No mention of the 405 HP motor yet, and it's a bit bland, but it's a step in the right direction.

[url]http://www.pontiac.com/pontiacjsp/gto/launch/[/url]

I think the new GTO is actually a model of Australian car relabled as the GTO.    It's made by the Aussie car manufacturer Holden, and is their model called the Monaro, which is a two door version of the Commodore.  

They are working on making a hybrid version of the Commodore (which is how I found this info out).

Looks like the new Goat will actually be an Aussie!  

(there's supposed to be an article about all of this on [url]drive.com.au[/url])

It's a little more complex than rebadging an Australian car, because the Aussies use right-hand drive so there's quite a bit of internal rengineering to do. But yes, the basis of the new Goat is the Holden Monaro

[url]http://www.holden.com.au/www-holden/action/modeloverview?modelid=12001[/url]

Cars don't have any individual style anymore. It just doesn't look like a GTO. It looks like a Grand Am with cooler wheels. I'm sure it's nice, but I'm not impressed with the styling.

BTW, I want this one:

[url]http://www.holden.com.au/www-holden/action/conceptcar?modelid=20006[/url]

More boring shit from Detroit....wait...this is boring shit from down under.  Looks like Detroit can't even import cool stuff.

When American cars have interiors and reliability on par with Honda/Nissan/Toyota, then maybe I'll be interested in one of the big three's products.  Until then, I'll buy Krout or Jap cars, where they have pride in their product and brand name.

I've owned six GTO's.....thats no GTO.

I'll pass.


Looks like every other vanilla in the market today.

Umm.. That was no GOaT, that was a Charger...

I am no Pontiac man but I think it was a '65? GTO that he drove in xXx.

BigDozer66

After 2003 Pontiac will have still not built a "Super Car" since 1973.[:(]
Remember the 455SD Firebird?[:D]
The new Firebird Firehawk is a "good looking" sled but no SD!
This one is a cross between the Grand Am and a Mustang.[:\]

BigDozer66

oops!! Wrong movie!!
I was thinking Fast and Furious!!
My bad...

{damn!! I wasted my 1000th post on a retraction!!!}

It looks like every other mid sized blob on the road these days.

Style it truly dead in Detroit.  

styling is lame but you can't argue with that motor

same LS1 V-8 that's in the base Vette
[b]340hp  360lb-ft & RWD![/b]

GM needs to try some of the "retro" styling like Ford or Chrysler

How lame.  A Cavalier in Pontiac clothing.  

At least GM didn't let them "Aztech-ize" the nose of the thing like they're doing with the new Caddys.  Then again, maybe the Aztech style nose would look good on a re-introduced GTO.  One thing's for certain, this is one lame attempt at bringing back a muscle car.

gran turismo omologato?

the name pontiac stole from ferarri and stuck on a rebadged tempest?

and now glues on an aussie mid-size?

lordy...the insults just don't stop...

Real American GTO...


[img]http://photo.msn.s8.com/MS8zLzEwNDE4MTk2NDIvMS80MDE3LzE1NS8zMi80N1hCV2lYRGxpUGhudXFWUng5N2x3/181d0faebbfe569968a073d02fb8e26c/clbk=HcZNnT9kkUh7v3gGH5Km46T3B*!oDf9MnjNqgL83gsr!A6PUYD6IKPh9NIF7afn3Ltc42vr5l58$/jpg.jpg[/img]

Thirty years ago this was mine.


None of the phony wop stuff.


A true Ferrari Insulter...


[img]http://www.1963pontiac.com/images/literature/book1_3a.jpg[/img]


[img]http://media.gm.com/division/pontiac/about/pontiac75/images/lemans.gif[/img]


After the win, Mercedes-Benz bought the car and shipped it to Germany where it became the blueprint for the M-B 6.9 liter (421 cubic inch) engine.

[img]http://www.geocities.com/vdfanclub_xxx/vinpics/xxx/xxx4.jpg[/img]

I looks like a Charger from the side, but if you saw the front or back, you could make no mistake.  It is a GTO.

edited to say:  Oh well, looks like I can't steal THAT image!

A tad bit of car history:

Q: Where did Pontiac get the body for the first GTO?

A: From the Pontiac Tempest, a plain-old every day car... Someone thought 'Hey, what would happen if we put a huge motor in this', and from there came the GTO...

So it's somewhat authentic in origins, although it could look A LITTLE LESS LIKE A FORD
MUSTANG!!!

[img]http://www.mustangworld.com/ourpics/News/select36/columb0.JPG[/img]
[img]http://www.mustangworld.com/ourpics/News/select36/jose8.jpg[/img]

Basically, they took a Grand-Am sized car from another market (still a GM car) with a Firebird motor/transmission (although one designed to handle the LS1: unlike the Grand Am, the Monaro has a V8 option, and this is probably why they took it. No re-designing the engine/transmission, just redo the styling) and re-styled it a bit for the US market.

