The GTO was a fine looking car imho. I test drove one at GM Autoshow in motion and absolutely loved it. My son and I had a supercharged SN95 Mustang at the time and I thought it was very comparable in styling and actually a little roomier in the cockpit. Had I not been making payments on a vehicle at the time, I may have purchased one, except the stupid Pontiac dealers were all marking them up at the time. Had it been a NA version of the Chevy Lumina, I may have actually traded in my 95 Z28 for one.

Futhermore, you can't say Chevy guys were getting a Zeta Impala and compare it to the GTO. The GTO was a rebadged Holden Monaro for NA. There's a huge difference.
The Corvette is the Corvette. It's special and will always remain that. (Its also way out of my price and status range.) The TB SS and Equinox SS are SUVs. The Malibu SS was lame and no longer exists. (Although I'd puchase a new Malibu "SS" with a turbo Ecotec/A6 combination in a heatbeat ). The Impala SS is FWD (although a badass car) and the new Camaro isn't out yet.

You missed my point entirely. Holden has a bunch of cool toys. GM decided to share them with NA. They all got badged as Pontiacs even though similar "Chevies" are sold in the middle east? Why is that? Plus Pontiac got the RWD Solstice and while Saturn and Opel got their own versions of the inexpensive little RWD drop-top, Chevy did not. Why is that? Pontiac has been getting all the cool toys up to now, yet Pontiac performance enthusiasts haven't been flocking to dealers to buy them. Now Chevy fans are finally going to get a new Camaro, and Pontiac guys are screaming "where's my Firebird/TransAm/GTO"? Look in the mirror guys! You gave GM the message you weren't buying and now you expect them to deliver? This is a business to make money... remember?

 

This will go nowhere fast, but i'll humor you for a second anyway with some points.

1 - GTO *NEVER* had the potential to sell (many) more cars then it did. They were limited by contract to a max of like 18k per year, and they sold about 15k per year. So it's not even close to fair to compare sales potential
2 - GTO had basically no options except transmission, colored seats and 18" wheels. By only being offered as a fully loaded model, it was only targeting a very small chunk of the potential market. Try comparing loaded, leather seta, etc TA sales numbers to GTO and you're at least a little closer to apples to apples.
3 - the coupe market changed significantly through the 90s. It's ridiculous to compare sales of a coupe in 95 to the sales of a coupe in 05. Not because of the age of the model, but because coupes had simply died by 05.
4 - While the basic 4th gen was 10 years old, the LS1 firebird was significantly redesigned and had a new engine in 98. Most message board chest thumpers like to say the Ls1 firebirds were teh best looking cars ever (proving that drug use is still prevalent in america today, but i digress)

Fact is though, no matter how much (some) people liked it, sales basically sucked for the entire run of LS1 birds. 2002 i think picked up some, but it was an extended model year since the car was dead so it's not as direct a comparison.

If the sales didn't suck, maybe someone would have seen fit to keep the fbody around (though because of politics, it would have had to have been one hell of a seller), but even more to the point of this thread, maybe there would be serious discussion of a need for a firebird/TA. As it stands, the 'bland, boring, lame' GTO sold as well or better than the 'super cool, exciting' LS1 TAs despite lack of options, lack of a convertible model, etc.

 

The GTO was a dated design, that's just a fact (based on a 1994 Opel aka Cadillac Catera).

I liked how it looked, but I could see how it didn't scream "new car". And it had few of the obnoxious properties that sold Trans Ams.

 

Maybe, but how would it have sold after being in the market for 9 or ten years... that is my point. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't mind a GTO for a DD if I didn't have kids. It is a nice car with a great interior and I considered trading my 02 TA for one... well until I put them side by side. I think you are in the minority when it comes to your view on the TA looks. You like bland boring cars, nothing wrong with that. My 02 is my toy, and I want it to scream "look at me, I could blow your doors off at half-throttle!" The GTO seems to be saying "Hey, anybody need a lift to the grocery store!"

My 2 cents

 

That's OK, i think you're wrong. If the LS1 TA was so great looking, why did the bland, sebring look-alike camaro outsell it so handily? Etc, etc.

As i said, on one hand, you (and many others) on these mesaage boards like to act like the Ls1 bird was a work of art, yet the car sold very poorly. Of course this wasn;t all the cars fault. But since you people like to point at the GTO and treat it as a failure for it's sales numbers and styling, i only think it's fair to point out the TA was even more polarizing in its styling and sold pretty much just as poorly.

 

I doubt it. When people think back to what the GTO was, they don't think back to the bland first year model.

