GREZ28

How are the sales doing so far on that car. It has been already floating around that the car might go by-by in a few yrs do to the poor sales.

R377

1000 GTOs sold in September; 9500 YTD (versus 8200 YTD last year)

guionM

Nope. Only the naysayers, ill-informed, and the unwashed call GTO sales "poor" nowadays.

GTO is good for a solid 15-18K cars per year. By comparison, there were just 13,600 Z28s sold in 2002 (or just 11,000 Camaro SSs), a mere 13,400 Cobras sold in 2003 (their best year ever), and finally, 14,800 WS6 Trans Ams sold in 2002 (which fares better to the GTOs sales than the extremely pathetic 3962 regular Trans Ams sold that same year).

As you see, as far as loaded high performance coupes go, GTO is actually kicking some impressive butt. Only the rockheads that can't tell the difference between the GTO's fantastic performance & refinement level and the great looking, but still budget price and quality level of the slower Mustang GT keep comparing the price and production numbers of the two.

GM made an agreement with their Holden subsidary to import the car for 3 years. The 1st year was 2004 & 2006 marks the 3rd year, so any idea it's being pulled because of poor sales is dead wrong.

The car is scheduled to die a natural death next August unless GM decides to invest in installing this new generation passenger airbag to make the car compliant with the new standards taking effect September 1 2006, and extending their arrangement with Holden which has already stopped production of their version, the Monaro.

TrackMagicWS6

Hell Yes!

all the more reason there shouldn't be a V6 model and Ppl are fan of the "Flair", "Boy Racerish" or whatever you wanna call it.

Josh452

If I recall correctly, the WS6 sold so many because dealers loaded their lots with them. Nobody knew about the base z28 for $22k unless they were an enthusiast.

I see dealers loading up the Solstice in the same way they did the Trans Am.

orbitalshock2k

I agree. Sportscars like the F-Body need a V8, cutting the V6, I'm all for.

shotgun

I agree but I'm all in favor of multiple v8s. 300hp (ls4) 350 (ls1) 400 (ls2) - the fact that those engines probably cost roughly the same (with the exception of the ls2 with it's electronic throttle and so on) it's probably a very stupid idea. I seem to be full of dumb ideas.

96_Camaro_B4C

shotgun: FYI, all of those engines have electronic throttle control. Well, the LS1 didn't in the GTO and F-cars, but did in the Vette. LS4 and LS2 and all new GM engines are ETC.

Bob Cosby

About the GTO sales...

GTO has sold 9,417 units through Sep of this year. That is an annual rate of 12,556 units per year (FYI....that number includes a fair amount of rather heavily discounted 2004 models - though I don't know the exact number).

In 2004, GTO sold 13,569 units (all 2004 models, obviously).

With all due respect to guionM, and unless GTO sales pick up dramatically in Oct, Nov, and Dec, that is not 15-18k per year.

guionM

Firebirds always had a disproportionate number of top performance models compared with everything else.

One could easily make a case for a single high performance Firebird (based on a Camaro), while Camaro couldn't survive a day if it needed to depend on just high performance models.

The turbo Trans Am of 1989 cost more than a Corvette, yet the Bird boys bought them up. Pull that act in a Chevy showroom or you'll end up with another ZR1.

Derek M

If memory serves me correct the 05MY run for the GTO was a short 6 to 7 months scheduled for 12k units. Production end of 05 models was mid July.

YTD 9,413 vs. 8229 last year.
Up 14% YTD vs. last year.

Comparing 2005 numbers for shortened model year versus 2004 full production year seems to solidify that the 2005 sales are on track.

In summary the 2005 shortened model year will not net the same total sales of the 04 full production run.

Indelibility

Dealerships around me have had the same GTo's sitting on their lots for months.

Derek M

Hard to use a few local dealerships as representative of the entire sales. What's normally used throughout the industry to describe production versus customer demand is days of supply. In August there was under a 30 day supply of GTO's. This I believe the automotive industry considers short supply or there's more demand than production. Thus most likely part of the reason the GTO was excluded from the employee purchase program in August. Note the only other vehicles in August excluded from the employee pricing were the Corvette and H3. Vehicles don't get excluded from incentive programs if they're stacking up on dealer lots across the country. In summary GTO sales as a whole are fine.

guionM

As Fbodfather frequently says, "Don't judge a vehicle's sales by what goes on in your neighborhood".


Your local dealer may have had a GTO on his lot for a long time, but there's more than enough other dealers elsewhere that are taking up his slack.

The 2 local Pontiac dealers over here in Seaside & Salinas California seem to rotate GTOs off the lots almost as quickly as they come in. They had a black one in the showroom in August (was in the showroom, so it wasn't a pre-order) that was sold less than a week after it came off the truck!

RussStang

One could easily make a case, huh? Perhaps when the GTO no longer graces us with it's presence, a case should be made.