1967 Pontiac GTO / Mecum Auctions
The Pontiac GTO arguably started the big-engined intermediate Supercar craze in 1964, and it was the one to beat in this hotly contested segment. Its performance didn’t always live up to the hype, but in October 1967, Car Life found that a 1967 GTO with the rare Ram Air engine was no paper tiger — it was fast enough that they proclaimed it “King of the Supercars,” although they found it left much to be desired in real-world use.
Auto enthusiasts sometimes get very ornery about these car magazine road tests of vintage domestic cars, complaining that the testers held the cars to unrealistically high standards by expecting them to be able go around corners without dragging the door handles on the pavement, complete a panic stop without ending up sideways, or descend a steep mountain grade without running out of brakes before the bottom. Car Life began this test by conceding:
Any automobile must be evaluated with respect to product intent. This intent may be specifically stated by the manufacturer, reinforced by advertising. or determined by vehicle testers. Fair evaluation of a vehicle must include determination of the vehicle’s ability to meet intended criteria. Perhaps more than the majority of automobiles, the Ram Air GTO requires this sort of definitive inspection.
Pontiac claimed that the 1967 GTO was “The ultimate driving machine” (with no apologies needed to BMW, which didn’t adopt that now-trademarked slogan until the 1970s), but the main point was to look good and go fast for a not-too-outrageous price. Look good, it surely did: Car Life remarked, “If styling, both interior and exterior, is an important criterion, GTO is a winner,” and I would have to agree. In fact, for my money, this is the best-looking GM intermediate of the period, and with prices starting at $2,935 for the two-door hardtop, it was practically a bargain.
1967 Pontiac GTO hardtop / Mecum Auctions
As for its performance, Car Life said:
Does the Ram Air GTO accomplish intended goals toward which it is aimed? Most definitely and emphatically, YES! Lumpy idle and harsh ride, qualities that would be unsatisfactory in a family sedan, become acceptable, even desirable in a full-blooded Supercar. And dragstrip elapsed times of 14.5 sec., with speeds in the 101–103 mph range, definitely qualify an automobile as a Supercar. Such performance assumes even loftier status when it is emphasized that these numbers were achieved in normal fashion, vehicle in completely standard road trim, and nearly 400 lb. of driver, passenger and test gear aboard.
One pass through the lights with driver only produced an e.t. of 13.9 sec. at 102.8 mph. Dragstrip potential is sure to be in the bottom 13-sec. bracket with slicks, open tuned headers and all power and emission control equipment removed.
The figures in the data panel below give a quarter mile time of 14.5 seconds at a terminal speed of 102.0 mph. Mark that terminal speed well, because like top speed, it’s one of the clearest indicators of a vehicle’s actual developed horsepower. Elapsed times and 0 to 60 mph or 0 to 100 km/h times can depend on a lot of factors, from traction to gearing to shift points to driver technique, but the actual speed through the traps is largely a function of power-to-weight ratio.
1967 Pontiac GTO hardtop in Mariner Turquoise with the optional black Cordova vinyl top and Rally II wheels / Mecum Auctions
The GTO’s trap sped makes a revealing comparison with the 1967 Plymouth GTX hardtop Car Life had tested earlier in the year, which weighed 50 lb more than the GTO and had a 440 and TorqueFlite. Although the 440 cu. in. (7,206 cc) Chrysler RB engine claimed 15 hp more than the GTO’s 400 cu. in. (6,554 cc) V-8, Ram Air GTO was far more highly tuned, and significantly faster. Car Life recorded a trap speed of 97 mph for the GTX, which was formidable enough in most leagues, but the GTO was 5 mph faster. This meant the GTO was considerably more powerful, and undoubtedly more powerful than its 360 hp gross rating suggested — the 360 hp figure was strictly a procedural fiction, dictated by GM corporate policy limiting rated output to no more than 1 advertised horsepower for each 10 lb of base curb weight.
