Perhaps as much or more than anybody in the industry at the time, Jim Wangers, the ‘ad man’ for Pontiac and the marketer behind the GTO, understood the importance of creative marketing in the automotive world during the late Fifties and all through the Sixties. He did lots to establish the ‘muscle car’ of the Sixties to its rightful niche in the history of American auto marketing.
Jim Wangers didn't ‘invent’ the Pontiac GTO; that credit went to John DeLorean, Russ Gee and Bill Collins. But Wangers created its mystique. His automotive career started in the mid-Fifties at the Campbell Ewald ad agency, servicing the Chevrolet account. He worked at Chrysler for a short time before his involvement promoting Pontiac (McManus, John & Adams ad agency). One of his biggest accomplishments in promoting the GTO was getting it on the cover of, where the article made it sound even more exciting than it really was! Part of this was because the test car was a ‘ringer’ of sorts, with a totally tuned 421 engine replacing the standard 389...something Wangers revealed years later! Thom McAn GTO shoe sweepstakes, a ‘GTO’ Monkeemobile on TV, constant car magazine cover stories featuring GTOs and even music – Ronny and the Daytonas and the song Little GTOs that was basically a two-minute and 29-second commercial for Pontiac – were all brilliant marketing to be sure.
