2004-2006 Pontiac GTO
When Pontiac announced its plans to release a brand new GTO to the motoring public after a nearly 30-year hiatus, excitement ran high. Pontiac had used the long-neglected GTO nameplate to kick off the whole muscle car craze back in the early 1960s, and the revival of the GTO represented not only a potentially exciting new car, but a chance to cleanse the palatte from the sour taste left by the last GTO, the tape-and-sticker Ventura-based 1974 GTO.
When the new GTO debuted, however, it was to sighs of disappointment. The anticlimax had nothing to do with the performance. With a 350-horsepower LS1 small-block V-8, replaced the following year with the 400-horsepower LS2, acceleration was certainly potent. Car & Driver clocked the 2005 GTO at less than 5 seconds from 0-60 and the 13-second range in the quarter-mile.
But, to some, the GTO lacked the visual chutzpah of its predecessors--and in an age of overtly demonstrative cars, that seemed a fatal flaw. The GTO's feeble sales compared to the brisk movement of the new, retro-styled Mustang just drove home the point. After only three years of production, the GTO was quietly canceled.
I didn't really see the problem. I briefly drove a GTO and loved it. The GTO's Australian Holden-based chassis gives the GTO solidity and excellent grip, though it is certainly no lightweight. And the LS2 was strong enough to flatten me against the seat, two-dimensional Wile E. Coyote style, while making aggressive noises and propelling the GTO quickly to wildly inappropriate speeds through the streets of West Seattle.
And if the GTO looks something like a Grand Am on weight gainer, so what? The reimagined Ford Mustang is a lot of fun, but must all modern muscle cars be all about nostalgia? Big-time power in an anonymous wrapper is a classic theme--just think of the GTO as a sawed-off shutgun under a trenchcoat. At the very least, it's the polar opposite of the 1974 GTO, which was all show and no go. Which would you prefer?
The video below is pretty entertaining--at the very least, it's nice to hear the LS2 performing in anger. Although ... a GTO being chased by a Bonneville and a Vibe? What?
--Chris H.
RacerS3 on January 14, 2010 at 12:35 PM
Regarding the GTO styling. I never understood why people where so disappointed with the GTO styling. It was obvious it was not a newly styled car for the American market. It was not a new car at all when it debuted in the U.S. in 2004. It was an almost ten-year-old car that had been on the market in Australia, called the Holden Manaro. It had typical mid 90’s sedan/coupe styling because that’s when it was styled, and it never bothered me because I knew what this car was right from the start. It was clear it was a stop gap/band-aid car to fill the gap between the Camaro/Firebird demise in 2002 to the introduction of the new rear drive platform that eventually came to market in 2008 as the G8. I thought it was totally clear that’s what GM’s intention was from the start. I am sure I still have some of the articles from magazines that actually test drove the car in its right hand drive Holden Manaro form, talking about how G.M. was going to be re-badge the car in left hand drive form as a Pontiac in the U.S.
Why was anyone surprised the by the old styling?
Who actually thought it was a new car?
Did anyone really expect that G.M. was going to restyle the whole car for a maybe, four year run?
The real problem is G.M., and the rest of the big three, should have been building rear drive cars like the 2004-2006 GTO for the U.S. market in the 90’s with a standard V6 and 5speed manual with a optional automatic trans, and with V8’s and 6speeds optional in performance trim. They could have easily got high 20’s to low 30’s MPG in coupe, sedan and station wagon form.
G.M. and Ford had no excuse to not build cars like that, since their Australian subsidiaries had been doing it the whole time. Instead they concentrated all their efforts on behemoth SUV’s, because of high profit margins, and then churned out sub-standard front drive platforms. But now they are paying the price.
tomm on June 20, 2010 at 03:11 AM
So many forget that the Chevelle SS396/454 was Chevy's muscle car, not just any Chevelle.
MARK on June 25, 2010 at 02:03 AM
Sad because in Australia we got these: http://img110.imageshack.us/i/gts19ki.jpg/ and they are awesome. Should have just taken one of them, Americans!