General Motors has building flashy muscle cars since 1964 with their GTO’s, Chevelle’s, Olds 442’s and Gran Sports and Plymouth wanted a piece of the action. They had the engines; they just didn’t have the look. That all changed in 1967. Plymouth took a “plain Jane” Belvedere and turned it into a handsome and highly competent muscle car. They called it the GTX.
The exterior was dressed up by adding sport racing stripes, hood scoops, a competition style gas cap and Red Streak tires. The interior had bucket seats that looked like leather. The rear seats were designed to look like bucket seats for an added performance look. Other upgrades included a 150mph speedometer and an optional center console.
Under the hood was a Super Commando 440 cubic inch big block engine or optionally a 426 cubic inch Hemi. Either engine was capable of serious performance and could propel the car to some very respectable ¼ mile times. The Hemi was good for high thirteen second times and the Super Commando could do low fourteens.
Suspension upgrades were introduced to handle all that power and allow these big cars some cornering ability. The engineers did a good job, as the press was really impressed with the car’s handling ability. The main weakness noted by all was the brakes. Neither the standard drum brakes nor the optional front disk brakes were up to the challenge. This was a common weakness of all the early muscle cars and the GTX was no exception.
Overall the 1967 GTX was a winner. It had the performance and it had the looks.
