GM Banned Big Engines in Midsize Cars. Pontiac Built the GTO Anyway.

The engine on the stand was a 389 out of a full size Pontiac, and corporate policy said it could not go near the preproduction Tempest beside it. Which is why the work happened at night, in one lit service bay in a dark building in Pontiac, Michigan, early in 1963. John DeLorean stood off to the side and told them to drop it in. General Motors had it in writing. No midsize car got an engine over 330 cubic inches. Pontiac obeyed that rule word for word and won anyway, because a new model needed corporate approval and an option did not. Pete Estes made the 389 a $295.90 box on the LeMans order form and never asked. We cover the badge lifted off Ferrari's 250 GTO, Frank Bridge grudgingly approving 5,000 cars that sold out by Thanksgiving of 1963, and the 421 Jim Wangers admitted 34 years later to hiding in the red test car. So tell us what you had. The goat, the Chevelle, the Road Runner, whatever sat in the driveway the summer you were 17 and gas was 30 cents. #PontiacGTO #JohnDeLorean #MuscleCarHistory #WoodwardAvenue #DetroitIron