Why did Pontiac invent the GTO?

Answer 1

It was actually a mistake as Jim Wangers who worked for GM had a tempest and put a 389 in it with a 4 speed and was bragging about how much fun it was and he let some higher ups in GM and some dealers drive it and they had a blast and said the market needs this so he convinced GM to build a car like his and they were only going to build a few of them in 1964 and called it the GTO but it took off like hot cakes and thus the GTO was born and the musclecar wars was on.

Mostly correct, except that John DeLorean (yes, the same DeLorean as the car) had as much or more to do with as Jim Wangers. DeLorean basically built it behind the backs of GM corporates.

It was built because Pontiac execs decided to pull out of racing. It was the 'brain child" of Pontiac General Manager Pete Estes and Jim Wangers, Pontiac account executive for MacManus, John and Adams, the Pontiac advertising agency. Wangers was also an avid performance enthusiast, drag racer and part-time product planner for Pontiac. They decided since Pontiac was pulling the big powerful Catalina's out of racing that they needed to do something to keep up their performance image to young car guy who were buying their cars. Wangers said to Estes "we've got the new intermediate A-body series coming out in the fall. Our Tempest will be a compact size with a nice 115-in. wheelbase. Instead of offering just the 326 engines, let's drop in the big 389s from the full-size cars, put on some heavy-duty suspension components and call it something with a racing connotation, something like ... GTO--like the Ferraris." Estes called Chief Engineer, John Delorean, and asked him if it could be done and Delorean said "No sweat". And so the Pontiac GTO is born.