Favorite Car Ads: 1971 Pontiac GTO | The Daily Drive | Consumer Guide® The Daily Drive

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Does a low-compression engine mean the end of GTO?

1971 Pontiac GTO advert

The tone of this GTO advert is rather analogous to how some eating places these days brace consumers for awful provider upfront of seating. You’ve most certainly observed such indicators posted close to the door of your favourite diner the closing time you went out for lunch or dinner. These days, eating places are contending with hard work shortages. In 1971, Pontiac used to be coping with low-lead gas.

Exertions-shortage eating place signal

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In reality, gas wasn’t the one drawback. Pontiac, and each purveyor of muscle vehicles, used to be being challenged within the showroom by way of emerging insurance coverage prices. Turns out the knowledge of striking a high-school child at the back of the wheel of a thinly disguised big-bock drag automobile have been referred to as into query.

however the true drawback right here—the issue Pontiac is making an attempt to handle with this advert–got here within the type of pending emissions laws. A serve as of the Federal Air High quality Act, the lead content material of gas used to be to be diminished in levels starting in 1973.

Because the 1920s, tetraethyl lead have been added to gas to lift the gasoline’s octane score, which allowed for upper compression ratios and, consequently, advanced engine efficiency and gasoline financial system. As proof in regards to the threat of lead within the environment—particularly to kids—piled up, the EPA and different global governments started to crack down on its use in gasoline.

The advert proven right here gave the impression in 1971, the primary 12 months the GTO used to be geared up with “low-compression” engines which have been tuned to run on low-lead, lower-octane gasoline. Pontiac used to be if truth be told just a little forward of the sport, as regulation fits averted the low-lead mandate from kicking in till 1975.

Giving automobile advertising varieties suits have been the horsepower scores for low-compressing engines. For 1970, as an example, the bottom Pontiac GTO 400-cubic-inch V8 used to be rated at 350 gross horsepower. For ’71, that base GTO powerplant used to be rated at simply 300. Muscle vehicles had, because the overdue Nineteen Sixties, been offered in large part on their prodigious energy scores. With the ones numbers now in decline, Pontiac launched the advert observed right here.

Learn the textual content on this advert, it’s lovely revealing. And it’s value noting that the real measured efficiency of the GTO used to be no longer a lot lowered for 1971, alternatively gross sales have been. Turns out the one-two punch of insurance coverage prices and decrease energy outputs used to be an excessive amount of for even artful advert reproduction writers to blunt.

Evaluation Flashback! 1974 Pontiac GTO