Quarter-Mile Royalty
The 1963 Super Duty Catalina found its natural habitat at NHRA-sanctioned dragstrips across the country. In the hands of legendary drivers such as Arnie “The Farmer” Beswick, the Catalina Super Duty quickly built a reputation for devastating performance and unmatched durability. In the early 1960s, his car consistently ran mid-12-second quarter-mile times at more than 110 mph— astonishing numbers for the period and especially impressive considering the big car’s full-frame construction.
The Catalina’s sheer speed helped Pontiac further stake its claim as a performance brand, paving the way for the GTO and the rest of the muscle car revolution. While the Catalina Super Duty wasn’t a muscle car in the classic sense (a midsize car with a big engine), it laid much of the groundwork for what was to come. Perhaps more importantly, it gave engineers like DeLorean the confidence to plant the 389-cid V-8 into the midsize 1964 Tempest — creating the Pontiac GTO and igniting the muscle car era.
The ’63 SD Catalina is now one of the most sought-after collector cars in American muscle history. Survivors trade hands for six-figure prices, and rightly so — each one represents a brief but glorious chapter where engineers were allowed to build unfiltered performance machines with full factory support.
