Holmstrom - GTO

GTO

PONTIACS GREAT ONE

Darwin Holmstrom
Photography by David Newhardt

First published in 2009 by Motorbooks, an imprint of MBI Publishing Company, 400 First Avenue North, Suite 300, Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA

Copyright 2010, 2011 by Darwin Holmstrom and David Newhardt

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Digital edition: 978-1-6106-0945-6
Softcover edition: 978-0-7603-3985-5

ISBN-13: 978-0-7603-3985-5

Editor: Chris Endres
Designers: Simon Larkin and Chris Fayers
Jacket Designer: Simon Larkin

Printed in China

About the author
Darwin Holmstrom, senior acquisitions editor for MBI Publishing, has written or co-written over a dozen books on cars and motorcycles, including BMW Motorcycles, GTO: Pontiacs Great One, The Harley-Davidson Motor Co. Archive Collection, Camaro: Forty Years, Muscle: Americas Legendary Performance Cars, and The Complete Idiots Guide to Motorcycles.

About the Photographer
Photographer and writer David Newhardt was born in Chicago, Illinois, and attended Southern Illinois University, majoring in Professional Photography. He served eight years in the U.S. Navy aboard nuclear submarines before settling in Southern California. Newhardt worked at Motor Trend magazine for three years and has been on the masthead of other top automotive magazines. He has shot fashion photography, but finds that automobiles make better subjects. The author of seven books, Newhardt has supplied scores of other books with images. A longtime member of the Motor Press Guild, he lives in Pasadena, California, with his wife and two sons.

On the cover: No grille treatment from the muscle car era is as iconic as that of the GTO.

On the frontispiece: In creating GTO, Pontiac started not just a new model, but a new genre of American automobile.

On the title pages: Few cars before or after possess the presence of the 1967 GTO.

On contents page: hough not very accurate, the hood-mounted tach was a signature item that no owner wanted to be without.

PONTIACS GREAT ONE

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THE PHOTOGRAPHER

Photographing muscle cars in general, and GTOs in particular, is a wonderful way to make a living. The owners are passionate, the vehicles possess rugged good looks, and the soundtrack is second to none. To say that I had a ball photographing the automobiles in this book would be an understatement. But none of it would have been possible without the help of many individuals.

In no particular order, they are: Mike Guarise, Colin Comer, Cana Tinkle, Ken Lingenfelter, Eric White, Rich Dabrowski, Taft L. Taylor, Merrill Taylor, John Gust, Mike Tiffany, Joe Sparks, Bill Nawrot, John and Jenette Holmes, Bob Cupery, Bill Baker, Barry Troup, Carter Chee, Les Iden, Jack Blum, Joseph Church, Bernie DeMarkey, Doug Watt, Roger Becker, Bill and Rita Schultz, Tenney Fairchild, Dave Anderson, Jim Gannes, Keith Seymore, Jim Kennedy, Stefano Bimbi, Jan Laxton, Jack Blum, Otto Tharp Sr., John at Grouchos Performance, Bob Alling, Charles Bailey, Glenn Hammack, Irvin Hammack, Doug Emch, Scott Tiemann, Rodney Salmon, Irv Hammack, Jim Golata, Jerald Papesh, Chuck Cocoma, Mike Radke, General Motors Public Relations, Pam Ertman, Dean Jefferies, Benjamin J. Geer, Steven Dorris, Matt Stone, Arnie Beswick, the staff of Chicagoland Raceway, Les Quam, Dana Mecum, David Christenholz, Richard & Elaine Bonnefoi, Dan Paush, Bob & Judy Foxx, Michael Smyth, Len & Pat Cradit, Greg & Lara Williams, Randy Leffingwell, Brett Torino, and Faxon Auto Literature.

A huge thank-you to Eric Schiffer and Jim Wangers. I tip my hat to my editor, Chris Endres, for his sage advice and patient mien. The author of this tome, Darwin Holmstrom, and I have collaborated on a number of auto-motive books, and its always a pleasure working with him.

Finally, thank you to my wife, Susan Foxx-Newhardt, for holding down the fort while I travel across the country working.

THE AUTHOR

In addition to all the folks David Newhardt mentions, Id like to thank David himself for providing the stunning photography in this book. The best part about working with David is that the man never loses his enthusiasm for photographing muscle cars. Every time he calls me to talk about the car he just shot, his excitement is infectious and I wish Id been there with him.

Id also like to thank our editor, Chris Endres, and our publisher, Zack Miller. But they are just the leading edge of an entire staff that works incredibly hard to make a book like this a reality, people like Melinda Keefe, Carmen Nickisch, Jenny Miller, Krystyna Borgen, our publicists Nichole Schiele and Blake Johnson, and many, many other dedicated people.

I have to thank my entire family: my grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins, brother, children, grandchildren, niece and nephews, and all of my in-laws, people who are always there to provide support. Id especially like to thank my parents, Dean and JoAnne Holmstrom, and my wife, Patricia Johnson, who practically has a full-time job keeping my dumb ass alive. I dont make it easy for her. Its to these last three that this book is dedicated.

CHAPTER 1
WERE GOING RACING!

Historians rightly peg the birth of the Pontiac GTO to one spring day in 1963. That day Pontiacs Chief Engineer John DeLorean and his two favorite staff engineers, Bill Collins and Russ Gee, came up with the inspired idea of mounting a high-performance 389-cubic-inch V-8 engine in the Tempest, which was Pontiac divisions version of General Motors then new corporate A-body intermediate platform. But if that moment marked the birth of the GTO and hence the birth of the entire muscle car era, the GTOs (and the genres) conception occurred much earlier.

Trouble of the GTO variety had been brewing at Pontiac since at least 1956, when a fellow named Semon E. Bunkie Knudsen assumed control of the division. Knudsens appointment had almost been preordained. His father, William Signius Big Bill Knudsen, a Danish immigrant, had managed Pontiac division before he succeeded Alfred P. Sloan as the president of General Motors in 1937. Nineteen years later the younger Knudsens assignment was simple: revive the division or it would be eliminated. At that time Pontiac was a brand without an image.