🏎 Max Stumbles on the Father of all Muscle Cars

Goooooooooood Morning & Happy Monday dear readers.

Friday we went a little off the rails with that limo.

Not that I think it wouldn’t be sick to own, but not everyone wants a mullet, or a car that would make others think you have a mullet.

Mostly, I would bet most of us here just don’t have a garage that was long enough to store the damn thing.

Today’s car is just a smidge more classy.

Think less mullet, more…

Powdered Wig.

HERE IT IS: A 1969 Pontiac GTO “The Judge”

• 🌏️ Driven around the world: 3.5x

• 📽️ Video to Get the Vibes Right: This TV Commercial…

  • Okay tbh this commercial makes the Judge seem way less cool than it really is.

• 🏇 Can beat 366 horses in a fight

• 💰️ Predicted Price: $93,000

• 📆 Auction Ends: Friday, May 26th, 2023

Frankly, dear readers, this is a car that I knew VERY little about when I found it on BringATrailer.

I had always thought they were some of the best looking muscle cars from the 60s and early 70s, alongside the Plymouth Barracuda (imho).

BUT… I knew very little about how this car came to be.

Turns out I WAS MISSING A LOT.

So…

What Makes The Judge So Cool?

• It BIRTHED The American Muscle Car (well the first generation one did, anyways)

• Its Name was Literally Inspired by a SKETCH COMEDY ROUTINE

• Pontiac Built in Features so you Could FLEX ON ALL THE PEASANTS AT THE SONIC who didn’t Have One

It BIRTHED The American Muscle Car (well the first generation one did, anyways)

Okay, it birthing the most iconic American car niche, the muscle car, is a big claim.

How could that possibly be the case?

WELL, to find that out we gotta do a little time traveling.

okay wait that gif is super distracting

everyone scroll down, QUICK

Here, I’ll give you some extra space…

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Thing seriously made me nauseous. Remind me to never use that gif again.

The YEAR IS 1963.

General Motors (the parent company of Pontiac), and other American automakers is getting worried about pending government regulation on the automotive industry due to safety issues for civilians and in motorsport.

We’ve talked about the Gentleman’s Agreement in Japan in the late 80’s before, where Japanese automakers agreed to limit horsepower in new cars to 276hp to avoid regulation.

The US in the 60’s was very similar.

SO, GM tells its brands they CANNOT participate in motorsport OR put big ass engines in their mid-sized sedans anymore.

This was a problem for Pontiac. Their whole schtick at the time was that they wanted to be the performance division of GM. Like Shelby was (is) to Ford, or like BMW’s ///M division.

Pontiac, with its… let’s say ‘creative’… minds at the helm, such as the (in)famous & burgeoning John DeLorean (who we will almost certainly speak about more in the future) found a loophole in GM’s policy, however.

If they can’t put big ass engines in big cars, what if they put a big ass engine in a small car?

SO… They took a Pontiac Tempest, which at the time was Pontiac’s entry level ‘compact’ car, and PUT A 6.4 LITER V8, THE BIGGEST ENGINE PONTIAC HAD, in it.

Thus, the GTO (named GTO simply because there were cool European cars at the time with similar names) was born!

This is very much akin to if, in modern days, Ford just said ‘FUCK IT’ and stuck its Godzilla V8 in a Ford Fiesta…

which would be sick, frankly.

Anyways, the GTO was effectively the first ever muscle car. And like many an automotive landmark, it was the result of a few crafty mofo’s figuring out how to break the rules.

Once it came out, other American brands saw how much the younger generation LOVED the things, and everyone started to come out with their own competitors (a couple of which, the Mustang and Camaro, are still produced today).

THIS specific GTO is the ‘second gen’, facelifted one. It looks a lot more like a stereotypical muscle car, which is ironic as its pappy was (as we said) the first real muscle car.

Okay, let’s all time travel back to modern day (no gif this time I promise).

So we know how the GTO came to be, but why is this one called ‘The Judge’?

Its Name was Literally Inspired by a Sketch Comedy Routine

Seriously! That segment on ‘Laugh-In’, a popular comedy show on NBC in the ‘60s, was the entire reason behind the name ‘The Judge’.

Pontiac liked a comedy show segment, so they named the top level trim of their flagship car after it.

Incredible.

Weird naming conventions was not entirely out of the ordinary at the time.

Some of my personal favorites are the Dodge Dart ‘Swinger’, the Ford Pinto (yep, like the bean, and it turns out its slang for small dong in Brazil!), and the Studebaker DICTATOR which, for reasons I am sure you can guess, was abruptly discontinued in 1937.

Anyways, regardless of the naming origins of ‘The Judge’, the decals you got on your GTO when you ordered that top trim package are worth every penny.

But outside the cool stickers, what did you get with this top trim??

Well…

Pontiac Built in Features so You Could Flex on all the Peasants at the Sonic who Didn’t Have One

Above video is REQUIRED watching before you continue.

Okay, SO, before I go on, this GTO doesn’t have ‘The Humbler’ but I am going to talk about it anyways.

‘The Humbler’ was a switch on the dash that you could pull to make your big ass V8 EVEN LOUDER than normal.

Ya know, when you needed to flex on Jimmy in his peasant Ford Falcon at the Sonic or whatever.

As someone who literally puts his car in sport-mode at the beginning of every drive (at least, I did when I had a car with this option), I can confidently say I would just always have the switch for the loud exhaust pulled.

I guess the more practical application of this is the flip side, where you could more quietly sneak back home after breaking curfew or something.

Again, THIS GTO doesn’t have this feature, it was introduced in 1970, but I bet its not THAT hard to install it after the fact. Doing so is def worth it.

Next feature built for flexin’, the headlights:

Check that shit out.

Flip up and down headlights are cool in their normy form (like an old Mazda Miata), but these are just badass.

LAST THING, more of a question to you, dear readers.

The color on this thing is listed as Carousel Red.

Now… I found out recently I am marginally inept at seeing colors. Reds and Greens in particular. But even knowing that, seeing this thing listed as ‘RED’ had me worried.

Is this thing not like FULL ORANGE???

Please let me know in the poll below.

OH! And buy this thing. I’m happy to road trip it back across the country with you.

And remember…

MaxFindsCars.com is not, technically, free! By subscribing, dear reader, you have agreed to tell your friends about it.

In fact, I believe the contract specifically stated you had to each subscribe 100 of your closest friends, colleagues, enemies, exes, priests, pets, & sugar mommas. I’ll have to check the fine print to be sure, but you all may as well get started spreading the word in the meantime.

That's a wrap for today. New Editions come out every Monday and Friday! While you wait, go out and drive! And if you want more, be sure to follow Max’s Twitter (@maxjzin)

• 🏎️💨 Contact for advertising

• 🏷️💲 Contact to promote a car sale

I WANT REVIEWS WITH EITHER ‘AIRLINE THAT DELAYED YOUR FLIGHT’ OR ‘COFFEE SHOP WHERE YOU’RE TRYING TO HIT ON THE BARISTA’ ENERGY

LIKE THIS ONE