Looking at the sales for 2005 to date, it looks like they will be short a few thousand off their mark for 15k vehicles this year. Also does GM plan to continue to build the GTO? A revamped design in the works?

Now that the Camaro name is looking ot be coming back, i am hopeing GM will make a GTO that will be a success!

 

In the short term, GTO is gone after '06.

 

Even with more h.p., bigger brakes, hood details, it still did not sell. I bet if the GTO was styled better it would have been a hit.
I guess the next question is if it did sell well, would it have been canned anyway? I guess the Holden dictated this, with GM canning the RWD there?

 

Doesn't sound like it's because of sales.

I believe safety requirements are mainly to blame:


http://ls1gto.com/forums/showpost.ph...0&postcount=93

 

It's the styling that most people find issue with.

Imo, the styling is a bit bland (especially when you compare it to charger, G35, and mustang), but it isn't ugly or anything, and the car is an incredible value.

You'd think it'd sell on value alone, but that's a testament to todays market....value and performance alone isn't good enough, style matters even more. Another reason why the 5th gen must be styled really well for it to be successful in this competitive market. Value and performance alone (much like the 4th gens) simply won't cut it.

 

Tell us more about the long term, Charles

 

You don't think Pontiac is walking away from GTO for good do you?

The GTO is actually a hit. I think GM simply overestimated the market. Consider that Cobra only sold about 9K per year, Mach 1 even less. If I recall, WS6 Trans Ams never got over 12-15K.

With GTO selling at 15K per year at $30,000 plus, given the company it's running with, that's not too shabby. Plus the fact that Holden had to greatly increase production capacity to make those 15K cars (Holden was only making 5K Monaros per year).

Also, Holden's assignment was to make GTOs for only 3 years. GM initially planned to have GTO's replacement on line in 2007 for 2008MY. Now that seems to have been moved back a year.

 

I'm sure Pontiac wants a new GTO. But Pontiac will have to negotiate through lots of dicey hoops to get it. The VZ Monaro was oh so very cheap and convenient to re-badge as a GTO. That luxury may not be available to Pontiac next time.

When the Zeta GTO was planned to be piggybacked on the Chevelle-esque sized "Chevy coupe", the business case for the GTO was no sweat. But when Chevy decided that the 'Chevy coupe' should actually be a Mustang fighting Camaro....the architectural changes required, sort of left the original GTO's business case twisting in the wind.

As far as Monaro goes, it doesn't look like it will be a 2 door Commodore sedan this time around. It will more probably be a swoopy Camaro cousin. Where would that leave a new GTO? I don't know, but GM would probably need to spend some serious bucks for a proper (ie., larger), GTO - that is to say - serious bucks for a proper low volume GTO.

Right now, if anything, Pontiac is fighting desperately to get a RWD sedan to replace the GP before a GTO. IF it gets this sedan, with RWD, 400hp, manual trans....then what's the business case again for a low volume, specific Zeta variant, GTO?

So, a new GTO might happen one day, even against the odds. But it would come after the 2 Chevys and after the possible G8. IOW, next decade.

I wish them luck.

 

They could attach the GTO name to the RWD GP (G8) again, but I don't think that would fit into the model line they're trying to portray. GP GXP would probably make more sense in that role.

 

another great car then the kill it from GM...

 

The GTO sold fine for what it was intended. If memory serves right it was excluded from the employee pricing program in July along with the Vette and H3. You don't get excluded from a company wide incentive if it's not selling well. Another thing to note is that the '05 model was only a 6 month production run for the year model.

Overall it did fine for what it was designed to do and sell.

 

I wonder how hard it would be to do a GTO based off the putative Camaro, except with a longer wheelbase, sort of like the 1970 'Cuda and Challenger. Make the GTO a Camaro with a more usable back seat.

 

Hell... a GTO, with a starting pricetag in the mid- $30k's ought to seriously be at least considered to go on Sigma.... CTS starts at $31,xxx.... granted that's with a V6, but still. it's not THAT far off.

I know CTS-V is priced way higher, but still... it's a Cadillac... like how an Escalade is $10-15k more than a Tahoe....

 

That's probably exactly how it would be done. But that would require some development costs. I'm not qualified to guess how much in dollars, but you'd have to make the case that it could be successfully spread over 10-12K GTO's per year.

 

I would correct you on the "still did not sell", but others have done it already

As for the styling comment: For everyone that that thinks that the GTO was under done, there is someone that would be willing to say that the late 4th gen WS6 T/A was over done. Personally, I like both, but that is the another way to think about it. Simply because the GTO doesn't appeal to you, doesn't mean it doesn't appeal to enough other people to get the sales where GM wants them to be.

For what GM wanted it to be, it is a success.