GTO is officially history

[YSSMAN]

Ummmm, where do I start?

1) The Pontiac GTO was created in the absence of the GM F-Body cars, those being the Firebird and Camaro. Enthusiest outcries for a performance RWD coupe were enough for Bob Lutz (then head of new product development) to take a trip to Holden in Australia to check out the Monaro. Using the Monaro, it was perfect match for the GTO... A rather large coupe capable of taking different V8's with a great package of refinement and utility when compred to the F-Bodies that had preceeded it. More could have been done with the styling, and it is sad that it was just adressed recently. The plan was to get the product out and get the sales that they needed. GM may have overpredicted how many the US would want (18K per year, more like 14.5K now), but the car was still a success nonetheless.

2) The Solstice has absolutely nothing, and I mean NOTHING, to do with the death of the GTO. The Solstice has been in product planning since late 2002, before the GTO ever went on-sale here in the US. Beyond that, the car is neither in the same class, nor offers a similar expirience behind the wheel. The Solstice (although the first of the Kappa cars to be released) was co-developed between GM America and GM Europe in the context of the platform and suspension dynamics, but the rest of the car is as American as it gets.

3) The Torrent is not a Pontiac specialty vehicle. It is actually based heavily on the Chevrolet Equinox, which in turn is based off the Saturn VUE. The Chevy and Pontiac are more closely related (see side pannels and interior pieces), but the VUE is the "one-off" model of the three.

4) I'm not even going to comment on your rant about GM's stock prices, as that really isnt a very large guage on the performance of the company. If you want to be worried about Automotive stock prices, take a look at Ford's, which hovers around $10 a share.

Pack to the point: The GTO's death may not be a good thing at the moment, but give it some time. GM still has not announced if they will return to the GTO badge or to the Firebird for their next RWD coupe, atleast we know one is on the way.

 

[95GTIVR6]

2) The Solstice has absolutely nothing, and I mean NOTHING, to do with the death of the GTO. The Solstice has been in product planning since late 2002, before the GTO ever went on-sale here in the US. Beyond that, the car is neither in the same class, nor offers a similar expirience behind the wheel. The Solstice (although the first of the Kappa cars to be released) was co-developed between GM America and GM Europe in the context of the platform and suspension dynamics, but the rest of the car is as American as it gets.

As an Advertising major, I will have to argue with you on this one. While you may be ultimatley correct with this assumption, I wish to give you a few reasons as to why the introduction of the Solstice MAY have inflicted more damage to the GTO that originally preceived.

From an advertising stand point, when Pontiac started their new campaign, all of their new cars fit well. The upbeat attitude, displaying the cars in a sort-of "fun-2-drive" format. However, in very few of these commercials did you see the GTO being mentioned.

Personally, I believe the Pontiac (GM anyways....) marketing squad relied too much on the sheer nameplate of the "GTO" badge to rekindle its audience of old.

However, this assumption could be totally wrong. Perhaps the sole purpose of the GTO was to hopefully spark sudden interest in people aged 25-40, whose parents were captivated with the GTO in its initial release. If this were the case, I would still make the argument that the marketing of the GTO was insufficent if they were planning to keep the car around.

Then again, I can refute my previous statement by saying the GM DID indeed know that the nearly identical Holden model would cease production in the near future, and that (again) the sole purpose of the GTO was to establish more interest in the Pontiac nameplate.

This was by no means to argue your point, but I just felt it nessisary to bring my POV to the table. YSSMAN, you BY FAR know more about Chevrolet and their "partners in crime" but im sure you can understand where im coming from. After all, we both own VW's 👍

 

[YSSMAN]

^^^Not a problem... You further expanded on the same baisic idea, and you probably would have said it much better than I ever could with you being a advertising major (I'm in History)...

 

[Tornado]

Thing is, I think it IS worth the extra $$$. It's a far better car than the Mustang GT--and I LOVE the new Mustang GT in everyway. I mean you get nearly Corvette performance (C5) but over $10k less with the "GTO"...AND it's the most comfortable and best looking GM product to boot (my opinion)!

The problem was though, that a 5 year old Camaro is just as fast, with prices approaching the low teens. In addition, not very many people thought it was worth the extra money compared to the Mustang. All-in-all, it isn't very surprising that many people didn't buy the GTO. Think about it, ressurecting a nameplate unused in 35 years vs. a nameplate that everybody knows. In addition, the GTO had no "base" car, so every car they sold had to be sold on performance alone.
There was also the strong Australian dollar. The problem with that was (and I'm sure I'll get flamed for this) that both Mitsubishi and Subaru can sell you a couple of fine sedans that are identicle or better in performance to the GTO, one of which has a 10-year warranty, and both of which are far more practical than the GTO ever was (though it was leaps and bounds ahead of the F-bodies). Ford doesn't have to worry about that, because the Mustang GT starts off 6k-7k cheaper than the Evo and STi. The GTO starts at 3k more, and the people they tried to market the car to either spent less to buy Mustangs or spent less to buy Evo's and STi's, because they were interested in them more, due to price or brand heritage or whatever. To sum it up, the problem was that it just wasn't as much of a success as it needed to be to warrant a replacement, similar to the way the F-Bodies were in the end, and as such they killed it off.

