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Back when
computers were still mysterious machines which filled entire rooms with
spinning reels and blinking lights, one could go down to the local dealer
with $4000 in his pocket and drive away with a car with two four barrels
atop a seven liter engine, enough room inside for the entire family and
a trunk big enough to hold the average import ( I once watched a guy stuff
most of a Volkswagen; doors, fenders, hood and more; into the trunk of
a '65 Catalina- I kid you not! ).
Pontiac was
winning races and had thus established itself as a preferred perveyor of
potent powerplants when a young engineer named John Delorean combined an
energetic engine with GM's newly redesigned midsized platform and, borrowing
a name from an expensive Italian make, gave birth to the American muscle
car in the form of the Pontiac GTO.
Within a
short time it had become apparent that the American public had a voracious
appetite for high performance machinery but there was a growing contingent
who wanted the aggressiveness of the GTO but demanded a more upscale image.
The gears were still turning inside old Jonny Del's head. He stretched
the Goat's chassis six inches; all ahead of the motor mounts; widened the
front track and borrowing from the Deusenburg, another timeless automotive
classic, gave us the '69 Grand Prix. Back then you could have it all!
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