The Pontiac GTO Royal Bobcat Was a Stealthy Hunter

While the origin point of muscle cars is hotly debated, there is one fact from the mid-1960s that is settled: The Pontiac GTO will forever be an icon. The first-generation Goat put all the power of Pontiac’s larger V-8 engines into a mid-sized chassis and changed buyers’ expectations of power and performance from that day forward. Hopping up the Le Mans helped cement Pontiac’s transformation from a stodgy old man brand into one that younger buyers took seriously. But while a standard-fare GTO was widely available, a hotter version could be had if you knew where to shop.

By the mid-1960s Pontiac was involved in multiple forms of motorsport under the guidance of general manager Semon “Bunkie” Knudsen and very quickly had a stout performance parts catalog that enabled anyone with a few extra dollars and hankering for more power to buy their speed parts direct. The dealer leading the charge to promote the direct-to-consumer parts was Royal Pontiac in Royal Oak, Michigan. There, a small number of Pontiacs were prepared by with some careful tuning and installation of the factory-sourced hi-po bits, and those cars were called “Royal Bobcats.”

One of these special cars is the guest on Jay Leno’s Garage this week, with its very genuine and knowledgeable owner Jordan “Joker” Smith in tow. While the age gap is visible between the two, the enthusiasm is infectious as Smith and Leno talk through the history of Royal Bobcats and also the specific red 1965 GTO that belongs to Smith.

Smith found the car after a diligent search. His restoration efforts were temporarily sidelined by a move to Texas from an Air Force base in South Dakota, but the work was eventually completed with the help of two friends, and the final product is a beautiful restoration of a car that has a surprising amount of history and interesting ownership.

The Royal Bobcat package itself is comprised of rocker arm locking nuts, new rocker cover gaskets, 0.022-0.025″ thinner head gaskets to increase compression, a gasket to block the heat riser in the intake manifold, carburetor re-jetting package, a distributor recurve kit with Mallory points and condenser, a new advance stop with lighter weights and springs, and a set of Royal Bobcat emblems. It’s both a lot and not a lot all at once. The results are hard to argue though, as these relatively simple changes give the GTO more than enough pep to be a very fun car to drive.

Are the Royal Bobcats the first, last, or greatest muscle cars? Probably not, but that doesn’t matter when the owner and story are as great as Smith and his car. It takes people like Smith and Jay to keep the stories and experience of cars like this Royal Bobcat out there to be heard and experienced. Personally, we’d love to experience this car from the driver’s seat, but beggars can’t be choosers.