Most earlier GTOs had lacked the stopping power to match their straight-line go, but for 1967, the GTO and its GM intermediate cousins were finally available with front disc brakes, which helped a great deal. Discs weren’t standard, which they should have been — they cost $104.79 on a 1967 GTO — but Car Life found that they allowed very respectable deceleration rates (29 ft/sec.²). Unlike some early disc/drum systems, they were easy to modulate to avoid rear lockup, and the spec panel says they survived eight stops from 80 mph with minimal fade, an outstanding performance for the time. With the standard 9.5-inch drums, a single 80 mph stop heated the brakes enough to cause severe fade.
Because I’m sure someone else will point it out if I don’t mention it, by the time this article originally appeared in print, the 1968 GTO was only days away — Pontiac introduced its 1968 models on September 21, 1967 — and Car Life editors had already driven it. If you’ve never worked in this kind of magazine publishing, when an article is written doesn’t generally have a strong relationship with when it actually appears in print, and production lead times in the pre-computer days were longer, so this road test was undoubtedly conducted many months earlier than it ran. Thus, Car Life published a test of the 1968 Ram Air GTO in May 1968, just seven months after this one.
1967 Pontiac GTO with center console, custom sport wheel, rally gauge cluster, and Turbo Hydra-Matic with Hurst Dual-Gate shifter / RK Motors
The 1967 GTO did have an attractive interior treatment, but the complete instrumentation mentioned in the text was still an $84.26 option, which gave you water temperature and oil pressure gauges in the right-most binnacle and an 8,000-rpm tachometer in the second right pod. Car Life found that the tachometer wasn’t terribly accurate — it was 200 rpm slow at 5,600 rpm, a dangerous margin of error with a high-strung engine, and the reason why it’s common to see aftermarket tachometers in these cars even if they have the optional rally gauge cluster.
Rally gauge cluster was an $84.26 option in 1967 / RK Motors
Turbo Hydra-Matic was another new option on the GTO for 1967, and quite pricey: With the hotter engines, it listed for $272.56, the most expensive option on the car. When console-mounted, the shift lever had the new Hurst Dual Gate controls, which provided a second quadrant to the right of the normal shift pattern, allowing sequential manual control of gear changes with a positive latching mechanism. Car Life called it “one of the finest controls ever tested by CL,” offering “positive, effortless, and genuinely pleasant” manual selection.
Hurst Dual-Gate shifter for Turbo Hydra-Matic / RK Motors
It’s not clear from the spec table if the test car had the optional “ride & handling” suspension (a mere $3.74 if ordered on a new car), although that is implied by the text description:
Ride and handling of the GTO are best described as firm and stable. Low speed ride quality was harsh, particularly on broken pavement or tar strips. Handling qualities included a reasonable amount of understeer at low speeds, near-neutral steering al high speeds and high cornering forces, and sufficient power available for power oversteer at nearly any speed. The Firestone Super Sports Wide Oval tires (fitted to all GTOs) supplied adequate traction for brisk takeoffs, and proved stable when cornering near the limit of adhesion. No axle hop on acceleration or braking was encountered. In general, the GTO demonstrated stability and handling consistent with its high performance level.
You’ll notice that the turquoise car in the color photos has a rear anti-roll bar, which was a previous owner’s aftermarket additional. Although the 1967 Oldsmobile 4-4-2 had a rear anti-roll bar that could easily be adapted to a GTO, Pontiac didn’t offer this as a factor option, and the GTO’s handling probably suffered a bit as a result.
