The RAII cars have always flown under the radar. When the Musclecar boom hit in the late 80's, the investors went after the Shelbys, Hemis, Cobras, Superbirds, Yenkos, LS6's , and other high profile cars. When the market cooled in the early 90's, the other notables began to creep up in value, like RAIV cars, Judges, W-30's, 6-pack cars, etc.
The RAII cars were rarely (if ever) referenced when Musclecar magazines summed up the greatest of the Pontiac performance cars. It was simply a lack of information. I recall one article back in the late 80's profiling a RAII car, and it started out with. "We never heard of a RAII, but they say they made them...."
The RAII didn't receive much press back in the day, and the RAIV quickly overshadowed the RAII. Looking back at Musclecar history through the eyes of a non-Pontiac fan, 1969 was by far the most well known because of the 69 Judge, 69 Trans Am, 69 Grand Prix, and of course the RAIV engine. When contemporary articles are written, the only thing they usually ever mention about 1968 is the 68 GTO, and the Motor Trend Car Of The Year Award.
Frankly, I was always surprised that the 69 Trans Am's took so long to "get legs" among Musclecar collectors. The 69 Trans Am was a purpose built performance car that was the quickest and best handling car Pontiac had ever produced, and was the pinnacle of the 1960-1969 Pontiac performance era. But go figure, these cars were trading in the $15-$20K range in the early 90's when standard 69/70 Judges were double that figure.
Face it, Pontiac made too many high performance cars, and it's hard to get them all in when referencing the Musclecar Era. Pontiac was quite unique in that department.
1964-1972 GTO's : Tri-Powers, RAII's, RAIV's, 455HO's, Royal Bobcats, Judges.
1967-1974 Firebirds : RAII's, Trans Am's, Formulas, 455HO's, RAIV's, SD455's.
1962-1963 : SD421 cars, Tempests, Catalinas, Swiss Cheese race cars.
On top of these, you have 421 Tri-Power full-size cars, 69-72 Grand Prix's, lesser known GT-37 and T-37's, the 2+2's, and several others.
And that's why I love Pontiacs.
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