07-29-2021, 08:16 PM
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Senior Member
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Join Date: Mar 2017
Location: ABQ, New Mexico
Posts: 36,633
Thanks: 3,506
Thanked 136,490 Times in 22,778 Posts
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On June 28, 1972, Pontiac announced the 310-hp Super Duty 455 engine and said it would be available in the Grand Am, the Grand Prix, the Trans Am, the Formula, and the GTO. Later that year, after driving a prototype SD455-powered GTO at GM’s Milford Proving Grounds, Martyn L. Schorr and Joe Oldham from Hi-Performance Cars magazine were so impressed, they selected it as the magazine’s Top Performance Car of the Year. They put it on the cover of the April 1973 issue and called it the new King of the Street. Schorr even ordered one for himself. But the car never happened. Pontiac never built a production SD455 GTO in 1973, and the magazine had honored a car that didn’t exist. The engine did see production, but only in the Trans Am and Formula in 1973 and 1974.
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