Here”s a genuine artifact of American pop culture: ’60s pop group Paul Revere and the Raiders presenting the hot new 1969 Pontiac GTO Judge.

 

With the 1968 Plymouth Road Runner, a stripped-down muscle car with branding borrowed from a Warner Brothers cartoon character, Chrysler scored a direct hit on the performance youth market. You bet the competition was quick to take notice, especially Pontiac and general manager John DeLorean. Gazing over the current pop culture scene, the General Motors division locked on the red-hot TV comedy sketch show Rowan & Martin’s Laugh In and its trendy catchphrase, “Here come da Judge,” originally a Pigmeat Markham bit. Pontiac’s pop-muscle car, DeLorean declared, would be called the GTO Judge.

In the original plan, the Judge was to be a value-priced muscle car like the Road Runner, but their renditions drove the cost $337 above the GTO’s base price. Still, buyers got a good deal as the standard Judge equipment included the 400 CID, 366-hp Ram Air III V8, a rear 60" winged spoiler, Hurst shifter, and the eye-catching graphics. At launch, the only available color was Carousel Red (same paint code as Chevrolet Hugger Orange) but more colors were added later. Some 6,833 Judges were sold in the first year, the Pontiac experts say, including 108 convertibles, and the Judge package stayed in the GTO lineup through 1971.

To push the ’69 Judge marketing campaign, Pontiac signed up Paul Revere & The Raiders, the chart-topping Top 40 band of the moment. (Paul Revere DIck was the keyboardist while Mark Lindsay was vocalist and front man.) Among their duties, the group recorded a catchy single, “Judge GTO Breakaway,” and clowned around in a television commercial. Join us for a moment of campy ’60s pop culture fun.

Versuri Judge GTO Breakaway
Paul Revere And The Raiders

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