And with the LS1, you still have the same simple V8 design found in the Firebird & Corvette. Just don't bury it under the dashboard this time...

That aside, my only complaint is that (like the Mustang), it doesn't LOOK fast... The exterior styling of the Firebird, Corvette, and even the 3000GT (one of the few good-looking, normally-priced imports) LOOKS like a sports car. The mustang and this new GTO look like 'We took a family car, made it 2 door, and put a V8 in it'. Now granted, that's what the first GTO was, but...

As for reliability, GM does a good job with their V8 cars. My old Firebird outlasted either of my parents last cars (I count their 96 Camry as 'dead' for reliability purposes, since it suffered catastrophic engine failure in 2000. The only reason it's still running is that they had just bought it used. Their V6 Taurus blew a head gasket 1 year later (despite proper maintanance and no hard driving)) and would still be running today if not for someone else's carelessness. With those 2 cars, I was perminantly turned off WRT japanese cars and Ford...

I just hope the 'Return of the Firebird' isn't botched like the 'Return of the (Impala, Monte, GTO, etc...)'

Ho hum...

[sleep]

Interesting, looks like 1993 Opel Calibra to me.

[img]http://www.extrem-motorsport.de/kfz-markt/bilder/calibra.jpg[/img]

BORING!!!

why even waste our time. it looks like everything else.

once again, they forgot what made GTO's so appealing in the first place. kinda like what they did to the hummer. STICK THE HERRITIGE FOR CHRISSSSSAKES!!

GM should be embaressed for calling that a GTO. Maybe UFO.

It's not really an Australlian car, it's a Car that GM makes for Opel and their Australian brand, it's still an American car even if this is the first time it's been marketed here, Just like the Opel Speedster, which I would argue is one of the kewlest cars GM makes and it's not to the US market. (yet, might be coming back as a either a Firebird or Fiero by 05')

I for one really like the new look of Cadillac, I think the CTS is one of the nicest looking sports sedans on the road, I can't wait to test drive the "V" series that come out next year with an LS-1 under the hood.

Great, another Pontiac I can't wait not to buy.

Why not just drop a Vette engine in a Sunfire? You'd have the exact same thing and come out a hell of a lot cheaper.

If this is an example of their "bold new design" I'll bet some of their top secret projects consist of an experiment with "a radical new concept called fuel injection" and maybe even "headlights that turn on by themselves."

Surely all cars have changed in design over the years. Take the Corvette, the Trans Am, Camaro, and the Mustang for examples. A lot less curves, yet still has the "look", the "muscle" of a sports car.
The GTO was known to those who ever owned one or driven one as a muscle car.
For Pontiac to advertise that the "GTO Is Back" is misleading the consumer that they have a new, hot muscle car back on the market, is wrong when all they have is an updated Grand Am style car with the GTO name on it.

[b]ArmaLiter[/b]

Looks like crap. I don't know which car is uglier, this one or the 2005 Mustang.

[img]http://www.thecarconnection.com/images/gallery/6459_image.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.thecarconnection.com/images/gallery/6469_image.jpg[/img]

1967

Some of you people are quite silly.

It is NOT a Grand Am. It IS a Austrailian Opel Astra. It IS V8 and rear wheel drive and ALSO has 4 wheel disks and a modern independent suspension on all corners. Except for maybe in a streight line it will KILL any of the old GTO's.

It should be quite able to eat the Mustang for lunch. Sadly it will also eat the 300M and Intrepid R/T's lunch as well. Oh well at least they are in thier last year before being replaced with the V8 RWD 300N and Daytona which will be virtually identical in concept and layout to the Pontiac.

If you want a car thats different looking you have to pay a price. Either very high drag or no downforce or both. You simply cannot cheat the physics of aerodynamics.

If the GTO sells well, hopefully Ford will also see the light and bring the Austrailian Ford Falcon V8 to the US as well.

no way!
that can't be the new mustang.  "that's so ugly it could be a modern art masterpiece"  i want a real SVT!  not some sad ass looking car like that.

I'm no expert but that gas cap on the rear fender & the rear window look like a Charger to me ??

[img]http://photos.ar15.com/ImageGallery/IG_LoadImage.asp?iImageUnq=3556[/img]

The pics came from a very high source. The new 2005 Mustang will look like this or very similar to this.

Let's see, no Camaro or Firebird. The Mustang and the GTO look like crap. I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and buy a foriegn car. [:(]

I don't think GM could design a fuglier car. No thanks.

