Pontiac`s line of exciting runs long and deep. The `55 lineup included the memorable Safari, along with Chevy`s Nomad the first station wagon equipped for show and go as well as workaday hauling. In 1957 came the fuel-injected Bonneville, the car that demonstrated Pontiac`s firm commitment to enthusiastic motoring. The many hot models hot models that would follow were not only fast off the line but good handlers and good looking too. The 1959 model year saw the first of the famed Wide-Track Pontiac, where even the family models aimed for high road ability as well as good straight line poke. Much later, the division brought forth a worthy rival Europe`s best sedans at half their price, the exciting 1973 Grand Am. And throughout these halcyon days of high performance in the 60`s Pontiac styling was among the best in Detroit and, arguably anywhere in the world. In fact, consistently good styling-clean and smooth yet somehow suggestive of performance was a major factor in forging Pontiac`s reputation for building cars that stood apart from their more mundane Detroit contemporaries. Engineering played it`s part too. When the age of compacts dawned in the early 60`s Pontiac led the way with the new technology in a performance oriented product. The 1961-63 Tempest with it`s flexible drive shaft and rear trans axel was a novel and interesting approach to small-car design in the US, even though it wasn’t as successful as management had hoped. It quickly evolved in to the Tempest Le Mans, from which sprang the GTO, the most imitated car of it`s type. The GTO was the first of a new breed, the muscle cars, and it has remained the most revered. By the late 1960s you could buy a mighty midsize machine under virtually every Detroit nameplate, but if you owned a GTO you had the original. Today, the GTO is the car for that small army of muscle car devotees for whom there is no worthy substitute. Pontiac led the way again when a small segment of buyers began to demand American style grand touring cars. For 1967 it issued the Catalina 2+2 a very special Wide-Tracker. Two years later the Tempest Sprint arrived, with the first high performance six-cylinder engine built in America since the fabulous “Hudson” Hornet of the early 1950`s. The overhead cam Sprint six was so good that auto writers eagerly compared it to the immortal Jaguar XK engine.

The f-bird was arguably better looking than it’s Chevy rival, and was initially offered in a wider variety of types, from the six cylinder Sprint to the fire breathing 400 and later, the Trans Am. For 1970 came a stunning new design that was so right it would remain in production for the next dozen model years. The new generation Firebird of today retains a character that’s different from the Camaro`s, once again Pontiac has taken steps to make it special and in many ways better.

It`s important to remember that successes like these were never easy for Pontiac. The reason; it usually started at a disadvantage within the GM hierarchy. Because of it`s higher sales Chevrolet always took precedence when new models were planned, and Pontiac was often forced to “borrow” from Chevrolet. Yet it always managed to make it`s versions different from Chevys. Thus the Safari differed considerably from the Nomad, the Firebird from the Camaro, the Trans Am from the Z-28.

In developing such cars Pontiac never tied itself to hidebound engineering practice nor relied on way out solutions. Though high tech ideas were tried when they seemed necessary, tried and true components were never monkeyed with. The entire line of V-8s from 1955 through the last ones in 1981 stemmed from from the same original design something that can be said of no other make`s performance power plant. But because it`s engineering was so good in the first place, there was no need to change the V-8 much.

Above all, Pontiac`s great performance record was built by people, the division was fortunate through the years in having a succession of enthusiastic leaders, Bunkie Knudsen, Pete Estes, John Delorean, Bill Collins- stylists, engineers, and managers who liked cars and, unlike so many in Detroit, they viewed cars as something more than mere people movers. Even when the GM high command frowned on performance or racing, these people defied authority to provide it, either officially or as often happened under the table. That took a lot of courage, but it resulted in some of the most impressive cars Detroit has ever produced.