1971 Pontiac GT-37

What the heck is a Pontiac "GT-37" ? (...yep. I heard ya...)

In 1970,  Pontiac Motor Division was out of touch with the current trend of cars like the Chevrolet Vega, Ford Maverick and Plymouth Duster due to their performance image of the '60's.  As a result, Pontiac fell in sales, and the fact that Muscle Cars were starting to become kind of expensive to insure wasn't helping matters either.

The T-37 was based on the less expensive Pontiac Tempest line. By midyear, Pontiac simplified the Tempest hardtop to give it a more competitive price. It was released as the "T-37",  which was aimed at entry-level buyers, the “37” part of the designation based on General Motors’ code for a two-door hardtop model.  Pontiac soon bent the rules a bit and released a T-37 coupe (basically, a two-door sedan) in addition to the hardtop.

As fate would have it, it wasn’t long after the T-37 appeared that somebody came up with the idea for a sporty version. (ya know you can't leave something alone, right?)  To create such a "budget-priced muscle car", they decided to dress up the plain-looking coupe with GTO-like extras and call it the "GT-37". These had GTO fender striping, hood-pins, and GT-37 badging,  making it stand out above base Tempests in appearance. This new model was a "stripped-down muscle car." The fastest production car the Pontiac built in 1970 turned out to be the Tempest two-door sedan with the Ram Air III engine. ( The GT-37 was an option that could be put on a T-37) . The GT-37 had the performance of a GTO without the cost. In 1970, the base GT-37 car came standard with a 350 2 barrel cid 255 hp and could be ordered with anything from a 400 2 barrel cid 265 hp to the mighty 400 cid Ram Air III with 345 hp. This made for a car that could be ordered to be very fast, but at much lower price, AND could be insured as a Tempest rather than a GTO.  (Brilliant..I know...)

Standard equipment for the 1970 ½ GT-37 included any Tempest V-8 with low-restriction dual exhaust with chrome splitter exhaust tips, a three-speed heavy-duty manual transmission with floor shift, G70-14 raised-white-letter tires, Rally II wheels rims, 1969 Judge-style fender stripes a hood pin kit, a 140 MPH speedometer and special GT-37 Identification. A rear deck airfoil or automatic M-35 two speed or M-38 three speed transmission was optional, but bucket seats were not available.

Although the GT-37's  were pretty successful, turned out they never caught on like Pontiac would've liked. One of the biggest problems was that when the right boxes were checked off when ordering one of them, you could have a car that out-performed the GTO. ( uhhh, ...oops. ) These cars were usually very basic when it came to options which made them much lighter than most GTO's, sooo,  when you ordered a 4 speed with 400-4 barrel and got the RAM AIR III, you had one fast car. ( Which, of course, didn't sit well with GTO buyers, because the GTO was supposed to be the Pontiac's "top of the line car" in terms of performance. And more expensive, I'd wager...) Some  weight reduction was done on the T-37 and was carried through on the sporty GT-37 versions. The hot production version of these cars carried the 400 cid V-8 that came in the 1970 ½ models with stick shift. This was actually the Ram Air III V-8, without a Ram Air hood and dual-snorkel air cleaner. It did have the bigger Pan Air III valves.

Pontiac built only 1,419 of the 1970 ½ GT-37 coupes. (Picture shown is a 1971 model) Shame...low budget Hot Rodding is what the whole concept was all about. You can still see GT-37's in car shows...you just have to pay attention. That just might  NOT be a GTO you're looking at after all....hmmmmm.