Long wait for 1965 GTO was worth it
Regina man was a teenager when he first starting eyeing the flashy muscle car
Marv Francoeur of Regina vividly recalls the first time he saw a red, 1965 Pontiac GTO — more than 50 years ago.
He was a Grade 9 student at Scott Collegiate in Regina.
“There was a fellow in Grade 11, and his grandmother used to buy him all his cars. He was always driving to school in his 1963 Chevrolet Impala SS convertible. Then one day he came to school driving a new 1965 Pontiac GTO hardtop — red, with a white interior. It sure beat the heck out of my ’57 Plymouth four-door sedan. I said: ‘Someday I’m going to own one of those’ and decided then, that someday I would have one — and now I do,” says Francoeur.
The Pontiac GTO stands out in automotive history because it started the muscle car concept.
The idea was simple — put a big engine in an intermediate-sized car in order to get great performance.
The GTO was introduced midway through the 1964 model year as an option package on the midsized Pontiac Tempest. Never before had such a larger motor — 389 cubic inches (6.4 litres) — been put in a mid-size American car.
Francoeur’s GTO has the 389-cubic-inch V8, as well as the optional three two-barrel carburetors (resulting in 348 hp) and a four-speed manual transmission.
The concept was John DeLorean’s, who was head of Pontiac at the time. In his autobiography, On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors, DeLorean says, “The most memorable product coup while I was at Pontiac was the birth of the muscle car craze ... The Engineering Policy Group technically should have been consulted about putting these bigger engines into the intermediate car, but we were afraid they would turn us down or take so long to give their approval that we wouldn’t get the car into production on time ... The GTO gave birth to the muscle car craze of the mid-1960s.”
Early projections of sales of 5,000 GTO option packages were way off; in all 32,450 were sold. Its success was largely due to the enthusiastic response of the motoring press.
Car and Driver magazine played a big role in the success of the Pontiac GTO. Pontiac had swiped the GTO name from Ferrari, and on the cover of its March 1964 issue Car and Driver had a sketch of a Pontiac GTO racing a Ferrari GTO. Although Car and Driver wasn’t able to do an actual side-by-side comparison test of the two GTOs, it tested them separately; it had lots of praise for the Pontiac GTO, saying it was “the best American car we have ever driven.”
The magazine also said, “The Ferrari GTO is a racing car that costs $20,000 new ... With every conceivable option on a Pontiac, it would be difficult to spend more than $3,800. That’s a bargain.”
The Pontiac GTO also became part of popular culture, thanks to a hit song by Ronny and the Daytonas called GTO that reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles in the fall of 1964.
Little GTO, you’re really lookin’ fine Three deuces and a four-speed and a 389
Listen to her tachin’ up now, listen to her whine
C’mon and turn it on, wind it up, blow it out, GTO
Yeah, yeah, little GTO, yeah, yeah, little GTO
For the 1965 model year, Pontiac sold 75,352 GTOs. The GTO’s best year was 1966, when 96,946 were sold. Within three years, competitors were offering their own midsized muscle cars, including the Buick Skylark GS, Chevrolet Malibu SS 396, Dodge Coronet R/T, Ford Fairlane GT, Mercury Cyclone GT, Oldsmobile 4-4-2 and Plymouth GTX.
It took 30 years, but Francoeur finally bought a ’65 GTO in 1995. This car was built in California and was originally owned by a person in Seattle, Wash. Then it came to Canada; it was in Assiniboia and Moose Jaw before Francoeur bought it.
It had been freshly painted five years before he bought it, and then was put in storage. It didn’t need much work — but Francoeur pulled out the engine to detail it.
“Then we jumped in it and drove to Minnesota,” he recalls.
But, he says with a laugh, “It’s not comfortable on the highway.”
His GTO is all original — except for the wheels, tires and steering wheel.
“I used to drive it only about two or three times a year. Then I retired, so now I can go out a little more often,” he says.
“The grandchildren love it. They sit in the back and are surprised there are ashtrays — but no cupholders.”
And he says, “It’s fun to drive — and I don’t plan on selling it.”