This car’s rear anti-roll bar is not stock, and wasn’t fitted to the CL test car / Mecum Auctions
Pontiac first offered a functional cold-air scoop as a rare dealer=installed option in 1965. The original plan had been to offer the cold-air hood along with a new dual four-barrel carburetion option. The dual-quad engine was canceled prior to production, but since Pontiac had developed the pieces needed to open the otherwise-cosmetic hood scoop and mate it to a foam-insulated tub around the carburetor(s), they offered this as a dealer kit beginning late in the 1965 model year. This didn’t include any engine changes, but from February 1966, this option added stiffer valve springs and a hotter camshaft with longer duration and more overlap. Officially, neither the new cam nor the cold air intake added any power, but in the real world, the package added about 3 mph to quarter-mile trap speeds. For 1967, this became the L67 Ram Air option, which was now combined with a big Rochester Quadrajet four-barrel carburetor rather than the previous Tri-Power.
Functional hood scoop was part of the L67 Ram Air package, and had previously been available as part of a dealer-installed kit / Mecum Auctions
“Ram Air” was something of a misnomer because the shape and position of the scoop didn’t allow any meaningful ram effect — it could only pick up slow-moving boundary layer air clinging to the car’s hood. Boundary layer air was still significantly colder and denser than under-hood air, however, which was worthwhile. Combined with the Ram Air package’s hotter camshaft, a rough guess would be something close to 20 percent more real horsepower than the GTO’s 360 hp H.O. engine. (Factory power ratings, gross or net, are corrected for temperature and humidity, so for once the benefits in the real world might have been significantly greater than on paper, even if Pontiac had published accurate net ratings for its 1967 engines.)
Ram Air engine in a 1967 GTO undergoing restoration / RK Motors
The Ram Air package cost $263.30 in 1967 and required a 4.33 axle ratio, a ratio obviously tailored for the drag strip rather than the street. Despite the stiffer valve springs, the testers still noted worrisome valve float at about 5,600 rpm, which posed a problem:
With regard to float speed, it should he reported that the Ram Air GTO is somewhat unusual among domestic automobiles in that top speed in high gear must be approached with great caution. The 107-mph top speed, grossly illegal in almost every state, is not only potentially dangerous to occupants. but severe damage to the engine is likely to result. The Ram Air GTO carries a 4.33:1 axle ratio as standard equipment. This ratio enables the engine to easily exceed valve float speed in high gear — in a very brief elapsed lime. Most passenger cars are geared in such a way that they cannot exceed float speed in high gear without a very long sustained speed run. if at all. Not so the Ram Air GTO. Exceeding 5600 rpm in high gear was not difficult and, with the high gear acceleration potential of this automobile, drivers were able to run up to this speed without being conscious of having reached such velocity. A close watch on the tachometer definitely was in order to prevent engine damage.
Given their comments about the tachometer reading 200 rpm slow, the valve float speed became tricky business for drag racers. On the street in the U.S., few drivers were likely to spend much time at speeds over 100 mph, it was true, but an NHRA competitor with slicks and headers might well hit 107 mph at or just after the lights. The issue might have been specific to the test car (Popular Hot Rodding, testing what might have been the same car, experienced the same problem), but it was troublesome nonetheless. Royal Pontiac offered lock nuts that could be added to the rocker arms to hold the lifter plungers at the ends of their travel, making them function like solid lifters; that (and a set of less-worn valve springs) would seem a useful addition to an engine like this.
Valve float wasn’t the only limitation of the Ram Air engine. Car Life warned:
The Ram Air GTO definitely is not pleasant for normal city traffic operation. The lest car surged, loped and generally ran miserably at part throttle up to 60 mph (3000 rpm). Part of this was no doubt due to California emission control apparatus on the test car, but part must be blamed on the high stale of tune of the Ram Air engine. Freeway operation was exciting. … Not so pleasant was the engine noise level. With a 4.33:1 axle ratio, 70 mph requires approximately 3500 rpm, an engine speed unpleasant to the cars and undesirable for engine wear.
California GTOs had the GM Air Injection Reactor system, which added fresh air to the exhaust manifold to reduce carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emissions, but doesn’t seem to have paired well with the Ram Air camshaft, which had a lot of valve overlap: 76 degrees, compared to 54 degrees for the standard GTO engine and 63 degrees for the H.O.
