In 2018, a juvenile bobcat nicknamed “Mr. Murderbritches” became the darling of the Internet for his incredible ferocity during a brief capture-and-release by Utah wildlife officials. Fifty-six years earlier, Car Life tested another fearsome Bobcat, a special hopped-up Pontiac Catalina conceived by Jim Wangers and offered by famed performance dealership Royal Pontiac. Let’s see what Car Life editors had to say about the original Royal Bobcat, a rare full-size ancestor of the legendary GTO.
Utah bobcat Mr. Murderbritches demonstrates the ferocity that briefly made him a star.
The thing to remember when reading this vintage article is that in 1962, the Pontiac GTO, that eternal darling of the ’60s Supercar set, did not yet exist. Pontiac had full-size cars, and it had the Y-body Tempest, whose street performance potential was limited by its “rope-drive” powertrain and Corvair-derived rear transaxle, but that was it. The A-body intermediates were still over a year away, and the Firebird was five years in the future. Prior to 1964, if you wanted a really hot Pontiac street car that could also be set up for weekend drag racing in the NHRA stock classes, you had to order a basic B-body Catalina with as much engine as you could afford, ideally one of the hot high-output Tri-Power engines or rare Super Duty mills.
For young ad executive Jim Wangers, Pontiac liaison for advertising agency MacManus, John & Adams, the problem was that a hot engine in a base-model car was not yet a complete product with an identity Pontiac could market. Another problem was that the Pontiac sales force generally didn’t know much about performance cars or how to sell them, nor did old-school general sales manager Frank Bridge, who wasn’t keen on Wangers’ proposal to set up a traveling seminar program to teach Pontiac dealers how to serve the performance market. In the summer of 1959, Pontiac general manager Semon “Bunkie” Knudsen suggested a compromise, telling Wangers, “Go out and find a dealer who would like to become a performance specialist, like a guinea pig.”
That guinea pig turned out to be Asa (Ace) Wilson Jr., owner of Royal Pontiac in Royal Oak, Michigan, who eagerly embraced Wangers’ suggestions, transforming Royal Pontiac into a true performance dealership. Royal salesmen were trained to understand the needs of the market: They wouldn’t try to talk a buyer out of ordering essential items like a heavy-duty suspension or four-speed, and they knew what to suggest and how to order from the burgeoning list of Pontiac performance options, including the special equipment lists and dealer-installed stuff (LPOs and DIROs, in Pontiac parlance), which many salespeople knew nothing about. Putting its money where its mouth was, Royal Pontiac also built and sponsored its own drag racers; Wangers himself became NHRA Top Stock Eliminator behind the wheel of a Royal Pontiac car in September 1960.
The next step was for Royal to introduce a special package aimed specifically at the street, with unique trim and a new name: BOBCAT, selected by mixing and matching the letters of existing Pontiac model badges — two “B”s and an “O” from the Bonneville, “CAT” from the Catalina. “It fit nicely in the same place on the car, and it looked like it came right out of the factor,” Wangers recalled years later. “Honestly, that’s how we chose the name.” Wangers also chose the exterior trim, which was relatively subtle, but easily identifiable.
Paul Stenquist / Hagerty Media
Royal Pontiac prepared the first Bobcats during the 1961 model year. Nine months later, Car Life magazine put a 1962 Bobcat through its paces.
Here’s what they said in their review, which was published in the magazine’s July 1962 issue:
According to Wangers, many of Wilson’s salesmen and service managers were actually none too keen on the new performance orientation, at least at first. Most of the salespeople changed their tune when they realized they’d found a lucrative new niche, but Wilson’s father, Asa Wilson Sr. (who’d bought the dealership for his son), never came around, resentful of being associated with greasy teenage hot-rodders and nursing an antisemitic dislike for Wangers. However, in its heyday, Royal Pontiac was the place to go for Pontiac performance, and they eventually did a brisk mail-order business well outside the Detroit area.
Since the Bobcat was a dealer creation rather than a factory option, its special trim and exterior decor was obviously chosen so that it could be easily added after delivery by the Royal Pontiac service department.
Trim aside, the Bobcat was essentially a Pontiac Catalina Sport Coupe (two-door hardtop) with an array of performance equipment optional on the regular Catalina, including the Tri-Power Tempest 425A version of the 389 cu. in. (6,375 cc) V-8, various heavy-duty components, and snazzy-looking eight-lug Pontiac aluminum wheels with integral brake drums. Most Bobcats likely had four-speeds, but Wangers says you could also order Hydra-Matic. (Since the automatic on the early ’60s Catalina was the unfortunate three-speed Roto Hydra-Matic, this was best reserved for gluttons for punishment, although Royal Pontiac could tweak it a bit in hopes of improving its glacially slow shifts.) The four-speed manual transmission normally had a “wide-ratio” gearset with a 2.56 first, but the close-ratio gearset with a 2.20 low gear was available as a no-cost special order option, as was the 3.90:1 axle.
