Pontiac Wanted a Sports Car of Its Own
In 1964, John DeLorean was helping transform Pontiac into GM’s performance division, but the success of the GTO wasn’t enough. DeLorean wanted a genuine two-seat sports car, something lightweight, inexpensive and distinctive enough to attract younger buyers who were suddenly flocking to Ford’s Mustang. The secret project carried the internal designation XP-833 and would eventually become known as the Pontiac Banshee. The plan was surprisingly ambitious. Pontiac envisioned a Banshee that could potentially reach showrooms for the 1967 model year with a targeted base price of around $2,500. That would have put it well below Chevrolet’s Corvette, which started at more than $4,000 by 1967.
The Banshee also used an unusual construction method combining fiberglass exterior panels with a steel structure, an approach Pontiac would revisit decades later with the Fiero. Two running XP-833 prototypes were eventually completed. The silver coupe (above) received Pontiac’s unusual overhead-cam inline-six and a four-speed manual, while a white convertible was fitted with a 326-cubic-inch V8. Both were compact, low and dramatically styled, with long hoods, hidden-headlight forms and proportions unlike anything else wearing a Pontiac badge.
GM Thought It Was Too Dangerous to the Corvette
DeLorean argued that his sports car would give Pontiac a weapon against Ford. GM management saw another problem: Chevrolet already had a two-seat sports car, and protecting the Corvette’s place at the top of the corporation’s performance hierarchy mattered. Engineer Bill Collins, who oversaw development of the XP-833, later recalled that GM management never allowed the project to get close to production funding. DeLorean himself later said executive Ed Cole believed the Banshee would be “devastating” to Corvette and used his influence to stop it. That decision became even more intriguing when Chevrolet introduced the third-generation Corvette for 1968.
Several elements of the C3 Corvette’s shape, such as the pronounced front fenders, low roof and flowing sports-car proportions, look remarkably familiar to anyone looking at the Banshee today. The design also influenced the Opel GT, a GM product at the time. Other XP-833 details foreshadowed later Pontiacs, including styling that would appear on the GTO and Firebird. That doesn’t mean the C3 was simply a rebadged Banshee, but it makes Pontiac’s canceled prototype look remarkably prescient. Once development ended, the two prototypes faced the fate that destroyed countless experimental GM automobiles: the crusher. Instead, Collins reportedly hid the Banshees in storage containers within GM rather than allow them to be destroyed. Years later, Pontiac employees involved with the program arranged to purchase them from the company.
Both Cars Somehow Survived
Pontiac master mechanic Bill Killen acquired the silver six-cylinder coupe, while Collins bought the white V8 convertible. That means the cars GM decided it didn’t want ultimately escaped corporate ownership intact. Even more remarkably, both survive. The convertible eventually joined noted concept-car collector Joe Bortz’s collection, while the coupe remained with Killen for decades before entering the collector-car market.
The coupe sold at Barrett-Jackson in 2006 for $214,500 and has resurfaced for sale several times since. By 2020 it was being offered for $750,000, still reportedly retaining its original paint, interior and drivetrain with fewer than 1,500 miles showing. The Banshee has never become as famous as the GTO, Firebird or Corvette, but perhaps that is exactly what makes the surviving prototype so compelling.
Pontiac eventually got its Mustang competitor in the form of the 1967 Firebird. What it never got was its own Corvette. Had DeLorean won the argument inside GM, American buyers might have been able to walk into a Pontiac dealership in the late 1960s and buy a lightweight fiberglass two-seat sports car for considerably less than a Corvette. Instead, GM killed the program—and the two cars that were supposed to disappear are still here to show us what might have been.
