Good-bye GTO (Get Them Out)

[Drive By]

Nice car with good HP, but looks more of a FWD type of car.


GM to Halt Production of Remade Pontiac GTO (http://www.cars.com/go/news/Story.jsp?section=news&subject=recent&story=022206 storyaAP&referer=&aff=national)

DETROIT — General Motors Corp. said Tuesday it will end production of the Pontiac GTO this summer.

The last high-performance GTO, which is made in Elizabeth, Australia, will roll off the line in June and hit the U.S. market in late July or August, Pontiac spokesman Jim Hopson said.

The iconic muscle car traces its roots to 1964, when the first GTO hit the market. The GTO went through seven body styles before it was discontinued in 1974, Hopson said. After a 30-year hiatus, the GTO was revived as an all-new 2004 vehicle.

The current GTO has a 400-horsepower, 6.0-liter V-8 engine and accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in six seconds. It starts at $31,990.

Hopson said GM decided to phase out the GTO for several reasons. A new U.S. airbag regulation was going to require a substantial redesign of the instrument panel, he said. Also, the GTO's Australian-designed architecture is being phased out worldwide in favor of a new platform.

GTO sales also have been tapering off. GM sold 11,590 GTOs in 2005, down 14 percent from the year before. In January, year-over-year sales were down 33 percent.





The Pontiac GTO, so shortly revived from its decades-long coma, will be going back under at the end of the model year. Automotive News reports that the two-door coupe would cost General Motors too much to certify for tougher safety regulations being phased in for the 2007 model year. Pontiac sources told the paper that about 10,000 to 12,000 more GTOs will be built for sale before the current body style goes off the production line. GM is said to be working on a new rear-drive architecture that could spawn a new GTO as well as a Chevrolet Camaro based on January's Detroit show concept, but Pontiac has not confirmed any replacement for the car.

[camber]

Pontiac GTO was never offered in Canada. It was one of the few North American cars that I thought about purchasing if possible.

GM probably killing it off because of the upcoming Camaro.

Too bad because I like the car to have more sleeperish looks.

[SHIFT_6speeds]

Don't have time to read all the above, but if I remember correctly, the GTO is not being totally axed. It will resurface riding on the New Camaro platform.

The current GTO just did not cut it in the style dept. No matter how you look at it, it looks like an import. Just not the right look for a GTO. I never could like the way they looked. But no matter how this current GTO was labled/marketed ,if it were called any other name, it still looked outdated.

[ZYAL8R808]

What could've been if they threw in retro styling like the Mustang? http://forums.freshalloy.com/images/graemlins/spam.gif It's not like they have anything to lose by going out on a limb.

[G35RIDER]

The current GTO just did not cut it in the style dept. No matter how you look at it, it looks like an import.



That would make sense since it was an import, big engine but bland body.

[Nismo]

It was only a matter of time. The only notable thing about the GTO is its power level; nearly everything else about the car is mediocre at best. I'm not a big fan of GM, but it sure would be nice, if only for the economy's sake, if they'd get their act together. {sigh}

[M_TYPE_X]

Anytime GM builds a car that actually works, and tries to sell it, it doesn't work. If GM builds it ... will anyone come?

Sold nowhere near expectations. And looked better without hood scoops.

[D_Nyholm]

Unfortunately, I beleive the car was actually a little better than people made it out to be. The interior is beautiful and puts my poor G to shame (though that isn't hard). It has excellent power and a look that is bland and boring enough to be a sleeper. If only it came with the options that a $32K car should like xenons, sunroof, heated seats, at least some aluminum parts to take off 300 lbs, then it would have been a great car... Or lower the price $7K like it was originally supposed to be introduced at according to GM. That thing would have flown off the lots for $25K base price (or at least easily moved 18K units/year)!!

[palmerwmd]

I liked the GTO a lot.
If I wasnt committed to being a nissan fan and had been in the market while the car was made I likely would have bought one.
Low 13's stock, good trap speed, comfortable + good looking interior, stout Powertrain that would peobaly take well to forced induction..

Fred.. http://forums.freshalloy.com/images/graemlins/auto.gif

[Riffster]

It's not like they have anything to lose by going out on a limb.



Anything more to lose? How about more money?

- Riff

[Drive By]

Maybe the GTO might lives on.

Pontiac GTO is Back at ‘Full Tilt’ (http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060302/FREE/60302001/1024/LATESTNEWS)


General Motors plans a follow-up to today’s GTO, and a high Australian dollar means it will likely be built in North America

By GREG KABLE

AutoWeek | Published 03/02/06, 12:21 pm et

The Pontiac GTO lives! It will be replaced in late 2008 by an all-new model underpinned by General Motors’ latest rear-wheel-drive Zeta platform, with a strong likelihood of it being built on the same production line as the Chevrolet Camaro in North America.