As the text explains, the Royal “Superchief” engine hop-up changes were actually optional — you could buy a Bobcat with a stock engine — and Royal Pontiac subsequently offered the same modifications as a tuning package for other Pontiac models. Many of the GTOs and other hot Pontiacs tested by the buff books in the sixties enjoyed this little pick-me-up, which was devised to be simple, effective, and yet still legal for NHRA competition, including a bit of tinkering with cam timing and distributor advance, re-jetted carburetors, different spark plugs, and blocked heat risers.
Paul Stenquist / Hagerty Media
Two of the features described in this article were new for 1962 Bobcats: the lock washers on the valve lifters, to avoid hydraulic lifter “pump-up” at higher engine speeds, and a progressive rather than vacuum linkage for the front and rear carburetors. (The standard vacuum linkage was on-off, which could mean some uncomfortably abrupt translations from “not enough carburetion” to “way too much.”)
One point not mentioned in the text: Later Bobcat tuning packages generally included a thinner head gasket to raise the compression ratio slightly. Whether that was done here isn’t clear.
So far as I know, the bottom-end changes described in the text (a new No. 4 rod bearing, changes to the No. 3 main bearing, and increased oil pump pressure) weren’t included as part of the later Royal Bobcat tuning package for the GTO, although they seem worthwhile.
The estimated output — 370 hp at 4,800 rpm and 460 lb-ft at 2,800 rpm — was a gross figure, extrapolated from the 348 hp rating of the stock Tri-Power engine rather from than dyno tests.
The sidebar on this page describes one of the other Royal Pontiac conversions: a Grand Prix with a $275 Paxton supercharger kit on the regular four-barrel 389, giving about 400 hp on 6 lb of boost. Royal matching the factory warranty coverage voided by the supercharger installation was a classy touch, although the “no tinkering” rule would probably tend to discourage young performance-minded buyers.
The second half of the sidebar at the top discusses the even rarer Royal Tiger, a hopped-up four-cylinder Tempest. Since the Pontiac “Trophy 4” engine was essentially a 389 minus one cylinder bank, most of the modifications that could made to the V-8 could also be done to the four. However, the four-barrel Trophy 4 was never very common, probably in part because Tempest customers didn’t want to buy premium fuel.
Flexibility is not often a strong point of hopped-up engines, so the Royal Bobcat’s willingness to pull hard from 1,000 rpm in fourth gear was noteworthy. A top speed of 117 mph wasn’t outstanding given the power on tap, but bear in mind that this was with a 3.90 axle giving 20.5 mph/1,000 rpm in fourth, and where in Michigan other than a drag strip were you going to be able to go faster than 117 mph without ending up in handcuffs?
The text offers an important proviso about their recorded acceleration times: The Car Life crew ran with two aboard (in those days, a second crew member was needed to read the test equipment) in “a brisk 15–20 mph head wind,” without enough space on the strip to run in both directions to cancel out the wind effects.
Despite that, they recorded an average quarter mile elapsed time of 14.5 seconds, with a trap speed of 95 mph and 0–60 mph in 6.5 seconds and 0–100 mph in 16.0 seconds. Not quite up to the standards of the really hot intermediates of a few years later, but not far off either, and this was a two-ton car: Curb weight was 3,960 lb (about 1,800 kg), with the testers and their gear bringing test weight up to a round 4,300 lb (about 1,950 kg)!
Drag racers in those days didn’t like power steering (another belt to consume horsepower!), but the prospect of a owning two-ton car with unassisted steering requiring almost six turns lock-to-lock sounds pretty miserable, although Car Life thought the H-D suspension Catalina handled pretty well on the road, with the stiffer underpinnings reducing the float and wallow to which contemporary American cars tended to be prone. The lack of power brakes also seems like a hassle, though, and likewise the snappish heavy-duty clutch, although that was perhaps more necessary with the hotted-up engine and close-ratio four-speed. As the Car Life tester conceded:
Practice makes perfect in matters like this. (“I never have any trouble,” Wangers murmured politely.) It certainly didn’t slip any, even after umpteen acceleration runs.
The eight-lug wheels/integral drums were the best brakes Pontiac had to offer at the time, and among the best available on an American car in 1962, but they still left something to be desired in both directional stability and stopping power. Also, while the wheels themselves are attractive enough — today, they provoke oohs and aahs from observers who know what they are — I also think the add-on spinners (part of the Bobcat dress-up package, not a factory item) look a little foolish. I suppose it’s a matter of taste.