My brother has an LS1 in his Volvo 240 sedan. I'd rather have that.

a few more from the movie

[img]http://photos.ar15.com/ImageGallery/IG_LoadImage.asp?iImageUnq=3561[/img]
[img]http://photos.ar15.com/ImageGallery/IG_LoadImage.asp?iImageUnq=3558[/img]
[img]http://photos.ar15.com/ImageGallery/IG_LoadImage.asp?iImageUnq=3559[/img]

Hey, at least it looks better than the new Grand Prix.

Wow,

That is badd ass

my best friend's dad has an interesting term for these modern, homogenously aerodynamic vehicles.

'suppository cars'

That's the car he drove in Fast and the Furious.  In XXX it was a GTO.

They are only claiming a sub-6 second 0-60mph?  I'm at 227hp at the crank and all the rags clock sub-6.

Come on.

5.7L V8 RWD sports car should be pulling a sub-5 second 0-60 and about 12 in the 1/4.

Why do BMW M3's with 333hp do it?

I bet the redline is around 6000rpm too.  They need to crank that bitch up to about 7200 rpm.

BTW, isn't the Holden, et al based on the Cadillac Catera?  It looks like the new GTO is too, how sad.

Retro styling would be very very good for namesake cars.

My .02.

Ed

Heh...

For a while, their concepts had the Aztek-style butt-ugly 'snowplow nose' (which, if you look back, was first found in the 82-92 Camaro)...

Now we're going to the euro-style 'Everything looks like a sedan' design, with requisite large grille and square-ish corners... Kind of like Mazda billing the new 'Mazda 6' as a sports car, when it's a family car with a largish (for a V6) engine, nothing more...

Retro is even worse: talk about 'goodbye aerodynamics'... If you're going to 'go back in time' with car design, bring back the look of the 1991 Firebird or 86 Fiero... Don't bring back the 57-62 'flat nose, visible grill & chrome' design (or even worse, the euro-style 'Box on a Bigger Box (as seen in Audis, Volvos, some BMWs, and the non-beetle VWs)' or 30's/40's style seen in the Marauder (open-wheel, but with fenders) & PT Crusier (paddy wagon, anyone?))...

It should look like, given wings, it could fly...

As for me, I probably won't be car shopping untill 2008 or so, and there should still be some 6-9 year old Formula 'birds or T/As out there... I don't have high hopes for whatever becomes the Firebird re-introduction. They'll probably paint a flaming chicken on a square-looking compact, & re-use the name badge (ala Impala)...

It's a damn shame GM can't build real cars here in America,they have to bring them in from some place eles.[rolleyes]

Long before the anti-gun bunch there was the anti-car nuts.

I here about stuff GM and Ford are "LOOKING" in to and thinking about all the time,stuff like big block Vetts and new Cobras(and not a POS stnag,a real one)

Things like the SSR start out as a bad ass truck/rod with a 454 and ETs in the low 9s but by the time it gets to us it's another 200hp POS!

The pin head in the main office will not build anything other than what Mr. and Mrs. American want,FWD little inty-bity crap or a big ass SUV.

This is way the Japs and Euros have it so easy,they know we can kick their asses and we do on race day but they know the big two will never put the good stuff in cars/truck we can buy.

Now over seas,that another story[rolleyes]

BTW:The new GTO will not have 405hp,I bet it will be more like 250 or less.

The last Cobra was 390HP with a stock supercharger... Only 14hp below the new Vette


Because GM will not let anything else touch the 'Sacred Corvette' in performance...



Except that they don't... Nothing I've seen out of Europe is a good 'affordable performance car'. Most of them are exactly like the 'New GTO': Ugly, but decently fast...

From Japan, we get some good looking cars (3000GT, Nissan Z, and a few versions of the Supra) and a few 'what were they thinking' models (Matrix, Civic (when marketed as a performance platform), and the Celica (looks good, but slow)), but the prices are high, and they're heavily over-engineered (Yes, you can twin-turbo-charge a 4 or 6-cyl to 345HP. But it's a whole lot harder to work on than a 345HP V8, there are more (and more expensive) parts to break, and won't last near as long.)...

I'd say that NO ONE is making a good, affordable performance car right now... The Firebird left a big hole (and no, FORD can't fill it. Put a picture of a Trans Am next to a  Mustang from the same year, and...), IMHO.



The new GTO will be 345HP, just like the last Trans Am was. If it ends up 250 or less, that's a waste. My 275HP 93 Trans Am would beat a brand new 'New GTO', and costs way less?? I hope they know better, or all this will do is rase the used-value of a late-model Trans Am (why buy the expensive, slower 'New GTO' when you can get a faster used Firebird-series for half the price or less)...

[img]http://www.chevrolet-ssr.de/images/photos07.jpg[/img]

290 HP should be fun!

Wish I had money to buy one.

They are 500 pounds lighter.


Was that what it was in the Firebird?



