With the 1965 GTO, the Pontiac Motor Division coined one of hot rodding’s most familiar terms: Ram Air. Here’s how that came to pass.

In Maybellene, Chuck Berry’s famous 1955 tune about a busted romance, the hero’s would-be girlfriend is driving away in a Cadillac Coupe De Ville while he takes chase with his Ford V8. The Ford begins to catch the Caddy (“nothin’ will outrun my V-8 Ford”) until the engine gets hot and begins to falter. But just as the Caddy begins to pull away, the lovesick Ford driver gets a lucky break:

It done got cloudy and started to rain
I tooted my horn for the passin’ lane
The rain water blowin’ all under my hood
I knew I was doin’ my motor good

. . . and the Ford catches the Cadillac again. The father of rock ‘n roll knew what hot rodders have known forever: With cool, dense air, an engine can produce more horsepower. (And moist air reduces knock.) Air scoops and fresh air intakes are a very old idea in the automotive world. And in the early ’60s, as the Detroit automakers entered the world of drag racing, air intake systems were among the first upgrades they performed—it was a cheap and easy performance gain. Chrysler took the straightforward approach with scoops mounted directly atop the hood, while Ford used large flexible ducts that took in air from the grille area. Chevrolet’s NASCAR and drag racing engines for 1963 took their fresh air from the heater/defroster inlet in the cowl (below).

By 1964 when the Pontiac GTO was introduced, General Motors was officially out of the organized racing game, but the Pontiac division continued to maintain less formal ties with the performance community— for example, through Royal Pontiac in suburban Detroit and its resident performance wizard, the late Milt Shornack (1935-2020). Sizing up the twin, broadly spaced fake hood scoops on the ’64 GTO, Shornack found them unsuitable for conversion into working intakes, so he adopted the Chevy-style system above. This setup was installed on the Car and Driver magazine ’64 GTO road test car, an infamous ringer prepared by Royal Pontiac. (Shornack’s book, Milt Shornack and the Royal Bobcat GTOs, as told to Keith J. MacDonald, is a worthy read.)

Fortunately, the restyled ’65 GTO was equipped with a more usable central hood scoop, and while it wasn’t functional in production form, it could be easily opened up to create a fresh air supply for the 389 CID Tri-Power V8. It was about this time, according to Shornack, that the Pontiac division became extremely interested in the setup. Pontiac special projects engineer Skip McCully, a former member of the Ramchargers at Chrysler, carefully instrumented and tested the system, fabricating a series of prototype base plates in both steel and fiberglass. Reportedly, the mod was worth an easy 18 horsepower, and midway through the ’65 model year, Pontiac offered an over-the-counter dealer kit that included a stamped steel base plate, foam gasket, and instructions for $30. Needless to say, all the fast guys had to have it.

For 1966, the air scoop setup became an official Pontiac factory option (the XS package) that included upgraded valve springs and a high-duration camshaft. Ram Air quickly became a hot-rodding catchphrase, not just on Pontiacs but everywhere, just as Tri-Power had joined the gearhead vocabulary a few years before. Over the next few years, Pontiac’s Ram Air packages for the GTO and the Firebird proliferated and escalated from Ram Air II through Ram Air IV, including bigger and better engine components. There was an over-the-top Ram Air V package developed in 1970 just as the muscle era began to wane, but it was never offered in a Pontiac production car.

By the way, while Pontiac Ram Air offers a tangible performance gain by providing the engine with a supply of fresh, cool air, it doesn’t really “ram” air. Mark that one down to the folks in marketing. The inlet area isn’t large or effective enough and the vehicle isn’t travelling nearly fast enough. Assuming an inlet efficiency of 100 percent (fat chance) at 100 mph, the increase in air pressure is barely one percent. But no matter. Ram Air is still a cool term, and it will be around the performance world forever.