6.0 GTO: Aussie muscle comes to America

My 2005 Torrid Red GTO (Manual)

As we pulled into the half-empty Lowes parking lot this morning, I immediately swung my car around to park next to a large, unassuming coupe. Underneath the rather bullet-like body was none other than a hot-blooded 2005 Pontiac GTO. The re-introduction of the GTO in 2004 was a classic GM exercise in pulling their oversees models to our shore, with GM doing what they do best: Rebadging. In this case, however, they happened to rebadge one hell of a car. Upon reading an extremely favorable review of the Holden Monaro by Car and Driver, the legendary Bob Lutz requested a test drive when he visited Holden in Australia. Finding the Monaro to be well-built, fast, and stylish, he commissioned the performance division of GM to “Americanize” the Monaro for US roads. This involved shifting the steering wheel from right-hand-drive to a left-hand-drive set up, performing an automotive rhinoplasty by transplanting a corporate Pontiac front-clip, and slapping on some Pontiac badges. Initially featuring the tried-and-true 5.7L LS1 in 2004, Pontiac felt as though the GTO needed some power to back up the legendary badge, so in 2005, they quietly slipped a 400 Horsepower 6.0L LS2 V8 under the hood, effectively giving the GTO the hot-blooded attitude it deserved. 

Until the introduction of the Shelby GT500 in 2007, the LS2 GTO was at the top of the muscle car food chain. With this performance shot in the arm, GM created another bittersweet situation where there was a GM car that had the performance to match a Corvette. And in the GM offices, that is quite the no-no. So unfortunately, due to lackluster sales and the new internal competition, the resurrected GTO was quickly killed off, effectively joining the ranks of the other infamous performers who matched the Corvette, including the GNX, WS6 Trans-Am, and the GMC Syclone. Pricing was a little steep at prices starting north of $30k, and many potential buyers defected to the retro-styled Mustang. When production ceased in 2006, only 40,757 GTOs had rolled out of the Holden factory.

The existence of the GTO sets a slightly melancholic pallor over the pre-2010 GM Performance division, as the captive import GTO led to the importation of the Holden VE Commodore, rebadged as a G8. Just like the GTO, the G8 was well-received by the critics, but was a slow-selling, high-priced gas guzzler, and was cut by GM after only two years of production. Pontiac may have gone the way of Oldsmobile and disappeared, but the GTO and the G8 remain fantastic send-offs to the storied performance brand of GM.

(Unfortunately, the GTO pulled away before I could snap a photo. Above is a shot by another photographer)