1967 Pontiac GTO Ram Air

The 1967 Pontiac GTO got a modest styling refresh, but the real story was a single option buried on the order form: the L67 Ram Air 400, installed in just 56 convertibles out of more than 81,000 GTOs built that year. Higher-revving power, a Rochester Quadrajet carburetor, and a mid-year cylinder head change made it one of the most collectible GTOs ever built. Read on to find out what actually separated a genuine Ram Air car from an ordinary 1967 GTO.

A grille redesign and some new taillights don’t usually make a car legendary. What made the 1967 GTO different wasn’t the styling refresh Pontiac’s designers handed it — it was a single checkbox buried on the Special Order Engine Options page, one that turned an already-formidable muscle car into something genuinely rare. Order it on a convertible, and Pontiac built only 56 examples that way, out of more than 81,000 GTOs total for the model year. Understanding what set that engine apart from an ordinary 400-cubic-inch GTO explains why collectors treat this specific combination so differently from the rest of the ’67 lineup. Everything else about the ’67 — the new grille, the relocated emblems, even the extra safety features — was just the backdrop for an engine option most buyers never checked.

From Marketing Slogan to Nickname That Stuck

Pontiac’s ad department never quite landed its planned tiger mascot for the GTO, but by 1967, fans had settled on their own nickname anyway — “the Goat.” The name GTO itself borrowed directly from Ferrari, standing for Gran Turismo Omologato, a term Pontiac adopted in 1964 to signal the car’s racing pedigree even though the GTO was very much a mainstream American product. By its third full model year, the GTO had become the yardstick other manufacturers measured their own muscle cars against, regardless of whether Pontiac’s marketing team ever got the tiger campaign quite right.

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How Rare Is Rare: The 1967 Production Numbers

Pontiac built 81,722 GTOs for 1967, split between 65,176 hardtops, 7,029 Sport Coupes, and a smaller run of convertibles. Within that convertible total, only 56 cars left the factory with the Ram Air option on the 400-cubic-inch V8 — a genuinely tiny slice of an already limited body style. Documentation matters enormously here — a fender tag confirming the original Ram Air convertible combination can be the difference between a well-regarded GTO and one of the true unicorns of the model year. That combination of convertible top and Ram Air induction makes surviving examples some of the most sought-after GTOs from any model year, since so few were built and fewer still have survived intact with their original drivetrain documentation.

A Subtle But Real Styling Refresh

The ’67 model didn’t reinvent the GTO’s look, but the changes were deliberate. Eight narrow, horizontally oriented taillights arranged two-by-two on each side replaced the previous louvered units, and a new chrome mesh grille eliminated the split-grille look of earlier years in favor of a single design linked by a chrome strip. GTO badging moved from the rear fenders to the chromed rocker covers, and buyers could option new five-spoke Rally II wheels finished with colored lug nuts — small details, but ones longtime GTO owners still use to identify a genuine ’67 at a glance.

New Comfort and Safety Features Inside

Beyond the sheet metal, the cabin picked up simulated wood grain trim, four-way flashers, and redesigned non-protruding knobs designed to reduce injury risk in a crash. Padding appeared around the instrument cluster, and both the steering column and steering wheel switched to energy-absorbing designs. An optional shoulder harness joined the standard lap belts for front occupants, and every 1967 GTO came standard with a dual-reservoir master cylinder feeding separate hydraulic lines to the front and rear brakes independently — with front disc brakes available as an added option for buyers who wanted the upgrade. Pontiac treated these additions as evidence the GTO could be a genuinely safer car without losing any of the performance identity that made it famous in the first place.

The Checkbox That Mattered: L67 Ram Air

Buried on the Special Order Engine Options page of the 1967 Tempest-GTO order form, the L67-400 Ram Air engine carried the same official 360-horsepower rating as the standard GTO engine, but delivered that peak at a higher 5,100 rpm and produced a slightly stronger torque peak of 438 lb-ft at 3,600 rpm. Pontiac also swapped in a Rochester Quadrajet four-barrel carburetor in place of the tri-power setup used in earlier years, changing the car’s induction character even before accounting for the Ram Air hardware itself.

What Actually Changed Between H.O. and Ram Air

The differences between the standard H.O. engine and the true Ram Air option came down to the induction system itself, a hotter camshaft profile, and stiffer valve springs. The block started life as the familiar 389, bored out to 400 cubic inches, and retained many 389-derived components including the original carburetion mounting, manifolds, and compression ratio. Early 1967 Ram Air cars used the older No. 670 cylinder heads, but Pontiac quietly upgraded the casting partway through the model year — after head number 646,616, engineers modified the “670” die stamp by grinding off the zero and flipping the six upside down to create a “97” designation, with later castings marked “997” and stamped between the fourth and fifth spark plug holes.

What the Option Actually Cost in 1967

Checking the Ram Air box added $203.30 to the price of a GTO equipped with the base three-speed transmission, but the option came with strings attached: buyers also had to order the 4.33 Safe-T-Track rear end for an additional $48.79. Transmission choices added further cost on top of that — the close-ratio M21 four-speed ran $142.31 extra, while the newly available three-speed Turbo-Hydramatic automatic, paired with Hurst’s engineered dual-gate shifter, added $174.84. None of it was cheap by 1967 standards, which is part of why so few buyers actually walked out with the full Ram Air package.

Why Documentation Matters More Than the Badge

Collectors chasing a documented 1967 Ram Air GTO today rely on the same trail of paperwork that mattered decades ago — factory invoices, dealer order forms, and casting numbers on the block and heads that match Pontiac’s own production records for that specific combination. Because so few Ram Air convertibles were built, and because the visual differences between a genuine Ram Air car and a standard 400 GTO can be subtle once decades of repaints and swapped hoods enter the picture, buyers who skip that verification step risk paying six-figure money for a car that only looks the part.

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