Looking back at the ’70 GTO, many enthusiasts regard it as
the last good year, the one that still offered high-compression engines and
performance uncompromised by government regulation. While that may be accurate
in the strictest sense, the truth was that the new-car marketplace became a
much more hostile environment for muscle cars, and, as a result, production
volume of the GTO and many of its competitors plummeted. Though the ’70 Muskie
Clean Air Act was not passed in time to have a significant impact on
model-year-’70 production cars, other factors were coming into play. The most
significant of these was backlash from insurance companies on performance cars.
Since the beginning of the muscle-car era, the insurance industry had paid out
large amounts of money for collisions, personal injuries and deaths occurring
at the hands of drivers of big-engined, high performance vehicles. As a result,
America’s insurance companies started slapping large surcharges on
high-performance cars. Cars with 10 pounds per horsepower or less, or those
with four-speed transmissions were assigned Class 1status, meaning they would
be charged the highest rates possible. Since the GTO was the originator of the
muscle-car genre, the insurance companies were paying particular attention to
it. At the time, it was not unheard of for a muscle-car insurance monthly
premiums to exceed monthly car payment itself.
The standard GTO
power plant for the ’70 GTO was the tried and true 400 four-barrel. It featured
standard exhaust manifolds and an 068 cam for manual transmissions and the
milder 067 cam for automatics. It was rated at 350 horsepower at 5,000 rpm,
with 445 lb-ft of torque at 3,000. It is seen here with the optional
air-conditioning system.
There was more bad news. The federal set its sights on the
entire auto industry. The head of the National Highway Safety Bureau (a
predecessor of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration NHTSA), Dr.
William Haddon Jr. said, “The way the auto industry is pushing muscle cars
borders on criminal irresponsibility.”
Even GM’s upper management was feeling the pressure and
trying to distance themselves from the very products they were so aggressively
promoting. GM President Ed Cole commented, “Too much attention is being
directed toward the youthful segment of our population. This trend is [based
on] two false assumptions. One is an overrated opinion of the sales accounted
for by the younger set. The second false assumption is that unless you address
yourself in the language of the hip generation, you’re not in with the entire
population.
One of the
interesting things about factory photos, sometimes pre-production cars feature
details that are not correct for regular production cars. This ’70 Ram Air IV
GTO features hood pins to prevent the hood flying open at high speed. They were
available only as dealer-installed items on GTOs, but interestingly they were
standard equipment on GT-37s.
”With the tide turning so abruptly, it is easy to see why
muscle car sales dropped off. People still wanted them, but the pool of buyers
who could afford them and the insurance was significantly smaller. Sadly for
Pontiac, much of its image was centered around the youth market and
performance, and sales of the entire line had fallen by about 38 percent, which
cost it the coveted Third Place position in domestic auto new sales. With
Pontiac’s youth-oriented General Manager John Z. De Lorean’s departure the year
before, the Division lost its biggest supporter of performance cars and his
absence would be quickly felt.
A new Formula
wheel was added to the standard plastic and optional wood choices. The padded
rim offered a more comfortable grip than the hard plastic rims.
Styling Changes
As was the case in ’69, the ’70 GTO was available as a
two-door hardtop and a convertible. While this first of the ’70s GTOs carried
over the same platform and inner body structure as the before, it was treated
to extensive restyling. With the exception of the roof and hood, the ’70 GTO
was all new sheet metal
