Motor Trend gushes about the 1970 Pontiac GTO — right before it tanks

Nineteen-seventy would be disastrous for the Pontiac GTO, but you’d never guess that from a Motor Trend article at the beginning of the model year. Indeed, Bill Sanders wrote that Pontiac’s muscle car may not have always been “hotter on the drag strips,” but that its clean styling made it a good choice for a broader range of buyers (1969, p. 61).

Pontiac found that the average GTO buyer was 25 years old and 85 percent were male, but 55 percent of them were married. Pontiac General Manager James McDonald told Motor Trend that “we have expanded beyond just the performance-minded individual. You see a lot of young women driving GTOs” (Sanders, 1969; p. 61).

The puffery just oozes from the magazine. For example, a full-page photo the accompanies the piece was headlined, “Generation Gap? . . . these guys don’t know the meaning of the words” (Sanders, 1969; p. 58). Um, what? You mean the six guys standing next to a bare GTO chassis in white shirts, dark ties and short hair?

Yeah, those guys. McDonald went on to say that “we’re blessed at Pontiac with some real young thinking, let’s say, car-motivated people” (Sanders, 1969; p. 62). And he listens to what they have to say! Like that the GTO needed to keep up in the “mine’s bigger than yours” race, so for 1970 it offered an optional 455 V8 with 370 horsepower.

Pontiac said a 455 V8 would broaden GTO’s appeal

Chief Engine Engineer Malcolm McKellar insisted that the new V8 “is certainly going to broaden the market for the GTO. With the larger engine, professional people who want air conditioning, for instance, will have a better feeling car” (Sanders, 1969; p. 62).

Of course, you can go too far in appealing to the “professional people and not satisfying the kids,” McKellar added. “I think from my experience in driving this 455 engine about, the young guy is really going to go after it because it comes on real strong in the higher RPMs” (Sanders, 1969; p. 62).

Executive Assistant Chief Engineer Herm Kaiser noted that the GTO’s handling had been improved for 1970 by the addition of a rear stabilizer bar and a larger one in front. “We’d like to have a car that handles so well that it surprises people by its handling,” Kaiser said (Sanders, 1969; p. 99).

Why, per chance, might that be so surprising? Could it be that if you plop a big, heavy engine into a relatively light, mid-sized car with a rudimentary suspension that said car is going to go much better in a straight line than through the curves?

Yup. Car Life had judged that a 1969 GTO “was not a sporting automobile on Orange County Raceway’s road course.” The Pontiac was best on the highway, where “the suspension needn’t do things it doesn’t like to do” (1969, p. 24).

So them nerdy GM engineers — or perhaps more accurately, them bean counters — had learned the hard way when they decided to improve the GTO’s suspension? Insurance rates escalated with muscle cars due to high accident rates (Muscle Car Illustrated, 2023). Like, maybe if the cars handled better then fewer drivers would get themselves in trouble?

Pontiac brags about its ‘sensitivity to the market’

GM clearly wanted to pat itself on the back for the GTO’s changes, because the article concluded by quoting Assistant Materials Engineer Doug McCullough:

“These automobiles don’t just evolve by themselves — they don’t just turn out to be whatever they are by a process of natural evolution. They are what they are as a result of a team effort that’s backed by a solid management sensitivity to the market.” (Sanders, 1969; p. 99)

Despite the lavish spread that Motor Trend bestowed upon the 1970 GTO, production fell by almost 45 percent to roughly 40,000 units. The Dodge Charger saw a similar decline, but it once again comfortably outsold the GTO at almost 50,000 units. Meanwhile, the Ford Torino GT bested them both when its output fell only 16 percent to roughly 68,000 units.

If muscle car sales were bad in 1970, they got even worse in 1971, when under 11,000 GTOs left the factory. That would be the last year when the car was offered as a stand-alone series.

What happened to all those young people that Pontiac thought would continue to want GTOs? As we have discussed here, they weren’t buying pony cars either. Instead, the likes of the Plymouth Duster and Ford Maverick saw booming sales.

NOTES:

Production figures were calculated from data published by the auto editors of Consumer Guide (1993, 2006) and Gunnell (2002).

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RE:SOURCES

• Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 1993, 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, IL.
• Car Life; 1969. “The Judge.” March issue: pp. 21-25. Posted by Over-Drive Magazine.
• Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
• Muscle Cars Illustrated; 2023. “Why The Muscle Car Era Ended in the 70s.” Posted March 11.
• Sanders, Bill; 1969. “GTO: 1970 Super Car Extraordinary.” Motor Trend. Sept. issue: pp. 56-62, 99. Posted by Automotive History Preservation Society.

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