BEFORE THE TERM EVER EXISTED. JIM WANGERS WAS THE ULTIMATE GTO INFLUENCER.

When the origin of the muscle car is debated, there's a reason automotive historians point to the Pontiac GTO as ground zero.

- DREW HARDIN

Sure, performance sedans predated it, and the big-engine-in-midsize-car packaging concept wasn't new either. What set the GTO apart was a wide-ranging campaign to sell it to a new, younger group of buyers, the teenagers and early-20-somethings we now call Baby Boomers. The architect of that campaign was Detroit ad man Jim Wangers, who passed away in late April at age 96.

Wangers' background as a car guy and drag racer-he won Top Stock Eliminator at the 1960 NHRA Nationals driving a Royal Pontiac-prepped Super Duty Catalina-had a major impact on Pontiac's advertising even before the GTO. In those "Wide Track" days of the early 1960s, Wanger-influenced ads showed a Catalina serving as a push-car for a front-engine dragster, trumpeted the power of the 421 V8 and talked about these cars running "loose on the streets." GTO ads, too, emphasized performance over polish; a full-page ad in HOT ROD's December 1963 issue featured the car but also its four-barrel carburetor, exhaust splitters, and standard Hurst shifter.