Era of Pontiac Comes to an End
1st November 2010
Formed in 1926, Pontiac made cars for the working class until a sales slump in the 1950s nearly killed it. GM revived the brand by connecting it to auto racing. From then on, each Pontiac sales boom was driven by speed.
The brand’s most storied muscle car, the GTO, came about when some GM engineers took a small car called the Tempest and put a powerful V8 engine under the hood. The letters stood for “Gran Turismo Omologato,” Italian for “ready to race.”
November 2nd, 2010 at 08:41
Errr, Gran Turismo Omologato means Big Two-door Homologated. Homologation means the manufacturer made (just) enough of the model for it to be considered a production car. Plymouth’s Superbird is a good example.
One phone call to a Car Guy would not have killed the reporter, would it have?
November 2nd, 2010 at 15:20
Apparently so.
It’s not like reporters put a lot of effort into their jobs these days.