Paul Stenquist / Hagerty Media
I’m scratching my head a bit at the text’s various confusing references to the Bobcat’s price. The spec sheet below doesn’t include a detailed price breakout, but lists an as-tested price of $4,320 against a list price of $2,860, which the Standard Catalog of Pontiac says was the base price of a Catalina Sport Coupe in 1962. The Car Life main text says on the first page that the Bobcat “could be delivered at something under $4000,” while noting that someone from Royal had owlishly insisted, “The ‘as tested’ price in the data panel is considerably higher than the actual delivered price.” The final paragraph of the text then lauds an as-delivered price of “just over $3000.” This seems a trifle disingenuous: $4,000 is certainly “over” $3,000, but the word “just” seems to be doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Also, given the array of special equipment choices and the custom trim, I have my doubts that a buyer could wrangle much of a real discount from list price on a car like this.
The 10 to 13 mpg estimated fuel consumption (European readers may wish to note that this translates to 18.1 to 23.5 liters / 100 km) is presumably on super premium, but I don’t suppose one bought a car like this expecting it to be cheap to feed.
A more interesting question is how these performance figures compared to the later, lighter A-body GTO. Fortunately, CC has previously presented the June 1964 Car Life road test of a ’64 GTO with the Tri-Power engine, wide-ratio four-speed, and 3.23 axle. Let’s tabulate the results:
| Speed, seconds | Bobcat | GTO |
|---|---|---|
| 0–30 | 2.5 | 2.7 |
| 0–40 | 3.4 | 3.7 |
| 0–50 | 5.6 | 5.1 |
| 0–60 | 6.5 | 6.6 |
| 0–70 | 8.7 | 8.3 |
| 0–80 | 10.7 | 10.2 |
| 0–100 | 16.0 | 14.9 |
| Quarter mile ET | 14.5 | 14.8 |
| Speed at end, mph | 95.0 | 99.0 |
A very close race! The GTO was almost a quarter ton lighter than the Bobcat — 3,470 lb (about 1,575 kg) at the curb — but the lower numerical axle ratio cost it on the low end compared to the Bobcat, although lighter weight and smaller frontal area paid off at higher speed, despite the Bobcat’s extra power. (The first Car Life GTO was not Bobcatted, at least not that they acknowledged.) Note that the GTO had a slower ET than the Bobcat, but a 4 mph higher trap speed. With the same 3.90 axle ratio, it would almost certainly have trounced its larger cousin.
Prior to January 1963, you could also order a 421 Super Duty engine in a Bobcat, but it was very expensive and never very common. Wangers later said it was also kind of beside the point; the Bobcat’s purpose was really to build Pontiac’s image on the street.
In that regard, the Bobcat was very much the same kind of car as the later GTO: a reasonably complete mechanical package with a unique name and identification, providing enough performance to be worthy of respect while offering a ready-made image. The B-body Catalina was still bigger than ideal for street racing or the drag strip, and the Bobcat was a dealer special rather than a factory model, but the GTO would shortly address both of these shortcomings, which would also make the Catalina-based Bobcat irrelevant.
Exit Mr. Murderbritches, stage right.
Just as Mr. Murderbritches’ 15 minutes of fame ended soon after the angry young bobcat high-tailed it as fast as feet would carry him, so too has the original Royal Bobcat faded into obscurity. Pontiac fans still know the name, which Royal Pontiac later applied to its GTO tuning package and to some other conversions, like a 428 Firebird, but these weren’t quite the same thing. However, the original car had served its purpose, and while Jim Wangers freely admitted that the A-body GTO was not his idea (the idea of putting the 389 in the A-body Tempest was conceived by Pontiac engineers Russ Gee and John DeLorean), it’s easy to see the Royal Bobcat as a proof-of-concept for the factory performance packages that followed.
I’ve never seen any estimate of how many of the early Catalina-based Royal Bobcats were built — it’s quite possible that nobody knows, and since Ace Wilson sold Royal Pontiac and got out of the auto business in 1974, any records are probably long gone. Even more than the GTO, there are probably far more Bobcat replicas and tributes than survivors, and today, most of us are more likely to see the AutoWorld 1:18 scale model than the genuine article. Like young Mr. Murderbritches, however, they’re still fierce enough and distinctive enough to make an impression.
Related Reading
Curbside Classic: 1965 Pontiac GTO – How To Create a Legend and Build a Brand (by Paul N)
Vintage Car Life Road Test: 1964 Pontiac GTO – “Honest in Performance”?
Thanks Aaron! Great stuff.
I was completely unfamiliar with the Bob Cat, which made this an extra-interesting read for me. Pontiac certainly made up for lost time in becoming the place to go for retail performance cars in the 1960’s.
This also helps me understand some details of why it was necessary to take Pontiac performance figures in road tests of that era with a grain of salt. Pontiac and Royal seemed to go all-out in prepping test cars in ways that most buyers from most dealers would never know anything about.
More than one new GTO owner was nonplussed, disappointed and pizzed off to discover that his new Pontiac was not nearly as fast as the magazine road tested Royal Pontiac Bobcat “ringer” car was.