With the GTO fading from the picture, Pontiac went in a whole new direction with the 1972 Luxury LeMans. 

For 1972, the GTO was demoted from a stand-alone model to an option package, the same status it held in the Pontiac lineup when it was introduced in 1964. It had travelled full circle. The car that launched the ’60s muscle car movement had been falling steadily in sales from its 1966 peak (see our feature here) and then nosedived in 1971 to a mere 10,552 units. Reading the writing on the wall, Pontiac shifted the focus of its popular A-Body intermediate platform and introduced the Luxury LeMans. Now the emphasis was not on performance but on comfort and prestige.

This is an overly generalized view, no doubt, but here’s one way the trend has been explained: Baby boomers were growing up and moving on. A 22-year old GTO buyer in 1966 would now be a 28 year-old in 1972, settled down and building a family. And naturally, the needs and desires of buyers are subject to change.  Where a muscle car no longer filled the bill for a boomer inching toward middle age, a fully-equipped mid-sized coupe or sedan just might do the trick. Pontiac was turning the page.

Not that the Luxury LeMans was a slug. The base engine was a 350 cubic-inch V8 with 160 SAE net hp (rated at 250 gross hp the year before). Also, the full range of 400 and 455 CID V8s was available at extra cost but for one: the 300 hp 455 CID HO V8, which was available on all LeMans models except the Luxury. Here, the best to be had was the 455-4 V8 with a Rochester four-barrel carburetor, 8.2:1 compression ratio, and 250 net hp. With a few hundred exceptions, nearly every buyer selected an automatic transmission.

Luxury LeMans features included an exclusive front grille, special trim and badging, and an instrument panel “with the look of rare Ceylonese teak.” The upgraded interior also included plush carpeting, a padded steering wheel, and the buyer’s choice of Pontiac’s Morrokide vinyl or Morrokide and cloth seat coverings. But the signature feature of the Luxury was its standard fender skirts, which transformed the exterior look in a significant way—from a sporty intermediate into a posh boulevardier. The price was $3,196 for the coupe, $345 more than the standard LeMans.

We can’t say the Pontiac people didn’t read the room correctly, as the Luxury LeMans sold more than 46,000 units in ’72, while the GTO managed just 5,807. The GTO did live on for two more seasons, including a final year when it was based on the X-Body Ventura. But ultimately, the Luxury LeMans didn’t fare any better. It also remained in the lineup only through 1974 (below) and was then rebadged in 1975 as the Grand LeMans.