The Fastest Pontiac Muscle Cars From Every Decade

The Pontiac Motor Division of General Motors had a good run before being phased out in GM's 2010 restructuring. The carmaker is largely credited with inventing the muscle car. Even during the performance-starved 1970s, (relatively) fast Pontiacs starred on TV and on the big screen. Even after its star faded with Buick's rise in the 1980s with the Grand National and the GNX, then the rise of higher-performance Cadillacs in the early 2000s, there were fast cars such as Trans Ams and the revived GTO. Unfortunately, there was also the Aztek, which didn't help Pontiac's image at all.

Looking back at the Pontiacs with the highest top speed since the dawn of the muscle car era brings up some familiar models. But Pontiac was the prankster division of GM, and sometimes, a surprise could be found on the order sheet. All the cars in this list could be ordered through a Pontiac dealer, just like you could a Calloway Corvette or a Yenko COPO Camaro. More than once, Pontiac managed to turn the general consensus on its head and come up with something ingenious, and at times, even devious.

While Pontiac certainly ushered in the muscle car era with the GTO, there were several precursors on the road before 1964. In fact, the brand itself can lay claim to one of those muscle car predecessors with the fastest Pontiac of the 1950s, the 1959 Catalina. As Ford found out with the Edsel, the public's taste in cars was shifting away from large beasts lumbering along the highway to lower, leaner, and faster cars. Ford zigged with the Edsel, but Pontiac zagged, and introduced a 1959 line-up that included a series of lower-profile cars with the wheels set further apart in what was called a 'Wide Track' stance. 

Under the new shape was a new engine that would power Pontiac into the mid-1960s, namely the Tri-Power 389 cubic inch engine with a set of three two-barrel carburetors (hence "Tri-Power"). While the car's exact top speed varied based on specs, at least one early report claimed that with the high-end 389 and factory installed 2.73 final gears, the car would reach 125mph. Due to the gearing, it wasn't the fastest Pontiac in terms of reaching high speeds, but it would pass you sooner or later.

If the topic of the fastest Pontiac of the 1960s comes up, you'd probably think first of a 1969 GTO Judge Ram Air IV or a Firebird Trans Am. Depending on your criteria, you might be right, but the fastest Pontiac was much bigger and heavier than either of them. It was a full-sized Catalina 2+2 coupe, or in 1965, simply "2+2", as Pontiac deleted the name plate from the car for that year. Tests showed a top speed of 132 mph and a 0-60 mph time of 3.9 seconds. 

What happened is that Car and Driver decided in 1964 that Pontiac "owned" the name GTO on the street, even if Ferrari first put it on a car. In 1965, the magazine pitted the (Catalina) 2+2 against a Ferrari 330 GT 2+2 (via Curbside Classic). However, the vehicle the company sent to the magazine was no ordinary car. Famed tuner Royal Pontiac sent one that had been "prepared", as the magazine put it, though no mention was made as to what had been done to the Tri-Power 421ci engine. Pontiac did not allow this engine to go into the GTO, however.

The 1970s are as much of a surprise as the 1960s when it comes to the fastest Pontiac. The '70s are generally considered a decade of decline in performance, with environmental controls and safety equipment weighing cars down, and engines being optimized for gas mileage instead of acceleration and top end. That makes the fastest Pontiac of the 1970s, straight off the lot and without the help of enthusiastic dealers, a bit of a head scratcher because the fastest Pontiac of the era was the 1979 Firebird Trans Am with the WS6 Special Performance Package. Car and Driver clocked it at 132 mph at 5,400 rpm, or a bit over its 5,000 rpm redline.

The WS6 was the swan song for Pontiac's 400ci V-8. Most Firebirds with a 6.6 liter engine ended up with the Oldsmobile 403ci version instead. The WS6 also got four-wheel disc brakes, which, at a 70-0 mph distance of 179 feet, also made it the fastest-stopping of the fastest Pontiacs up to that point.

If Pontiac and its dealers were capable of surprises, the 1980s showed that the company could go to even greater lengths to produce a very fast car. While Chevrolet was working with Calloway to produce the fastest C4 Corvettes and Ford began working with Steve Saleen to improve the Mustang, Pontiac went to Knudsen Automotive of Omaha, Nebraska, to create a 200 mph Ferrari-beater (and everything else) called the Tojan. Knudsen, which had made a retro-styled car called the Baroque based on a GM frame, worked on the body. A prototype of the car included an 800 hp engine that was recorded at over 200mph, and with that engine available as an option, the Pontiac became the first car you could order from the dealer to reach 200 mph since the Dodge Charger Daytona. The next street car to achieve this would be the Ferrari F40 in 1987. 

Production cars would come with 5.0 and 5.7 liter engines, though these could be ordered with a supercharger. The Tojan was available from Pontiac from 1985-1991. Fewer than 155 were sold, and none with the high output engine.

Comparisons of Trans Am Firebirds are popular, especially the hard-charging 1970 and the movie-star famous 1977 with its own hard-core fan base. The fastest of the Trans Ams that you could drive off a lot was the last, namely the Gen 4 Trans Am in its WS6 form. This version was electronically limited to 162 mph when it came out in 1996. While the Gen III Tojan was still available through 1991, and strictly speaking, was the fastest Pontiac you could order in the 1990s, the WS6 Trans Am pointed to the future of performance cars, even if it was the last of the Firebird series. 

A comparison to other famous Pontiacs showed how much the times had changed. A MotorTrend test report on the 2000 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am WS6 points out that the car outperformed the 1969 GTO Judge despite having "only" a 5.7 liter engine, albeit with Ram Air. "And in handling and braking, it wouldn't even be a contest," MotorTrend stated. For instance, reported that the newer car managed 0.84 g on the skid pad.

Pontiac's swan song was a GTO. Introduced in 2004, the Gen 5 GTO was imported from GM's Holden division in Australia with a Corvette engine inside. The styling fails to place it among the coolest looking Pontiacs ever, even after the introduction of ram air hood scoops. Performance-wise, there were few naysayers regarding the car's acceleration or top speed. With the well-ranked 350 hp LS1 in 2004, and then the 400 hp 6.0 liter LS2 in 2005-2006, the GTO was at first electronically limited to 158 mph, and then became one of the fastest Pontiacs ever, and reached 170 mph. 

Sales of the new GTO were far below expectations, despite the amazing performance. The model was removed from Pontiac's lineup after 2006, though other models such as the Grand Prix managed to retain their sportier options. GM suffered during the 2008 financial crisis, and a restructuring plan needed to be put into place. Declining sales across Pontiac's lineup led to the marque's demise in 2010.