I was thinking about this the other day and wanted to see what everyone else though about it. I was thinking how great a GTO would be, and wished that i could get one, but it is too much for me at this time. then when the thread was going around and a lot of people felt that when the 5th gen returned that it needed a small, entery level v8 like that of the 3rd gen. Well how about a Tempest/Lemans, based on the GTO, but with the 5.3 or something. maybe not have all the bells and whistles on it. and sell it in the 25,000 to 29,000 price range.

would that diminish the efforts of Pontiac reaching BMW standards? would it bring the GTO down much like people thought that a low budget Corvette would bring the Corvette name down. Granted it probably coudn;t come out till the new GTO came out, but what do you think?

 

With 6 cylinder engines approaching 300hp and the fact young buyers seem to be into small cars with 4s, I don't there would be much of a case for a mid-grade V8. I strongly think the 5th gen needs one, but Redplanet made a pretty persasive case against it once.

The Holden Monaro CV6 I drove had plenty of power with it's supercharged V6 & automatic, and it sold in the price range you mentioned. I think it should be imported as well as the GTO, perhaps as a new version of the Regal coupe (the Regal name will be dropped when the replacement comes out next year).