No, the Catera was a Opel Astra with a Cadallac grill. And the ugly Cien is still the same car underneath that butt ugly body. Opels use FWD or AWD and a V6, but Holden used the same tub to make a RWD V8. The Astras that are raced in the DTM are also V8's-but they are Olds Aurora V8s not the old pushrod small block.

The Astra is a great car, but putting the Cadallac grill on it to make the Catera made it rather less than attractive. The Cien is much worse, with that body that looks like Briggs Cunninghams 'Le Monstere' from 1950.



You pay a price for retro. The PT cruser lacks top speed, downforce, and fuel mileage because of its body- DC can only sell it because technically the EPA considers it a [i]truck[/i]. If the Viper hadn't had such enormous horsepower it would have sucked too. The Viper roadster is a brick on wheels-a great looking brick but a brick none the less. And it gets 12mpg.

Thanks for the info on the Holden and such.  still looks like a Catera clone.  Despite the lineage.

Ed

As much as I like the Grand Prix, this GTO looks way too similar to the Grand Prix to really be a "muscle car."

Maybe I'm showing my age...... But all the new cars all look the bloody same to me.

Ok, I have a couple of contacts inside the car industry here in Australia, including a brother who works for an OEM supplier to several car companies here.

These new GTO's are Australian made, by GM's subsidiary here, Holden. The final fitout will be in the US as far as I know. One of the reasons is that a lot of the body and interior trim used here in Australia isn't designed for US winter conditions (types of plastics used, etc).

Actually, while Australia is right hand drive (drive on the left side of the road), Holden does assemble left hand drive versions of it's standard models in Australia. About 10 years ago one of the top managers at GM decided to try assembling cars for the US in Australia and importing them as completed vehicles, but the unions on the production lines in the US found out about it and forced a management back down. This was after GM had invested in developing left hand drive versions of it's Australian cars and setting up production lines specifically tooled for assembling them. There was GM with all this effort and money invested in a project with no market, then someone realised that the Mid East has no car manufuacturers. For the last 7 or so years GM has been badging Australian built left hand drive Holdens as Chevies for the Mid East. Based on what I've heard, the unions aren't kicking up a stink about importing the GTO because the numbers aren't that significant compared to the total number of cars produced in the US and because the final fitout will be done in the US, so there are still some jobs in it for the US auto industry unions.

The exports to Europe have been through Tom Walkinshaw. Among other things he owns a Formula 1 race team (Arrows), as well as teams in other car formulas. He also owns a specialty performance tuning company here in Australia which is closely connected to Holden, called Holden Special Vehicles (HSV). HSV prepares and manages Holden's official race team as well as premium tuned versions of Holden cars for public purchase through selected Holden dealerships. Since Holden has been building left hand drive versions of it's cars, Tom Walkinshaw has been putting them through his tuning shop here in Australia and then importing and selling them in Europe through his connections there. I don't know if he rebadges them or not.

The GTO planned for the US will be based on one of the premium tuned versions of the base car we call the "Monaro". The specs for the base Monaro are rather plain and vanilla compared to the GTO (here in Aust there is also the HSV-GTS spec version of the same car which is a step up from the GTO spec).

And the reasons why they all look like Opels? GM own Opel. I've also heard that GM are considering bring Caddy's here to Australia, but selling them through Saab (GM owns Saab as well) rather than through Holden dealers to help with brand differntiation. Off the top of my head, Ford own Jaguar (the lower end Jag's use standard Ford parts for cost control but the higher end Jags use Jag developed parts) and Chrysler owns Lamborghini.

So why the hell do so many cars all look the same anyway? Mostly because they're based on the same mechanical package. Same chassis, suspension, brakes, engine, gearbox, driveline. Just drop a different body and interior onto the same mechanical package and voila, it's a different car (sort of). Like the example I mentioned above with Ford and Jaguar. Ford moving parts, Jaguar body and interior. Another example, the Audi TT is the same chassis package as the new model Volkswagon Beetle (guess who owns Audi?).

As for whethere people like/dislike the new GTO, personally I don't care, (although I do like the concept version of Holden's Cross8. Think Chevy El Camino layout with a four door cabin and all wheel drive). [url=http://www.holden.com.au/www-holden/action/conceptcar?modelid=20003]Cross8[/url]. To rephrase George Orwell's Animal Farm: Two wheels good. Four wheels bad (I prefer motorbikes).

The Dodge Viper IMHO is the only American sports car that is made to look and drive like a sports car of the past(Cobra) and not a family sedan of the future.
Of course you may need to take out a second mortgage to own one.

[img]http://www.ultimateviper.com/images/bluecar_side.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.ultimateviper.com/images/dvrt1094.jpg[/img]

[b]ArmaLiter[/b]