axle, $3.71 for heavy-duty suspension, $83.65 for the Rally Cluster with tachometer, and $340.60 for air conditioning. The three-speed manual stayed standard. Tri-Power and the four-speed together, the combination in the quicker of Motor Trend's two test cars, added $295.49.^2,7,6

Buyers ordered 96,946 of them, the highest total in the GTO's compiled production history and about 29 percent more than 1965. The hardtop was the car of the year: 73,785 hardtops, roughly 76 percent of the total. The convertible, $235 dearer than the hardtop, found 12,798 buyers, about 13 percent, and the pillared sport coupe, the least expensive way to get a GTO, accounted for 10,363, about 11 percent. The split between four-barrel and Tri-Power cars, and between manual and automatic transmissions, circulates only in unattributed copies and has not been traced to a Pontiac record. It remains unknown rather than guessed.^2,4

The rivals had arrived in force. Chevrolet made the Chevelle SS 396 its own series for 1966, with a 396 in every car, and ChevelleStuff's production pages count 66,843 sport coupes and 5,429 convertibles. Oldsmobile answered Tri-Power directly with the L69 4-4-2, three two-barrels and 360 hp; an Over-Drive tabulation counts 2,129 L69 cars among 24,180 4-4-2s. In March 1966 Car and Driver ran six of these cars, the GTO, SS 396, 4-4-2, Skylark Gran Sport, Fairlane GT/A and Comet Cyclone GT, at the Westhampton drag strip and the Bridgehampton circuit with Masten Gregory driving. Its GTO was a Royal Bobcat car, and the magazine noted that the three most stock entries gave the least trouble.^8,9,10

Motor Trend's May 1966 test, 'A Tale of the Tiger, Told Twice,' put two press GTOs side by side and showed how much the order form mattered. A 335 hp hardtop with the two-speed automatic and 3.23 gears ran 0-60 mph in 7.5 seconds and the quarter mile in 15.6 seconds at 90 mph. A 360 hp Tri-Power convertible with the close-ratio four-speed and 3.55 gears, heavier at a 3,720-pound curb weight, did 0-60 in 6.8 seconds and ran 15.50 seconds at 93.16 mph at Carlsbad Raceway. On the standard 9.5-inch drums it stopped from 60 mph in 136 feet. Those figures belong to those two cars, which listed at $3,677.43 and $3,917 as tested.⁷

Pontiac sold the car as much as it built it. When tire supplier U.S. Royal branded its new red-line tire the Tiger Paw, it approached Pontiac about a cross-promotion, and Jim Wangers followed with GTO cologne and aftershave from Max Factor, GTO driving shoes from Thom McAn, and a GTO on the new Monkees television series. MotorCities records the slogans 'Speak softly and carry a GTO' and 'The Great One' in Car Craft, Car and Driver and Hot Rod. Not everyone at General Motors was charmed. Ate Up With Motor, without dating the order, reports that GM president James Roche told DeLorean to tone down the tiger advertising.^5,1

The 1966 car also turned out to be the last of a line. General Motors issued a ban on multiple carburetors for every car except Chevrolet's Corvair and Corvette, which in Ate Up With Motor's account put an end to Pontiac's popular Tri-Power. The 1967 GTO arrived with the engine bored to 400 cubic inches and no triple two-barrels on the list, and production fell to 81,722. No later GTO year in the compiled tables matched the 1966 total. For one year the option that had broken a corporate rule was Pontiac's own series, its three carburetors still legal, and nearly 97,000 buyers took one home.^5,4