The TAs were polarizing in a different way. I haven't talked to very many people who don't like how that car looks. Problem is it is an intimidating look, and drives off a lot of people. The GTO was just the opposite. Only the enthusiasts knew they were looking at something special. It is a good thing the GTO was a limited run. If they actually made the thing here, and in higher numbers, it would have been a failure.

And it only took 400hp to do it. Remember, the 350hp GTOs sold like sh*t. It wasn't the hoodscoops that sold the 05s.

Since when did the GTO sell better? As Guy will undoubtlly come in and point out for the zillionth time, they GTO sold about as well as the WS6 Trans Am in it's final year. Leaves out all of the other LS1 variations.

 

My brother has a '99 30th Anniversary WS6. Bought it new and LOVES the thing. I look at it and wince.

Blue wheels? As if it wouldn't be garish enough in plain white....

 

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So which models do they look back at? The models where Pontiac added fake hood scoops to make the car look more aggressive? Or the models where they added a more powerful engine? Pretty much sounds like this past generation GTO.

 

First year? The GTO Judge didn't come around until the 1970s. The GTO began production in 1964. One of my buddies in hs had a 67 coupe with the triple-two barrel set-up. One of my coworkers has a 67 convertible. Just yesterday I saw a plain white 67 Goat parked on the street here in town. I was almost up to the doors before I noticed the GTO trim and realised what it was. They were all pretty much plain Jane wrapper cars on the outside until GM started slapping stripe packages and wings on them in the 1970s... just before they killed them off. The last gen GTOs fit the heritage of the car to a tee. It was labled too plain by people with either selective memories that forgot what the original GTOs were, or that weren't even alive at the time.

 

Yeah, it pretty much does. Difference is, all that add on crap on the old car could make it look mean. Hoodscoops on a jellybean didn't make it look any more aggressive.

 

Look, let me make this very clear. I am not arguing that the new GTO did not follow in the old one's footsteps. It is very clear to me that the formula was the same. However, that being said, when the general public thinks of the muscle car era, they think of the fire breathing big block monsters with all of the gaudy sh*t on them that made their look famous. The older crowd can be just as guilty of this as the younger crowd. Do a search on google for GTO reviews, and I bet every review will criticize it's look at the very least once. Some will be harsher than others.

Nostalgia has clouded much of the minds of the general public. The current GTO was faithful to it's roots. However, as it has been said many times on this board, perception is reality, unfortunately enough.

I still believe that if the GTO had a full production car run, unless they changed the exterior of the car substantially, GM would have been stuffing rebate after rebate into the car just to keep it afloat (kind of like they do all to often). The GTO offers a lot, but styling sells. Look how well the G series Infinitis have been doing. I have been in the before. Their interiors aren't that great (even the new ones).

 

'05 GTOs definitely look more aggressive than '04s with the added hood scoops and dual outlet exhaust (not to mential available SAP). To me, the older GTO's never really looked "aggressive". A Chevelle SS or something similar would be aggressive. Don't get me wrong because I love the older GTOs but they were just never really aggressive in my eyes when compared to other muscle cars of the era.

 

Boy it must suck to argue, yet be unable to do 5 minutes of research

total TA sales numbers, INCLUDING convertibles
1998 - 13,659
1999 - 16,192
2000 - 15,613
2001 - 10,861
2002 - 19,701


total GTO sales numbers
2004 - 15,740
2005 - 11,069
2006 - 13,948


Just answer me one question. How bad does it suck to make a post full of bull**** and get called on it? The best selling year of the modern GTO was the 350hp, no hood scoop model. And the worst 2 model years outsold the worst 2 model years of the LS1 trans am. And if you subtract convertibles from the equation, TA barely outsold GTO, period for teh LS1 model run.

If you need to resort to including early 90s to get to a 12k per year average, when the coupe market was an entirely different beast, i'm pretty sure you know you've done lost this debate. Feel free to walk away now.

http://www.marshu.com/ws6-car-gm-fir...-2000-2001.php

http://www.ls1gto.com/forums/faq.php?

 

It also took the 04 GTOs more than a model year to finallly clear out. It certainlly wasn't uncommon to see an 04 sitting on the lot months after the other 04MY cars were gone. The 04s sales numbers kind of win simply by default.

Do those sales numbers include Formies as well?

Oh yeah, speaking of being wrong. This doesn't really add to the debate at all, but you are wrong on your info about the Judge jg95z28. It's first model year of production was 1969. Close to the 70s, but indeed before it.