Super Bowl commercials have always been a big deal, right from the beginning. You have a massive captive audience, suitable primed on beer and nachos to be as suggestible as possible. That’s why carmakers have always been some of the most eager purchasers of Super Bowl ad time, and why they’ve tended to use it for big swings, commercials that have the maximum appeal and can lure in the most buyers.
At least, that’s what most carmakers tend to do. But not Pontiac. For Super Bowl IV, way back in 1970, Pontiac ran an ad that featured the GTO, which seems like a pretty good idea, but especially focused on one option available for the GTO: option code W73, better known as Vacuum Operated Exhaust (VOE), or more evocatively, The Humbler.
Well, maybe the whole GTO, especially equipped with this option was called The Humbler. It’s not entirely clear, but The Humbler name was definitely used in Pontiac print ads:
Only about 233 GTOs ended up equipped with the Vacuum Operated Exhaust option. That may be the worst return on investment for a Super Bowl commercial ever recorded in the history of human culture. Here’s the commercial, just so you get what all the fuss is about:
There’s a higher quality but non-embeddable version here, if you’d like to really scrutinize it. Objectively, and out of context, this is an odd commercial: shot at Elias Brother’s Big Boy on Plymouth Road in Livonia, Michigan, it shows a blond guy in a GTO slowly rolling into the parking lot of a crowded drive-in burger joint, full of people out and enjoying their night.
Look at that GTO driver. He knows what he got.
People turn and look at the GTO with what seems like trepidation, discomfort. They don’t exactly seem happy this car has showed up. The driver pulls a knob on the dash, labeled EXHAUST MODE:
…and the GTO’s V8 burble becomes louder, more aggressive, a predatory growl of menace. The blond dude keeps slowly driving around, attracting more positive attention from some of the people, mostly women, who I guess find that the low rumbles of the V8 activates long-repressed desires in them to, um, I guess reproduce with this loudly slow-driving GTO owner. Dude then slowly leaves. That’s it.
Look at this dude. That’s a face of fear. You’ve been humbled, my brother in Chrysler.
The EXHAUST MODE pull-knob shown here getting all the ladies dizzy and leaving all the dudes in a state of cosmic dread actives vacuum-operated diaphragms that opened exhaust system cut-outs that let the mufflers be bypassed, for reduced back pressure, more power, and, most significantly, more noise. Here’s a diagram of the system:
The sound difference is pretty significant; you can hear it in action, and the difference when it’s de-activated in this video:
This kind of exhaust-loudener system is not uncommon on many cars today, ranging from Jaguar F-Types to Mustangs to Porsches, and almost all are activated with a button that resembles a pair of binoculars:
I bring this up because this VOE option proved to be way ahead of its time, and seems like an ideal choice for a car like the GTO, which is all about being loud and brash and, you know, muscle car-ish. It’s all about juvenile intimidation and posturing, machines for making throaty V8 noises and the occasional burnout. It seems perfect!
So why was it discontinued in less than a year, after only 233 were sold?
Ostensibly, it was because the VOE option would have been illegally loud in a number of states; but most sources seem to point to reports that GM’s executives were more angry about how the commercial seemed to be encouraging illegal street racing.
The dude in the car was pretty clearly posturing and looking for a street race of some kind with that car, cruising, if you will, in the more lurid sense of the word. GM was incredibly wary of being associated with promoting any sort of illegal street racing in the 1960s, and even had a ban on all forms of racing from 1963.
Being such a large company, they were afraid of undue scrutiny, and were fearful of possible federal anti-trust litigation. They didn’t want to attract any negative attention from lawmakers and regulators if they could help it, so they found themselves in the strange position of making cars like the GTO, seemingly designed for racing for pinks and doing burnouts at every stop light, but unwilling to encourage such behavior in any way.
So, the ad was pulled within a month, and the VOE option was discontinued. What I don’t understand is how these executives would have not been aware of a freaking Super Bowl ad run by one of its major divisions? No one bothered to show any of the suits this ad before it ran? How many lunch martinis were these guys putting away?
It’s all a very strange footnote in muscle car and advertising history. Also, that commercial makes me feel weird. Was that GTO driver actually having fun? It all seems so weirdly tense. Lighten up, buddy.
Top graphic image: GM
“Look at that GTO driver. He knows what he got.”
And I can assure you, that blond dude who is now 78 years old and still has that now clapped out GTO in the weeds in the back 40 with a tree growing through the floorboard, still knows what he got.
He won’t take a penny less than $105,000. All original. 1 of 124 color. 1 of 233 exhaust. Numbers matching. 1 owner. No tire kickers. Get off my lawn.
Punk.
To me the great attraction is you can turn the noise off. I wish all those straight piped Harley-Davidsons had selectable mufflers, along with the brodozer across the street. The idea of stealth mode for driving around people and a sport mode for fun driving is appealing. As for the engineers andxad execs, in 1970 they wore suits too, although the engineers took off their jackets right away.
