A Lost GM Show Car: The 1964 Pontiac GTO Flamme

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This tastefully customized GTO convertible appeared at the 1964 New York World’s Fair, and then it disappeared. Or maybe not.

 

The Pontiac GTO Flamme made its debut with a fleet of GM show cars in the General Motors pavilion at the 1964 World’s Fair in Queens, New York.  Flamme, of course, is the French word for flame, and we’re presuming the name is a reference to the show car’s fiery red metallic paint. Based on a production 1964 GTO convertible (one of 6,644 built that year) the Flamme is a bit mild by historic GM show car standards. But still, there are a number of neat features that are worth a look.

The interior was upholstered throughout in metallic red vinyl and leather to match the exterior, with countered bucket seats front and rear. A pair of rectangular exhaust outlets (simulated, we’re guessing) were placed behind the front wheels, while the faux air inlets in the hood were modified as well. The wheel-and-tire combination would be familiar to any hot rodder of the time: chrome-reverse steel wheels with chrome nuts and caps and red-stripe tires.

 

Reportedly, the 389 cubic-inch Tri-Power V8 was dressed up with a load of chrome stuff, including the fan shroud and accessory drives, while the three individual GTO air cleaners were replaced by a single air cleaner housing from a full-sized Pontiac, also chrome plated. The transmission was a standard two-speed Super Turbine 300 as found on all automatic-equipped GTOs in ’64.

Up front, the twin grille assemblies were blacked out, while the production quad headlamps were replaced by a pair of Cibié rectangular headlamps. First used on the 1961 Citroen Ami 6 in France, the lamps were never approved for road use in the USA. Yet they were evidenty a favorite of Bill Mitchell and his GM styling crew, as they appear again and again on the studio’s idea cars in the sixties. They’re a great look on American cars of this era, and customizing crowd took a liking to them as well.

What became of the Flamme after its show duties were completed is less than perfectly clear. (Adding to the confusion, there was also a Pontiac Flamme at the Chicago Auto Show in ’64, but it was a LeMans convertible. Was this the same car retrimmed as a GTO, or a different one? We don’t know.)  In the usual case, show cars were scrapped once their careers were over. But according to at least one source (Pontiac Concept and Show Cars, 1939-1980 by Don Keefe, CarTech 2016) there are stories that the Flamme was acquired by a young man in the Chicago area and is still in hiding somewhere. 

 

8 thoughts on “A Lost GM Show Car: The 1964 Pontiac GTO Flamme”

  1. I’m really happy you shined a light on the Cibie’ headlamps used in this and other projects. .

  5. My wife’s best friends husband was a Police Officer who bought a 64 GTO Candy Apple red, new, but while on patrol he was broadsided in his patrol car by a guy who was drunk and killed. And the Goat has been sitting in ” $” ‘s garage ever since. His wife has it out a couple times a year to have its lube oil and filter changed but that’s all it has ever really been used. I’ve been trying to get her to let me buy it for almost 50+ years now, and no.. she won’t part with it. So it sits in her garage waiting for ? Her Husband can’t come back from where he is. I knew him before I met her and when I learned that she was My wife’s best friend all through high school to this day I still can’t get her to part with it.
    Now that I’m 80 and probably could no longer even depress that clutch that’s heavy duty to handle the monster under the hood, I’ve given up. She kept saying she was keeping it to put her son through College but he isn’t interested at all in the car and or more education I still can’t pry it out of that garage and now I could never afford what it would be worth In Today’s Market anyway, so I’ve shed my tears for my friend, and waited for going on 60 years for her to change her mind and let it go. But she wont and I know she never will.

    • You are looking at it as just a cool car that should be sold to someone who will appreciate it as the cool muscle car that it is and I’m not saying that you’re wrong, but she is using the car to hold on to her husband, until you have lost someone that means that much to you, you will never understand someone who can’t let go of something that is more that an object to them, it is a connection to the past. Is it a shame that the car just sits? Yes, but that car is her therapy. And when that job is done even if it takes till her death, then and only then will it be time for it to find a new home.

  6. Can you research whatever happened to five (5) I believe of the 1965 show cars labeled the Grand Marc V. They were all white convertibles, all fully loaded – I believe automatics with custom “Tiger Paw interiors. I am a life-long GTO enthusiast, and in the 70″s heard 2 of them were with a collector in Arizona. I remember reading about them in a magazine which is now defunct – so I never found it on the web.

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