This ’69 Pontiac GTO isn’t just the judge, it’s the jury and executioner too.

The Pontiac GTO is the godfather of all muscle cars, the one that started the big engine in medium body trend.

The initials that make up its name stand for Gran Turismo Omologato, but more commonly the car is known as ‘the great one’.

From when production began in 1964 until the last GTO rolled off the production line in 1974, no fewer than 514,793 GTOs were sold. And that doesn’t even include the late-model Holden Monaros that were rebadged and sold as GTOs.

Pontiac engineer Russell Gee and chief engineer John DeLorean had the brainwave to create the GTO in 1963, after General Motors had banned the company’s divisions from becoming involved in motorsport.

At the time, Pontiac’s image was largely built around high-performance vehicles, and the key marketing plan was to win races on Sunday to help sell cars on Monday. Chances are if it were not for these engineers who went against GM’s non-competition policy, the Pontiac name would have disappeared long before it did.

(more…)