Many good points in this string of messages. In my opinion:
1. In a GTO vs Mustang contest the fact is that both are SUPPOSED to be performance cars. I have read Car&Driver and a few other mags. In terms of pure performance the GTO comes out ahead. I am not sure why the GTO is getting slammed when, at least in the quarter mile, the Mustang simply cannot run with it. As some have said here, it must be advertising dollars or some other factor besides performance.
2. Where Mustang shines, is looking like a Mustang of old. GTO is a whole new shape FOR A GTO, and did not bother to try to look retro. Some (like my wife) feel it looks more like a Honda Civic. I am a GTO head, I like GTO's. I like the idea of having 400 horses under the hood and going 0 - 60 in 4.3 seconds. But styling wise, I know she is right. It looks somewhat like a Civic. So the visual appeal insofar as being <ahem> "Muscular" is not there.
However since the current run of GTO's is only for 3 years out at Holden/Australia, the word is that the GTO will continue to be produced, but will be re-styled and produced out in GM of Canada and will LOOK like a more retro GTO.
3. Fact is if you took the $9,000 gap in price between the two cars, invested some in Nitrous, you'd have a Ford that can outrun the GTO and still have some extra money for groceries each month.
Don't get me wrong. I do not like Fords. Never have. But what Ford has done, marketing and styling-wise, is brilliant. What GM has done - at least in my experience with trying to trade in my 2003 vehicle and drive out in a new GTO - is both arrogant and pathetic. Because they have a car that is faster than hell, looks like a rounded ravioli, and try to push it through a dealer network where the "last one on earth" arrogance is so thick you can cut it with a spoon.
I think that come 2006 when Ford comes out with a Cobra version Mustang that will be an essentially Special Vehicle Team built car (ie: darned near hand crafted and blueprinted from the factory), and when that Cobra is being sold for the same $33,000 like a GTO, I think Pontiac is going to have a bigger problem than they have today.
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