 

[importfan1]

At this point, it seems that GM will be selling off it brands. First the fact that they closed oldsmoble and now it seems that buick will be the next victim of the dreaded GM chopping block. It seems that Caddy and possible Chevy or Pontic can save them. I hope that GM gets out of this slump soon.

 

[Sniffs]

fat chance of any revival...despite the Camaro concept being touted around.

GM needs to have a major overhaul, and do more than just chop jobs...it needs to chop labels.

what I would do: chop buick, hummer, saturn off at the knees, leaving only Chevy/Pontiac/Caddilac. drop the fancy crap for Chevy, and turn IT into the bargan basement line, give Pontiac a performance boost, and leave caddy as an AMG's clone varient.

drop support parts for oldies and Goodwrench div and nascar copmetition

haul in guys from japanese manufacturers to overhaul the WHOLE system and up the quality


sorry for the rant (ish), but my Blazer's been giving me fuel problems

 

[Jay]

Drop Hummer? I thought Hummer was doing quite well.

 

[Tourettes Guy]

God forbid they do that...

 

[YSSMAN]

GM doesnt have any need to cut any brands whatsoever. They have chosen to take a different direction, and instead are consolidating Pontiac, Buick, and GMC together to create a "single lineup" between the three brands. Think of three combined to be like a Mercedes or BMW in Europe, with a wide variety of vehicles to appeal to many different people... Thats what GM is going for...

As for everything else, its strong. Hummer sales have been greatly improved by the H3, and production was increased for 2006. Hummer still wants to diversify it's lineup, and there still may be a small pickup or sub-H3 model added in the near future. Saturn is becoming the next brand of promise at GM North America, essentially being the US division of the Opel/Vauxhall brand. Models like the Sky, Aura, and Outlook show that Saturn is looking to compete with VW/Audi, as well as Volvo, and some low-level BMWs.

However, Chevrolet and Cadillac remain as they have always been, the leaders of GM.

 

[Tourettes Guy]

GM doesnt have any need to cut any brands whatsoever. They have chosen to take a different direction, and instead are consolidating Pontiac, Buick, and GMC together to create a "single lineup" between the three brands.

No... they don't have any choice because if they were to kill stuff they'd have a **** load of useless parts.

 

[Layzie]

GTO is here to stay says GM

http://www.cleveland.com/autoshow/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/business/1141216290309520.xml&coll=2

 

[95GTIVR6]

^^That article changes things.

I really, REALLY hope they don't fall to styling the '09 GTO in a "retro" based format. Maybe by then the whole Amreican Craze with retro styling will cease to exist. Maybe thats just me but wether or not I will be happy with the GTO's return will depend upon its performance.

As for an even faster Corvette.......Chevrolet is plain crazy.......if anything, this so called "Blue Devil" will most likely be a limited production. Would be cool if it has similar paint to the C4 Grand Sport model.

 

[JCE]

With the current strength of the Australian dollar and the recent free-trade agreement between Australia and the United States, it would be more feasible to build the GTO in North America and export a version called the Holden Monaro to Australia, he said.[/url]

BAH. Just build the damn thing in Aussie land and send it here...I trust thier factory workers more than ours ten-fold.

 

[YSSMAN]

Meh... GM is running in circles again, and no-one knows whats going on. Typical... Oh well, I can't say that I would be dissapointed to see the GTO go, nor to see it stay, as I am more concerned about the Camaro, which sounds as it is 100% go for 2008 or 2009.

Pontiac is going to have to place the GTO well above the Camaro this time around. I would assume that would mean a standard Corvette-sourced LS2, and hopefully they will make the car larger and a bit more luxurious than the Camaro that will reside on the same platform.

Being that the rumor is that the W-Body cars are going RWD for 2008 or 2009, the GTO would be to the Grand Prix what the Monte Carlo is to the Impala. Which brings up an interesting question: How hard would it be to bring back the Chevelle name to replace the Monte Carlo?

...Of course that leads to the problem with the Malibu name which is another FWD midsize car, and I doubt they would bring back the Bel-Air name to replace that...

EDIT March 2, 2006: GTO is offically back, no Firebird like the others had said. See my other thread on the Zeta program, theres a lot of good stuff comming our way!

 

[GT4_Rule]

Good. They didn't kill the goat after all.

I don't find the current style that bad. Its fine looking; if there's too much ornament like the Sti then it makes it look worse. A small spoiler, two small hood scoops and dual exhausts is just what it needs. Look at the C6 Z06. You can hardly tell between a standard and the Z06; there's only nose scoop, wider tracks and red calipers and two small Z06 badges to distnguish.