GTO

1965 Pontiac GTO convertible.

Forty-three long years ago yr fthful srvnt got himself in deepest doo-doo making fun of the Dean-of-Men’s son’s Pontiac GTO at Houghton College.
The Pontiac GTO was the first of the so-called “muscle-cars,” smallish cars with big souped-up engines.
Although a case can be made for the earlier Chrysler 300 series — but that was a full-size car with an extremely powerful engine (300 horsepower).
The first GTO was the 1964 model-year; the midsize Pontiac Tempest with the 389 cubic-inch motor usually found in full-size Pontiacs.
The GTO nomenclature was stolen from Ferrari: Grand-Touring-Omologato. Ferrari had a so-called GTO model. GTOs were supposedly street cars homologated for racing — cars that met special rules; like a luggage compartment.
(Ferrari made a mockery of the GTO class; essentially racecars built to meet the GTO rules, as opposed to street cars homologated for racing.)
The Pontiac GTO had a questionable reputation.
Very fast and powerful in a straight line, but a handful in curves.
Detroit hadn’t made the effort to make them handle; and I don’t know as they could have — the rear axle being poorly located, and car weight being unbalanced.
The NASCAR boys got the chassis layout to handle, but extensive modifications were needed.
Like better locating the rear axle with track-bars.
I almost got thrown out of Houghton on a tight-pants rap.
That was the time of the early Rolling-Stones, so the dress of ne’er-do-wells was determined by them.
But that was my Sophomore or Junior year.
I was dragged before the Dean-of-Men and told to bring my wardrobe into alignment with Christian standards.
Easier said than done; but by my Senior year the college had apparently decided to graduate me.
The Dean-of-Men’s son, whose last name was Mills (I forget his first name) bought a new 1965 Pontiac GTO convertible — he was in his early 20s.
Despite triple two-barrel carburetion, he was using that GTO as his daily-driver. So when snow started it loaded up with road grime.
I had a 1958 Triumph TR3, and was apprised that ferrin cars were much better than Detroit-iron.
Which they were, I guess.
Except Detroit-iron had more powerful motors.
The better alternative came when Detroit motors were melded with ferrin chassis; e.g. the AC-Cobra.
That was the old AC sportscar with a Ford Mustang V8.
But such cars weren’t available in quantity.
Yet the Pontiac GTOs were.
My brother-in-Boston has a 1971 454 cubic-inch Chevelle; what muscle-cars became as the decade advanced: very large motors in mid-sized cars. The result of a horsepower race.
I drove it once; so he could retrieve his Harley.
Mega horsepower!
I was in awe. “People used to race these things,” I thought to myself.
“How in the world do ya wide-open-throttle when it quakes and shakes just at idle?”
Wide-open-throttle would just spin the lightly-loaded rear-tires creating gobs of tire-smoke.
But of course that was the whole idea.
My friends and I used to measure the rubber-stripes laid down by cars. We once measured one 578 feet long on a hill supposedly laid down by a ‘59 Chevy six. (The Blue Bomb once did 17 feet.)
GTOs were street-raced by Degraded Yooth sporting long side-burns and dangling cigarettes languidly from their lips.
An impromptu drag-race from a traffic-light was winable, and a GTO might get 140 mph on the expressway.
—Tromping the ferriners.
But on a curving road the GTO was in the trees.
The front-end would plow, and if compensated with throttle, the rear broke loose and the car spun off the road.
The Dean-of-Men’s son was driving his GTO all over campus, and it was covered with road grime.
One day he parked it somewhere, so I furtively snuck up and scrawled “Cheap American Trash” in the road grime.
It went the whole length of the car — letters about 18 inches high — and I think I did both sides.
Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth!
Somehow I was fingered for this dastardly deed, so was trotted up before the Dean-of-Men, and also his son, who was markedly mad.
I might have scratched the paint, I was told.
That’s true, but I think he was more incensed I had successfully made fun of his precious car.

“Houghton College” in western New York, is from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I didn’t graduate with their approval. Houghton is a religious liberal-arts college.

“Triple two-barrel carburetion” is three two-barrel carburetors in a row, an application that allowed an engine to breathe better and generate more horsepower. Earlier cars used carburetors to mix fuel, but now fuel-injection is used, since it’s more precise in meeting emission-requirements. —At that time the average V8 engine might have a single two-barrel carburetor.

“Ferrin” equals “foreign.”

The “Blue Bomb” was the 1953 Chevrolet I learned to drive in — so-named because it was navy-blue.