Judge = Deleted wheel trim rings, hokey graphics, spoiler.....nothing more.
DOES EVERYONE UNDERSTAND THAT?

 

THATS NOT TRUE!! THE JUDGE USED THE SATURN V ROCKET, RAN ON PUMP GAS, AND COST $2K!!

Forget the Judge. We need to come up with another, more modern TV generated quote...
How about:
GTO "Fired" after the "You're Fired" saying by Donald Trump...doesnt have the same ring.

 

Perfect!

Or maybe they can ripoff a Sienfeld line:

The GTO "Master of Domain"

 

bwahahaha! Good one!

The GTO "Millionare"
The GTO "Weakest Link" or "Goodbye"
If Pontiac does give teh GTO a performance model...GTO GTP or GTO GXP just looks bad.

 

The Judge had a RA4 motor and a RA5 motor, but you are talking about when each division made its own motor anyways. Pontiac could develop its own motor that was more powerful than a Vette, now you have to ask The Vettes permission. I'm sure there were alot of ramblings from Chevy when Lutz told em that the GTO would be getting the Vette's motor. Look what Happened to the Buick GN when they made it faster than the Vette, and they did it with one of their exhisting Buick V6 motors.

 

Again, I don't think it's right to compare what happened with the F-bodies to GM's future cars, i.e. GTO. Trans Am was Pontiac's halo car by default, but especially in the later 4th Gen years it certainly wasn't treated that way. I heard a GTO commercial on the radio this morning. Not that it was sale priced, not mentioned briefly in between the words "Grand Am" and "Aztek"...but a full-fledged 30 second spot on one of Detroit's highest-rated morning shows reviewing the fine interior, quoting magazine reviews, performance, etc. They are still running GTO commercials on TV. When was the last time you saw or heard a T/A ad, 1993? All this for a car that doesn't sell nearly as well as Firebird did even in its final year. One model year after introduction the GTO is getting the body enhancements some people cried out for. How many updates did Firebird get? If all this doesn't tell you that something is different with GTO at GM then I don't know what will.

 

Your shooting the GTO in the foot even more. They are running those commercials ( I have heard them on K-rock during Howard Stern's top rated radio show in NY) because they can't sell the damn things, not because they are something special. Its the same reason its getting a 400hp LS2 and not the detuned one it deserves. They have to start selling this car because the sales figures are making GM, and Lutz especially, look real bad. You wanna talk about f-bodies last year sales figures, well compare them to GTO first year sales. A car SHOULD sell better in its first year when it is the return of the GTO.

OBTW, I know the Judge option was just an appearance package, and even the stripes were not Judge exclusive.

 

The GN WAS NOT killed because it was quicker (it was NOT faster) than the Corvette. It was killed because the G-body platform it was built on was dying and being replaced by the GM-10's.

 

GN was faster in the 1/4, obviously not near aerodynamic enough to beat a Vette top speed. GM could have found a car to put the powerplant in but deceided against it, and talk to some of the engineers that made the GN and they will all tell you they almost lost their jobs over it. No car in GM's lineup (except maybe Caddy) will be allowed to build a car faster than a Vette, and even the V isn't faster than a base C5.

 

You mean 12.7@113 in a lightweight Vette? Or the low 13s@108 the '05 GTO will run? One of them's kinda fast and the other's not.

Wow. Talk about short term memory loss. Might wanna get that checked.

Hmmmmm... blown 5.4, 500hp, mid 40s. Sounds like some car regularly bandied about here as the "competition". I think even you referred to it many times.

Oh and 500/500 in 3700lbs is low 12s easy, friend.

Might wanna get out to the track a little more.

 

ill throw another reason out for poor sales. Its the first year of production. Everyone knows when a new model (or generation of a model) comes out, the first year is one to avoid. Just look at the 93 fourth gens. Sales werent even close to half what 94 was. There were also a lot of bugs worked out of it for 94. Same with the GTO... an abscence of scoops and 50 hp arent really 'bugs' but it was what people were complaining about.

 

The new GTO won't break into the 12s. The Lightning will.

 

Yea, if dodge can sell a high 13 second car for under 20k, GM should very well be able to sell a low-mid 12 car for under 45k... which is more than twice what the neon goes for. Obviously the GTO has a lot to offer the neon doesnt, but for costing more than twice what mid-high 13 second car does, i dont think a low 12 second GTO for 45k or under is all that laughable. The only thing thats laughable, is how expensive corvette is. reason being, and as i said before, its a package deal. pay for performance in every aspect or dont pay for anything at all.

 

There's a hell of a lot of speculation coming from you. Neither of these is on the road yet, and you're basing your times of the LS2 from rags (not even GTO times either).

 

Well I'm willing to speculate for the record that none of the mainstream rags will get an LS2 GTO into the 12s. And that 12sec LS2 GTOs will be as rare as 12sec LS1 Fbods were. (hint : the LS2 GTO is about as fast as the old Fbods were)