That exhaust note sounds very similar to the Chevy OEM optional chambered exhaust systems, available on Chevelles and Camaros of that time period (maybe Corvettes too?). The chambered systems did not use a vacuum operated bypass valve, though. In place of mufflers, they had crimps, or chambers, in the exhaust pipes to somewhat manage the sound.
After reading the replies, I think you guys might have this all wrong. John Z didn’t have this ad made as a F U to all the other car makers out there. It was a F U to all the suits at GM that were cramping his style.
Remember what he said to Iacocca in that time frame. “I don’t care about the lady driving to church on Sunday. I only care about winning on Saturday night!”
The more lurid sense of the word could be inferred from the glances the driver exchanged with a couple of the guys in the parking lot, at least one of whom followed the GTO to meet up behind the shopping center in the next block. Let’s hope that kept them both out of Vietnam.
And nowadays the V-series Escalade has the same type of f-the-neighbors, it’s time to wake-the-f-up button named “V-sport”, and it is really fun to engage.
It purrs like a kitten ‘till the lake pipes roar.
OK Boomer.
If you’re looking for a race, wouldn’t you want to seem like less of a threat so people take the bait? I get that it was a different time, but I also don’t see how it helps sell the car when he’s cruising all alone and attempting to intimidate guys who are there with girlfriends and, not only does he leave alone without even finding a friend to talk to, never mind a woman, he also doesn’t get a race. This looks like it’s trying to sell to those sad guys in car circles when I was growing up who can’t drive, but dump all their money into their cars thinking it will impress women (it doesn’t) and make up all kinds of ridiculous racing conquest stories nobody believes. They’re almost always alone or with other guys like them glaring at the guy in the shitty old art car Subaru pulling attention he doesn’t need.
Good point on the illogic of attracting competitors with that. He’s literally just circling to assert dominance.
They always think a fast car attracts women. Nope. Get a Range Rover – the damned things are female catnip. The shout you can afford them, and they sit up high and in comfort.
And if it does, it’s an exotic, and it’s only because they’re gold diggers. Then those guys complain all women are gold diggers because it’s all they find.
The copy on that print ad is just awful – maybe those 9:00 am Mad Men martinis weren’t the best idea after all
Seemed like a good idea at the time.
By the reaction of the women in the ad, it’s obvious that Peggy had no say in this ad at all.
This might have grabbed the attention of a certain type of lady because it sounds more like the button deploys the full set of “Just Married” tin cans out back and less like King Kong clearing his throat.
I’m gonna say it, someone in Auburn Hills just got the idea to redo this ad shot for shot like that remake of Psycho, swapping the GTO for a Charger Daytona.
“Oh great, it’s that guy again.”
Yup, let’s put aside the editing and imagine the entire scene from the perspective of one of the other patrons: angry-looking dude pulls in, turns on the exhaust, slowly circles the establishment glaring at people, drives off. IRL the women are scared to walk to their cars alone and someone calls the cops reporting a potential serial killer.
The dude that’s the face of fear looks like an older Willy Wonka.
“Hey, that car sounds louder all of a sudden!”
It’s a pretty transparent and awkward flex, at least as shown in the ad… sort of like trying to slyly stuff a codpiece into one’s jeans after entering the club.
More than anything, though, it reminds me of watching an otherwise ordinary car pull away from a stoplight with the unhinged roar of freed horsepower that follows catalytic converter theft.
Pontiac desperately needed an NYC or LA-based ad agency because didn’t we just learn yesterday that the suits didn’t want to encourage street racing *where they lived*?!
Ely Nevada would be better.
Are the streets ever clear enough to race in NY?
At that time if you went far enough upstate or onto Long Island, the answer was yes. These days, naw son.
Humbler, Douchebagger, Potato, Potatoe
I’m assuming that guy was the inspiration for Wooderson cruising around the burger joint looking for, uh, high school girls.
Also it seems incredibly naive of the suit-wearing types to think that not having such an option on the GTO would somehow affect who street-raced and when. Because obviously no one was modding their cars with glass-bomb-cherry-packs back then, he said with dry sarcasm.
Vacuum operated stuff in cars, YUCK!
Cars of that vintage rusted so fast one would have straight through exhaust after a few years or a few backfires from flooded carbs anyway.
Oddly, the factory exhaust was about the only thing underneath my Rambler that didn’t rust, they ceramic coated that, but did eff all with the subframe
Also starting in the 90’s (maybe earlier, but my E36 had it), BMW’s came with the vacuum operated exhaust butterflies in the mufflers that would allow the exhaust to exit through the straight chamber side of the muffler when you got above like 3,000 RPM
Is that Topher Grace driving the GTO?
Not to be difficult here man but.
My stock 69 Super Bee with a 383 sounded lots badder.
As did my 69 Road Runner.
Difficult? Of course a Mopar big block sounded better 😀
MY BROTHER IN CHRYSLER! Torch you are a gd poet
They’d just spent four years under John Delorean before he moved over to Chevrolet the prior year. What kind of martini lunches do you think they were having?
Another fine example of GM old yellering a good idea.