70 GTO RPO codes question

[Xplantdad]

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Can anyone give me a legitimate answer to this power brakes question?


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Hey Supercar Kid...This is Tim's response:

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I may have this one wrong, but as I recall, Chevrolet Division had the "lead" in developing disc brakes so they would have had 1st shot at usage.
In those days, GM had what was called an "Orange Book" that outlined which Car Division had "design responsibility" for given components. Possibly someone in your forum has a copy of this document - - it would be very interesting to read it now.

The disc brake and wheel width transitions in 1969/1970 were confusing.
Option proliferation was driving the plants crazy and the performance era was adding significant end items to final assembly. There was also the "low advertised price" culture at the time. Muscle cars were competing for baby boomers' first pay checks - - even common sense options were not made standard (like brake/wheel upgrades, gage packages, power steering, "heater cars," and steering wheels).

One other thought, but only speculation. Often there were capacity constraints, especially with emerging new options(idling drum brake capacity and bringing-up disc brake capacity without losing total capacity). Even UAW got involved with different plants going down/up in employees. The Division GMs fought for the scarce options and the deciding vote was usually based on a volume consideration - - they did not want to over-extend applications so they would have sufficient supply for what they called "free expression" demand for any given application.

Terrific clip of your car. I like the front-end lift when you launched.

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[Supercar_Kid]

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ITS A SIMPLE FACT. THE GM AT CHEVY BELIEVED THAT ALL SS CARS SHOULD BE EQUIPPED WITH DISC BRAKES AS STANDARD EQUIPMENT AND THE GM OVER AT PONTIAC DIDNT BELIEVE SO.

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C'mon Don...it's the WHY I'm after...not a reiteration of the obvious facts.

Xplant...thanks for your response. The notion of particular divisions having particualr areas of responsibility for development makes sense...but weren't disc brakes pretty well developed by 1970? They appeared on 1967 model Chevrolet's and were mandatory on most performance models only 2 years later. I don't think the reason GTOs didn't get disc brakes as part of the package had anything to do with Chevrolet's claim to the development of the braking system itself, or Pontiac's lack thereof as disc brakes were available on GTOs just not a mandatory inclusion like they were on Chevrolets.
I think we may be on the right track though. Anyone else have any insight or insider information from GM?

[RAIVJudge]

I think each division did their own thing with some options. My RA3 Judge convertible has non-power drums at all corners. 70 GTO's could be ordered like that. My 70 Olds W-30 has non-power discs, but disc's were mandatory on W-30 Cars. I know one thing, I should have put disc's on the Judge when I restored it. Kinda scary....

[Xplantdad]

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I think we may be on the right track though. Anyone else have any insight or insider information from GM?


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Supercar Kid...Tim worked as an engineer at pontiac for more than 10 years...He went though all the GM engineering schools right out of high school in the 60's...

I'll pick his brain a bit more on this...