Like the CL test car, this 1967 GTO has the Air Injection Reactor fitted to 1966–1967 California cars / Mecum Auctions
Some sources insist that the Ram Air package included the heavy-duty radiator normally specified with air conditioning (an option that was not offered with the Ram Air engine), but even if it did — and I had trouble finding a definitive answer on that point — Car Life still found engine cooling inadequate:
Freeway operation invariably resulted in temperatures near the 200° F mark. Slowing for low speed traffic or complete shutoff resulted in a significant amount of coolant boiling off and gushing out the radiator overflow tube. This may not be a major complaint to the drag racer who frequently refills the cooling system with fresh water between runs, but it is a point worthy of emphasis for the prospective buyer who intends to use this automobile for daily transportation between its appearances in weekend competitive events.
Not mentioned in the text is the awkward subject of gas mileage. With the 4.33 axle, this was firmly in the “If you have to ask …” category: According to the data panel, CL averaged just 8.9 mpg, with a “normal” range of 8 to 12 mpg.
Car Life called the Ram Air GTO “a limited-purpose vehicle,” warning that it was “not a pleasant family transportation vehicle, designed for economical, comfortable errand-running and Sunday driving.” For most buyers — even most Supercar buyers — the milder standard or H.O. “Quadra-Power” engines were a better choice, combined with a more sensible axle ratio. On the other hand, the CL editors remarked:
The test GTO was, however, truly fun, simply a big kick to drive. The Ram Air GTO provided a level of acceleration beyond belief to anyone not accustomed to Supercars. An owner can be assured of a competitive car in its class at most dragstrips. Performance on the street requires careful handling to avoid dangerous situations or legal entanglements. A driver who is willing to accept the operational compromises inherent in such a high-performance vehicle, and who is capable of treating the potential of the Ram Air GTO with due respect will find this automobile an exciting, willing performer.
Their test car was laden with a variety of options, some of them more worthwhile for the street than the drag strip (e.g., power steering, at $94.79, and the front discs, at $104.79), some rather incongruous for a car of this nature, like power windows and a power antenna for the optional AM/FM radio. This brought the final tally to a hefty $4,422, which was no longer such a bargain. A drag racer only interest in straight-line speed could probably have kept the list price to around $3,700, although the car wouldn’t be terribly pleasant to drive on the street.
1967 Pontiac GTO / Mecum Auctions
The Ram Air package was rare and specialized option. There were only factory 751 Ram Air cars in 1967, out of 81,722 GTOs built that year, although I assume quite a few more were created after the fact by adding the dealer-installed kit or some combination of similar modern parts (some of which work better than the factory parts, particularly, I am told, when it comes to exhaust manifolds).
1967 Pontiac GTO / Mecum Auctions
However, ultra-hot powertrain combinations like this hold an outsize place in the collective imagination when it comes to muscle cars: Everyone likes to imagine having the hottest thing on the road, even if they wouldn’t really be very happy with it if they did.
Related Reading
Curbside Classic: 1965 Pontiac GTO – How To Create a Legend and Build a Brand (by Paul N)
Curbside Classic: 1966 Pontiac GTO – A Goat or a Mule? (by J P Cavanaugh)
Cohort Classic: 1966 Pontiac GTO – A Brief Talk With The Legend (by Rich Baron)
Curbside Classic: 1967 Pontiac GTO – No Supplements Needed (by Joseph Dennis)
Vintage Review: Olds 442, Pontiac GTO, Comet Cyclone GT, Chevelle SS396, Buick Skylark GS, Ford Fairlane GTA – Car and Driver Test Drives Six Super Cars (by GN)
That 4.33 gear set would have to go!
Oh, it would GO alright!
