Unlikely Muscle

Back in the 1950s, with other General Motors lines such as Chevy was turning out cars popular with a younger market, cars that could easily be "souped up" and raced, Pontiac was noted as being more of the family line. Part of that began to change when Pontiac's chief designer, John DeLorean (yeah, him), put together a good looking compact car on the Y Body frame called the Tempest. The year was 1961.

Wanting to add a bit of attitude to the stodgy Pontiac line, DeLorean created a top of the line trim called the Le Mans. Named after the famous 24 hour race, the Le Mans was sportier both inside and out. And though it was powered by the same inline four cylinder engine as the other Tempest models, within a year four barrel carb was added to give it some more power.

Not content with that, by 1963 DeLorean and the folks at Pontiac had decided to make the Le Mans its own model, totally divorcing it from the compact Tempest line. To mark the change they offered a meaty motor option: a 326 cubic inch V 8 the would sling the small, light car down the roads with the best of American metal. Half a dozen Le Mans coupes were even outfitted with Super Duty 421 cubic inch power plants and went on to racing glory.

With that move, as Le Mans got its own badge, it stepped right into the midst of the best American muscle coming out of Detroit. Though is never reached the popularity of some of Ford and GM's most notorious scream machines, it built a reputation and it built it fast.

In 1964 the suits at Pontiac decided to upgrade the Tempest to an intermediate model based on their A-Frame platform. And once again the Le Mans was relegated to nothing more than a trim. The basic model came with a 215 cubic inch straight six but could be upgraded to a 326 cube V 8.

Muscle still existed in the line, though as that same year Pontiac introduced a high performance trim. Called the GTO or Gran Turismo Omologato, the car was a bit of an homage to the classic Ferrari 250 GTO that was so famed on the race tracks of Europe. This American GTO came equipped with a 389 cubic inch V 8 that could crank out up to 346 horses.

 By 1965 DeLorean was the general manager of Pontiac and his desire to turn the marque into more of a muscle inspired line was showing through. Initially Pontiac estimated 5000 GTO models would be sold. That first year sales hit 32,000. This led to the GTO being spun off with its own badge in 1966.

The Le Mans trim continued to roll along as well, getting bigger and badder engines to keep pace with everything else that was coming out of Detroit. Though still technically a Tempest trim the Le Mans had seemed to morph into its own brand. People didn't think of it as anything but a Le Mans. By 1971 the Tempest was retired after a decade of quality sales and once again Le Mans was promoted to full series status. The following year all intermediate Pontiacs were badged Le Mans with the various trims determining the amount of muscle under the hood.

With the responsibility of holding down the intermediate car market for Pontiac, the 1970s saw the Le Mans drift more toward family car status. By 1974 a luxury model Le Mans was introduced. Two years later this was followed with the Grand Le Mans. With the energy crunch and the rapid ascent of America's environmental engine laws the end of the Le Mans muscle era had already begun.

While it puttered along until 1981 when it was officially rebadged the Bonneville, the Le Mans had long since lost its balls. It, along with a lot of Detroit's heavy metal, had gone soft around the middle. But in its heyday the Le Mans was some of the coolest looking and fastest American muscle, even if it came from a most unlikely manufacturer.