I apologize in advance for rambling. For what its worth, I just thought I would weigh in on the '04 GTO issue. First, I own a '69 Judge, and a yellow '04. To me, its pretty cool to open the garage door and see them sitting next to each other. I grew up in a GM family, my Father, Uncles & Grandfather all worked for GM, most of them at Pontiac Motors when there was such a thing as divisional autonomy within GM. So to say I like Pontiacs is a understatement. Anyway, after reading all the comments about the styling of the new GTO in particular the comment that they look like a Cavalier or a lot of other cars on the road, I tended to agree. It then occured to me that when I was a kid, and the "classic" GTOs we know an love were driven as real every day cars, I remember that the GTO looked an awful lot like another entry level GM car called the Tempest. In fact I had to look fairly close at the Pontiac A bodies to discern if it was a GTO or a Tempest or a LeMans, especially the earlier cars. In fact the overall shape of the car was very similar to other makes on the road at the time, so they blended in to the automotive landscape of the time quite well. It seems that most people rember only the GTO and not the rest of the A body line that suported it. The A body 4 door wagons, Tempest, LeMans carried the GTO as the GTO did not stand on its own. When I drive my Judge in todays traffic it stands out from all the other cars as should any car that is 35 years old. When I drive my new GTO, yes it belnds in but I do get lots of positive comments and interestingly enough from kids. This may have something to do with the fact that its yellow and stands out in terms of color alone.
I applaud Lutz for spearheading the Manaro to the states as the GTO. It is a great car, and it is a great car to live with on a daily basis and I'm happy that Pontiac actually has a V8 rear wheel drive 4 passenger coupe. Lutz understood that with the demise of the F car, Pontiac really had nothing left in the lineup that could maintian Pontiac's performance image. While I would like to see the GTO styling as more retro to the original in the same sense that the new Mustang is, without the GTO, Pontiac would be another boring front wheel drive division of GM with only body cladding and red lit intstrument clusters to set their cars apart from the other divisions.
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