After seeing 13.9 @ 103 MPH, I was shocked to see this car had an AUTOMATIC! (apparently the ‘Wide Orville’ tires didn’t hold the MPH down)
But then the 4.33 rear end helped explain that. Back in the day (my day, BTW), 99% of GTO buyers used these cars as their only daily driver, even with 4.33 rear gears. Gas 25-35c gallon, depending on where you bought it and the grade. Higher grades were 5 – 10c for each step up. Auto manufacturers didn’t care if you wore the engine out quickly with the 4.33 rear, just so it made it past the one year warranty. Maybe 5 years starting about ’67. They were ready to sell you another new car. New cars were cheap back then. Any high school kid with an after school job and parents willing to sign the payments note could buy a new GTO.
I chuckled at the comparison to a Chrysler product. John DeLorean had GTOs tuned hot right off the showroom floor, Chrysler muscle cars generally came with a ‘granny tune’. My buddy bought a new ’69 Road Runner and was shocked when my stock ’65 GTO convertible destroyed it in a race. He eventually talked to some local Chrysler racers and after a simple retune it would run side by side with the GTO, but could never come off the line with the GTO, because of better vehicle balance of the GTO and Pontiac engine low RPMs torque.
The ’65 tripower 389″ engine was rated 360 HP at 5100 RPMs, so might expect the larger ’67 400″ engine to make 360 HP by 4900-5000 RPMs, but they’re claiming 5400 RPMs (which would prolly be lifter pumpup for the ’65) so apparently an even hotter cam than the already hotter tripower cam. The tach in the pictures has the redline pointer at about 6200, if accurate. Maybe they just moved it out of the way. LOL!
With different rear gearing this car would make at least 140 MPH. Maybe another reason GM liked them going out the door with 4.33 rears.
Or an overdrive unit/transmission swap. I’ve got 4.30s in my Cougar and I cannot go back after experiencing them… but my overdrive drops RPM from 4th (1:1) by nearly 40%! Still gets 20s on the highway.
More to the point, it proves the need for more transmission ratios, in both manual and automatic transmissions going all the way back to the ’60s; perhaps earlier.
With all the major manufacturers skimping on 3- and 4-speed manuals, or 2- and 3-speed automatics, it’s no wonder that restomodders of ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s cars are cramming-in 5- and 6-speed boxes, (and potentially 8- and 10 speeds) along with more-reasonable rear axle ratios.
Wow! Perfect matching of paint, chrome and vinyl.
and “Oh!, the shine!
That 4:33 axle was nuts! But wow, what a drag strip performer it must have been.
The car in the photos is in one of my very favorite paint colors of the 60s. Am aunt and uncle had a 65 Catalina in the same color.
What caught my attention was the base GTO price of $2935. That’s not too much more that what Chrysler wanted for the 1968 Road Runner.
Of course, there’s a big difference in equipment. For starters, I don’t think that’s for a real hardtop, but a hardtop ‘coupe’ which would effectively be the same as a Tempest 2-door sedan with window frames.
And then the base GTO drivetrain would be a 389-2v and a floor shift 3-speed. A base 1968 Road Runner came with the special 383-4v (with 440 heads and cam), along with a 4-speed (although, by 1970, the bird’s base tranny would drop down to a 3-speed, too).
The result is that most cheap 1967 GTO would be at the very bottom of the musclecar ladder, being beaten by even a 390-4v Fairlane.
OTOH, for those not particularly interested in being competitive in the stoplight drags, as an overall daily-driver with better than average performance (as well as fuel economy), a strippo-trim Goat wouldn’t be that bad.
You’re comparing apples to oranges. There was a fair bit of inflation in the late ’60s. The 1968 GTO coupe (not hardtop) started at $3101, so that’s what needs to be compared to the RR, which started at $2896 in ’68.
No, the 265 hp 2v engine was never standard in the GTO; it was a credit delete option for those wanting a GTO without the high insurance cost. The 335 hp 4V 400 was standard. So no, the base GTO was not going to get beaten by a 390 Fairlane.
