In 1963 Pontiac's Chief Engineer John DeLorean and his two favorite staff engineers, Bill Collins and Russ Gee, came up with an inspired way to keep Pontiac cars in the performance limelight: bolt a big engine into Pontiac's upcoming Tempest intermediate body. Thus was the GTO born. Through cunning, resourcefulness, and outright trickery the minds of Pontiac managed to get this rocket into dealerships and out onto America's highways, and to introduce that most iconic of American automobiles, the muscle car, to the nation’s most discriminating drivers.

This is the story of the GTO, of the people who made it a reality and a sales sensation, of those who owned and loved the cars. With color photographs, drawings, and detailed stats, this book is not so much the story of a historic car as an illustrated biography of American muscle.

See Motorbooks author David Newhardt interviewed by Jay Leno on JayLenosGarage.com: http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/video/jays-book-club-david-newhardt/1174466/