Here Comes the GTO Judge?

Now that Pontiac will have a GTO in its lineup, will it have a top of the line Judge as well?

Judge was the name given to the high-performance, Ram-Air-induction option package on 1969-1971 Pontiac GTO muscle cars.

John Z. DeLorean, Pontiac chief engineer at the time, borrowed the name from the oft repeated “Here comes the judge” phrase on the old TV show “Laugh In.”

Thirty years after it disappeared, the GTO has returned for the '04 model year as a rear-wheel-drive coupe with a 5.7L V-8 engine delivering 350 hp.

An even more powerful new GTO may be added, but it is unlikely to carry the Judge moniker, says Bob Lutz, vice chairman-product development for General Motors Corp.

“There's some positives and some negatives with that name,” he says. “My early call was to name it Judge, but would BMW call one of its performance cars Judge?”

Nein.