Slight correction:
“The 335 hp 4V 400 was standard”
Actually, the standard 400 GTO engine in ’68 was rated at 350 HP ( though the same engine was rated at 335 HP in the Firebird ) Another curiosity; during those years, especially 1968-1969, and some in ’70 Pontiac really played mix-and-match with camshaft specs on base GTO engines rated at the same nominal HP, depending of whether equipped with manual or automatic transmissions. The manuals getting more aggressive ones, and the specific specs varying year to year even among similar assignment groupings.
I was referring to the ’67.
Around here a new GTO stickering in $3600s could usually be bought at around $3000 – 3200 depending on who you knew and dickering ability…
Chrysler also had several camshafts depending on manual or automatic…
And if you ordered a 7.0L Ford, never knew if a 427 or 428 would show up.
Although both were an actual inch or two smaller than their name…
I see. I was under the impression the previous poster was attempting to compare/conflate the 1968 GTO with the Road Runner.
That’s quite a price hike for the 1968 GTO. No wonder the Road Runner was a smash hit.
And the GTO/Firebird engine thing was where the Pontiac engineers added a small screw to keep the carburetor butterfly from completely opening. Soon enough, Firebird 400 owners figured it out and removed the screw.
’66-’67 Pontiac intermediates were the best looking of all years and makes, IMO. ’68-on looked bloated by comparison. That turquoise is a knock-out, but leave off the vinyl roof, please. Interior was the best of any Domestic I can think of back then. Fake wood dash with round “gages” and steering wheel looked European at a bargain price. And that console shifter functions almost like a 21st Century “Select Shift” unit.
Exactly what engine damage would occur if the driver got into the valve-float range and didn’t have the good sense to back off?
You could expect the valves to contact the pistons, resulting in bent valves and/or pushrods and possible piston damage. You could also expect a warranty denial if the car was still under coverage.
I’ve done it twice, both times with a small block Chevy and a missed shift…..
I’m sure Pontiac wouldn’t accept responsibility because of the inaccurate tach!
GTOs didn’t have forged rods or pistons, but Armacast rods and cast pistons that had limited RPMs capability… swap in forged rods/pistons if going high RPMs solid lifters camshafts…
Those 1/4 mile numbers are right in line with stock Mopar 426 hemi numbers. Unlike Chrysler, Pontiac was essentially offering “tuned” engines in these cars. That was something they essentially pioneered. Pontiac drive train charts back then were a dizzying assortment of variations unlike other manufacturers. JDZ’s stamp is all over them.
And in Canada, ‘Pontiacs’ could be had with 425 HP 409s, 427s, and 454s…
Early hi-po Pontiacs are pretty rare here in the great white north as they were not generally sold here until the effects of the Auto Pact began to come into play. I think 1968 model year. If you wanted to pay a premium due to the high duty in place at the time I guess you could get one, but from what I saw on the streets 10 or 12 years later few did. Used ones were rare as well because until sometime in the mid ’80s it was very difficult (and expensive) to bring in a used car less than 15 years old.
When my buddies and I travelled to Spokane Raceway Park we used to look enviously at all the used musclecars out there that were essentially forbidden fruit to us. One of which was a ’67 GTO, although not with this engine. It was very nice, maybe $2500, and my friend wanted it badly. This was in 1982, so the car was still inside the 15 year rule. Couldn’t do it. He still occasionally mentions this when we get together for a beer now and then!
Great read!
When new, what young, middle age man (even some old dudes) wouldn’t have wanted one of these? Though maybe not a first choice, definitely on most wish lists. For its time it seemed to many enthusiasts a blend of near perfection in style and performance in a driving machine .
I feel this was the last lean, attractive GTO. The ’68 and models beyond were bloated, heavy looking beasts. Hanging all of those decals starting with the ’69 Judge, well, I’ll leave it at that. To each his own.
No longer having the nylon cam gear as found on the 389s was a good move. The Quadra-jet, a bad move. I’ve wondered how the car would have performed, over the long run, had it a Carter AFB/AVS carburetor. The income I lost replacing cam gears was somewhat replaced by working on the Quadra-Jet.