That’s the message from General Motors vice president for global product development, Bob Lutz, at this week’s Geneva motor show.

The replacement for today’s slowish-selling GTO was canceled last year when General Motors announced it was reorganizing its North American operations and was set to focus its efforts on creating a new line of sport/utility vehicles, pickups and crossovers.

But Lutz has told AutoWeek that reports of the rear-wheel-drive coupe’s death were premature and the next-generation GTO’s development program was only really placed on hold, and—after some internal reorganization to ensure profitability targets can be met—it is now back on.

“The reason we said it was canceled is because that way our people would put their pencils down,” Lutz said. “In GM if you say something is deferred, then people keep working on it. We really needed to get that message through to everybody.” GM’s 74-year-old product guru said the program into which the GTO is incorporated was ‘getting out of control’ and running up costs that would have made it unworkable.

“It was my fault that it got out of control in the first place,” he added. “It was going to be the world’s greatest car and apparently cost nothing to make. So we’ve started over now. The program is back on and it’s going full tilt.”

Lutz confirmed that the GTO was “only ever off for two months, but that break has enabled us to get a more feasible program up.” The program he points to is General Motors’ Zeta rear-wheel-drive platform, which is being developed by Holden in Australia and set to underpin the new-generation Commodore due to be launched in August.

Besides Camaro and GTO, other models set to be based on the Zeta platform are upcoming replacements for the Chevrolet Impala and Monte Carlo, and a new car called the Buick Statesman, according to Lutz.

Contrary to rumors, however, Lutz said General Motors is not planning to revive the Pontiac Firebird. “No, that’s not something we are planning. We are not going to do that car,” he said.

When pushed on whether GM was thinking about bringing back the El Camino off the Zeta platform, Lutz beamed with enthusiasm. “The kids in the company, myself included, would love to do another El Camino, but the grown-ups amongst us don’t share that way of thinking,” he said. “It would be fairly simple. We’d only have to put a Chevrolet face on the Holden Ute [a car-like pickup sold in Australia]. The building blocks are there.”

Less sophisticated than the existing rear-wheel-drive Sigma platform found beneath the Cadillac STS and other high-end GM models, the Zeta architecture is said to be considerably cheaper to produce, owing to a simplified rear-suspension arrangement and other features.

Lutz suggests the individual character of GM models would not be compromised by basing them around one platform. “We have developed different dash-to-front-axle lengths for various models,” he said. “It [the Zeta platform] is a really flexible platform.”

Along with Australia and North America, Zeta-based rear-wheel-drive models are also being developed for sale in the Middle East and China. Details remain scarce, though GM’s business case for the new GTO is rumored to be based around sales of between 15,000 and 20,000 per year in North America. After a promising start, today’s model has failed to live up to initial estimates recording 13,569 sales in 2004 and just 11,590 in 2005.

Lutz confirmed that GM’s Australian subsidiary, Holden, would play a leading role in the engineering of the GTO [where it is sold as the Monaro] and its sister car, the Camaro. “Holden is responsible for the large rear-drive architecture that these cars are based on. If it happens, Holden will do the development on the Camaro as well as the GTO,” he told AutoWeek.

Despite being developed in Australia, however, there are strong indications the next GTO will be built in North America. “Whether the GTO will be built in Australia [as the current Pontiac GTO is] will largely depend on the [U.S. vs. Australian dollar] exchange rate at the time,” said Lutz. He added, “With the current strength of the Australian dollar and the recent Free Trade Agreement between Australia and the U.S., it would be more feasible to build the GTO in North America. This raises the possibility of both the new-generation GTO and Camaro being imported to Australia in right-hand-drive guise.

Production of today’s Pontiac GTO is planned to end in September, leaving GM with two years before the new Zeta-based model arrives in North American showrooms. As with the recently unveiled Chevrolet Camaro, it is expected to carry a more retro-inspired design with cues from earlier GTO models. Today’s model started life as the Holden Monaro and was never envisaged to carry the GTO badge, leading to complaints from North American buyers that it lacks any visual connection with the original.

[SHIFT_6speeds]

From my 1st post in this thread:
...if I remember correctly, the GTO is not being totally axed. It will resurface riding on the New Camaro platform.





from the article pasted above:


The Pontiac GTO lives! It will be replaced in late 2008 by an all-new model underpinned by General Motors’ latest rear-wheel-drive Zeta platform, with a strong likelihood of it being built on the same production line as the Chevrolet Camaro in North America.




Thanks for reaffirming this.

[240Xtrm]

Besides Camaro and GTO, other models set to be based on the Zeta platform are upcoming replacements for the Chevrolet Impala and Monte Carlo, and a new car called the Buick Statesman, according to Lutz.




So the next generation of those two will also be back to RWD? How about the Grand National?