Rarer Than GTO, 1971 Pontiac Lemans Sport, Manual Trans For Sale
Found this third generation of the Pontiac Lemans offered for sale on craigslist for $39,900 in Sagamore Beach, Massachusetts. Originally Lemans is a trim upgrade based on the Tempest then Pontiac dropped the Tempest name altogether in 1971 and introduced its intermediate lineup as Lemans and GTO as a separate line. As we know, the GTO is one most popular of the muscle cars, spawned from the Lemans lineup.
As shown here is a nice example of the 1971 Lemans Sport edition, which is a camouflage product between GTO and Lemans, to react to what insurers do at that time. It's something of a GTO in LeMans clothing.
In the early 70s, muscle cars were at the top of the success, then insurers send a punch at them with insurance premium surcharges, (to avoid surcharges) Pontiac responded by putting the GTO’s endura nose and hood on a LeMans Sport where its standard power was a six-cylinder engine, which is not on the muscle car list.
However, Pontiac allowed the customer to order the LeMans Sport with some of the same performance equipment as the GTO, such as 350, 400, or 455 cubic inch models, including the 455 High Output (HO) engine. Today’s find is of that special character, offered by the seller is a 400 model with an unusual 3-speed manual transmission, and it's more sensational when you shift the gears and rarest than the automatic model, even with GTO at once.