If I only had a time machine…
Actually, it took Chevy Malibu SS until 1970 to catch up with GTO sales numbers!
Most people didn’t go to dragstrips but most people saw what a GTO did stop light to stop light… Even this ’66 Chevelle SS 396 industrial ad showed the bigger GTOs shining: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJIRitKQYrM
I think the GTO was outsold by both the Road Runner and SS396 by 1969.
The Q-Jet wasn’t actually a bad performance carb if you understood how to set it up. The AVS would have hurt performance, at least at the top end, as it was a little too small for 400 cubes. AFB would at best perform the same as a Q-Jet. The AFB wasn’t bad, but they seemed to be prone to throttle shaft leaks due to wear much sooner than a Q-Jet and liked to boil fuel in the float bowl unless you used an insulated gasket.
Mopar used the AVS on the 340 until ’71 when the Thermo Quad replaced it, which helped top end performance a bit.
They all had thier problems….
Plus GM had trouble getting their early EFI to perform better than a Q-Jet in power, reliability, and MPG…
Peak GTO by far, the styling was so perfect on these it’s hard to believe it was just a trim job on an ordinary tempest/lemans. When I was younger learning about cars with only book knowledge the 67 seemed like a downgrade losing the tri-power option, but this article just goes to show how formidable the top of the heap was without that complicated carb setup.
This is impressive performance, and cars like this are what established the muscle car mythologies. Very few cars were equipped and tuned like this GTO. It is certainly possible that this was also a ringer, Pontiac was famous for slipping them to auto testing magazines. The super low gearing was optimized for the drag strip, and would have made for a miserable street/commuting machine. Imagine a modern car turning 3,500 rpm at 70 mph! I think that it is the most attractive GTO body of all time, and of course it was shared with the Tempest and LeMans. These GTOs were impressive cars for their time, using old school technology.
I compare this car to my ’06 Mustang GT which makes less horsepower, but has similar acceleration with a limited top speed of 155 mph. It turns less than 1,500 rpm. at 70 mph. and returns 24-25 mpg. on regular gas. Not to mention better handling and brakes, a/c etc. While I love looking at, and reading about those old time muscle cars, any performance fan should not pine, too much, for cars like this. Later model muscle/Pony cars are readily available and affordable. My own Mustang is almost twenty years old and it is obsolete compared to the latest models, but still more than fast enough for me.
A driver that wanted super performance in the ’60’s had to accept a lot of compromises.
I don’t think it was likely a ringer per se, but this was a narrowly focused, limited-production, dragstrip-optimized model that wasn’t terribly representative of what the typical GTO could do, so it worked out the same way. One of the various advantages of underrating the Ram Air engine so drastically, I think, is that it helped regular GTO customers to think that their standard and “Quadra-Power” H.O. engines were almost as hot, with the Ram Air having “just a little more on the top end” (to the tune of at least 40 hp!).
I’m guessing that you haven’t spent a lot of time in more modern Honda and Toyota cars with high-strung VTEC or VVT-i engines, whose gearing tends to be about that silly. This has been a persistent Honda tendency, which can be very obnoxious. My Honda Prelude, which was NOT a VTEC engine, was geared like this GTO, which made for an obnoxious 4,000 rpm at 75 mph, asinine in what was fundamentally a luxury coupe.
Some drivers of Pontiac Aztecs were unnerved by the engines being above 6,000 RPMs most of the time…
I was surprised that the little 280″ 3 valve V8 of 300 netHP in an ’06 Mustang GT felt like driving a 400″ big block car! The rear tires can’t hold it in 1st gear and can barely hold it in 2nd gear of 5 speed manual. And the ’06 GT and ’67 GTO 360 grossHP are similar weight, the GT a tad heavier. Obviously both are of similar actual HP, the GT prolly slightly more…