There were fast rides before the GTO, but Pontiac made performance affordable, bringing muscle cars to the masses.

During a decade free of unnecessary restrictions, American manufacturers developed a series of wild drag strip-oriented muscle cars ...

Pontiac is often credited with lighting the tires on the muscle car era with the 1964 GTO, when the badge was first used on a ...

That option, meant to offer customers a factory-built drag car, was a new 413-ci (6.7-liter ... However, unlike the 1964 GTO, it was prohibitively expensive, so only a few examples were built.