ok enough with the pics... lets see some vids... click here - vid1 2mb wmv file and the monaro - click here - vid2 2mb wmv file
Cool! Watched the first clip, looks like someone has been strokin' on the "goat" so to speak. :Brow: NICE run! What mods have been done to it? I know that wasn't bad gas causing that to lope at the starting line.....:grin: I would still consider buying one, especially if it will in fact be available with the LS2. Remember, GM could have actually made it off of the Grand Am platform, fwd and all! Brian :3gears:
Grow up for voicing my opinion? :moonu: The stylist were asleep on this one and missed the boat. Sorry if it hurts your feelings, but i would not spend $40,000 for an engine shoved in something that looks like a Grand Am. GrandAm GTO
The 2005 does look a little improved, looks O.K., but like 68 Suburban has it, the grand am does have alot of similarities between itself and the GTO as far as looks are concerned. The power-plant sounds really nice and sleek:TU:
The 2005 does look a little improved, looks O.K., but like 68 Suburban has it, the grand am does have alot of similarities between itself and the GTO as far as looks are concerned. The power-plant sounds really nice and sleek. This is no different than the '65 GTO having a lOT of similarities to the Bonneville, Star Cheif, 2+2, etc. This has been around for a while, it's called Brand Identity Marketing.
Really though, with the way GM styles their car lines, Such as Pontiac's split grille, they would have to really go off of the wall in order to make the GTO not look like Grand Am's & Grand Prix's. It's doubtful that the stylists could get a radical departure in looks past the corporate bean counters for the GTO. It would require a lot of money to build it as it's own. And then it would probably not look like a Pontiac, and that will never fly with the upper management! Really if you think about it, it's probably going to look like some other type of car no matter how you build it. The only way to get it different may end up looking bizarre like the Aztec. And then people wouldn't like it because it didn't have "Pontiac" styling. I really think they did the best they could with what was available for them to work with. The engineers and designers were not given a clean slate to work with, they were told to modify something that was already in existence. Remember when the '64 GTO came out. It was basically sneaked past the "bosses" as an option to the LeMans. But, the '65 and later GTO had scoops and other new stuff as time went on. It's always a compromise to get performance cars built in the first place. Remember, a lot of the GM people making decisions are NOT car people. They are "beancounters" (no offense to accountants intended!). We are lucky that anything like the new GTO was even built! As most of us know, the performance cars are a very little percent of sales, and what they can sell is all that matters to most of them! Brian
All my point was, that it looked to much like a Grand Am. Im not saying it is not a great car. I just expect a little more on the looks, than a classic name tag to be stuck on the GTO. I guess Chrysler is way ahead of GM when it comes to different styles on their cars. Don't get me wrong, I am not a Mopar fan, but you definaely can't confuse a lot of their cars. Chrylser is going to sell the crap out of the 300, just on its looks.
I guess I am not the only one that thinks so. Sales are not good: About a third down the page under the title "One More Dog" http://www.wheelstv.net/newsletter/no_09.htm GM wins (loses) again. Often confused for a Pontiac Grand Am or Grand Prix, GM's attempt to bring back the GTO is sinking faster than Osama bin Laden's approval ratings. Through May just 3,089 GTO's have been sold. Even though GM only plans to build about 18,000 annually at its Australian Holden Motors unit, at this rate the company would sell just over half its sales target. I had lunch with Pontiac-GMC general manager Jim Bunnell a couple of weeks ago and asked him about GTO sales figures. On the job about four months, after running GM's northeast region for the last five years, Bunnell said he's not worried and is counting on a much more robust sales rate for GTO as the warmer weather hits. Here's the sad thing about the GTO - it's damned fantastic vehicle. We ran up and down hills, mountains and freeways in November around Santa Barbara, California. It performed flawlessly, and engineers working in Detroit and Australia literally worked day and night to tune the GTO's "sound" to give it the perfect musclecar growl. Anyone who drives the GTO loves it. They just can't get past its generic appearance, an insult to its heritage and a definite impediment to driving higher sales.
Under "Australian GTO? That is Just Wrong" http://www.damianpenny.com/ July 26, 2004 An Australian GTO? That's just wrong General Motors insists it makes a profit on every Pontiac GTO it sells, since the car was not designed from scratch but had already been fully developed for the Australian market. Still, GM head Bob Lutz admits sales have been disappointing, and says "a more retro car" might have done better. Maybe, though I've never really bought the argument that the new GTO's styling is too bland. The original GTO didn't look that much different from the Tempest on which it was based, and that was the point - it was a stripped-down car meant to go fast, and nothing more. (It wasn't until the late 1960s, when the market really got crowded, that muscle cars started sporting wild paint-and-stripe schemes - peaking with AMC's outrageous SC/Rambler of 1969.) Pricing and promotion could be factors, but might I suggest that part of the problem is that the GTO is built in Australia? If Pontiac had called it something else, no one would have minded, but the Goat is one of these quintessentially American cars like the Mustang or Camaro, which many would agree just should not be built anywhere but the States. (The last Camaro/Firebird was built in Quebec, and I wonder if that contributed to it selling so poorly compared to the Mustang.) Yeah, I know, someone as pro-globalization as I really shouldn't mind where the GTO is built. And it's certainly not any hangup about Australian cars. (I really wish Ford would sell us the Oz-market Falcon XR8 sedan.) It's just that some cars are so associated with a particular place that it seems wrong to build them anywhere else. I have an even bigger problem with the new "Saab" 9-2X, which is simply a rebadged Subaru Imprezza. (And don't get me started on the upcoming 9-7X, which is a freaking Chevy TrailBlazer.)
It's a good thing that we don't determine how "Sucessful" an automobile is based on sales figures alone. The GS cars were one of the worst selling muscle cars of the time. Heck, they couldn't sell my '70 GSX new - it was sold back to Buick at least once. They only made 678, so it must have been a failure. I bought an '04 goat and as of right now it looks like it's going to be between one of 120 to 300 with its options. Will it be a rare and valuable car someday? Who knows about valuable, but it's rare right now. I don't see how you can compare the 300 Mopar to the GTO, I think they are totally different cars. I don't care for the LARGE stylying of the tank-like Mopar either, but they may sell a lot of them - but does it make it a better car? More successful car? I don't think so. If that were the case then every car short of a Honda would be a failure. Just some thoughts and opinions
my god suburban 68, your hate for GM and the GTO is bordering on fanatical o No: the GTO will not go away ... regardless of sales, :laugh: :blast: get used to it. It will rule the muscle cars once again.:bglasses: if not this year, next and the year after.
I'll DITTO that 100% its a GramdAm with Monte Carlo sides and look to me it has a Dodge Neon rear end n wing. People desiging these cars have to be 25 n under. The Caddy CST/V is a better choice to blow money on if you go GM.
I really don't care if it goes away or not. I love GM, but I am not going to be buffaloed into thinking something is cool when it isn't. Lets stick the same engine in a Cavalier so Chevy can have a muscle car....lol. You must have bought one of these design turds... p You should buy an Aztec to park it next to :grin:
Maybe he's like me. It's not hate, it's utter frustration. Other than the SSR, what original/cutting edge cars has GM released in the last 5 years? I own 10 GM vehicles right now, and have, for the most part, only owned GM cars, but I have to admit that Ford and Chrysler are outstyling, outpricing and giving the most bang for the buck when it comes to performance. That frustrates me. Maybe I'll go buy a new LaCrosse, yeah right.
