How did the Car and Driver and other contemporary press test protocols differ, and which 1964 GTO test runs were later disputed?
Executive summary
Car and Driver’s March 1964 GTO feature broke the conventions of contemporary road testing by pairing dramatic narrative, painted cover art and exhaustive lap/acceleration claims while relying on dealer-prepared “ringer” cars supplied through Pontiac’s advertising channels; rival outlets such as Car Life and Motor Trend published far more conservative, plainly stock figures that later became the yardstick for judging which C/D numbers were disputed [1][2][3]. The most contested runs are C/D’s sensational 0–60 of 4.6 seconds, a quarter‑mile near 13.1 seconds (variously reported as 12.8 on slicks), and the cover’s “0-to-100 in 11.8 sec” motif — results that later reporting and participants acknowledged were achieved in heavily prepped cars and not in any Ferrari/Pontiac head‑to‑head test [3][4][5].
1. How Car and Driver’s protocol looked at the time
Car and Driver framed its GTO piece as an athletic, exhaustive evaluation that included many timed acceleration runs and laps at road circuits — an approach that emphasized spectacle and storytelling as much as raw measurement, and even produced cover art depicting a fictive Ferrari vs. Pontiac duel [6][1][4]. The magazine described running “dozens” of acceleration tests and many laps at Daytona and other circuits, and it later published the story as a signature, career‑making feature that aimed to change how car magazines spoke to readers [6][1].
2. Where contemporary press protocols differed
Other contemporary testers tended to emphasize stock, repeatable measurements and plainly noted equipment and gearing: for instance, Car Life’s June 1964 figures for a GTO were 0–60 in 6.6 seconds and a quarter‑mile in 14.8 seconds — numbers that align with what later independent testers found for unmodified 389‑powered cars and contrast sharply with C/D’s headline figures [2]. Motor Trend and later periodicals likewise reported more modest, documented times, and critics have pointed out that C/D’s approach blurred lines between editorial testing and promotional theater by accepting cars prepared by dealers and agency insiders [3][7].
3. The ‘ringer’ controversy: what was swapped and who admitted it
Decades of investigation, restoration work and memoirs established that at least one of the C/D test GTOs — the famous “red car” — was prepared by Royal Pontiac with a larger 421‑cubic‑inch engine and other optimizations, and that Pontiac advertising man Jim Wangers eventually admitted the deception in his memoir after years of denials [8][5][9]. Multiple sources say two nearly identical cars were used for different duties (one for road work, one for acceleration), but the red acceleration car was effectively a dealer‑prepped performance special rather than a representative showroom 389‑CI GTO [6][8][5].
4. Which specific runs were later disputed and why
The runs now regarded as dubious are C/D’s published 0–60 of 4.6 seconds, the quarter‑mile of about 13.1 seconds (some accounts list a 12.8 on slicks), and the cover claim of “Zero to 100 in 11.8 sec” — all exceptional figures that contemporaneous stock tests did not replicate and which were achieved on prepped hardware and even on racing slicks in at least one instance [3][4][5]. Investigators and later writers have documented that stock 389‑equipped GTOs more typically ran in the mid‑to‑high 14s in the quarter and around 6–7 seconds to 0–60, supporting the view that C/D’s numbers were driven by the modified 421 car [10][2][11].
5. Accountability, motive and the lingering effect on lore
Car and Driver’s editors later acknowledged that the magazine never actually tested a Ferrari 250 GTO against the Pontiac — the cover image was illustrative — and some modern retrospectives treat the episode as both a publicity coup and a lapse in testing rigor; Pontiac’s marketing apparatus, including Wangers and dealers, had clear incentives to produce dazzling results and to control what cars magazines received, and C/D’s theatrical style amplified that advantage [1][7][4]. Alternative viewpoints exist within the archival record: C/D defenders note the piece was candid in places and transformative for the magazine’s voice, while skeptics stress that editorial standards were compromised by manufacturer influence [1][11].
6. Bottom line for historians and enthusiasts
For historical accuracy: other contemporary publications measured stock GTO performance in the mid‑14s quarter‑mile and slower 0–60s (Car Life, Motor Trend), whereas the headline C/D runs — 4.6s to 60, 13.1s quarter, 0–100 in 11.8s — are now understood to have been produced in dealer‑prepped “ringer” cars and under circumstances that did not represent showroom stock or a true Ferrari vs. Pontiac comparison, a fact later admitted by some principals and documented by restorers and historians [2][3][8][5].