Why, dear god, do the US brands keep flogging the RWD coupe? Camaro, Mustang, GTO, Challenger, blah, blah, blah.

Freebie to those with the power to make it happen: Use one of the new RWD platforms to create a 3000 lbs four-door sedan with 200 to 250 bhp. Give it a 50/50 weigth balance. Give it nimble handling. Keep the fancy-pants stuff to a minimum to get it out the door for under $25K.

Instead of trying to recapture the muscle car era, make yourself a 3-series wannabe for Accord money.

WHEN ARE THEY GONNA DISCONTINUE PONTIAC AS A WHOLE, I MEAN WHO THE @#$%! EVER THINKS OF BUYING A PONTIAC WHEN THEY THINK OF PURCHASING A NEW CAR, SURE THEY GIVE YOU A GOOD BANG FOR YOUR BUCK, BUT IT SEEMS LIKE PONTIAC STYLING ALWAYS LOOKS OUTDATED ONLY AFTER A COUPLE YEARS…

Agreed.

enough people buy Pontiac to make the 3rd best selling GM brand. Kill Pontiac and they buy imports.

trans-am? oh no….plz keep it dead

I hope they make the GTO, but please do not make it look like that thing in the pic.

Why do US brands keep flogging the RWD coupe? Well as we speak there’s only one available, the Mustang… The cavalier, i mean the GTO is overpriced and dead after this year, the camaro wont be hear till 2010, and the challenger…who knows? The RWD coupe is a desired car, it just sucks that there’s only one available at the moment from american automakers… The only foreign ones are the G35 coupe, and the M3, and i’m sure there’s some benz but i’m sure its pretentious BS anyways… But my point is the RWD coupe is something a lot of people want but there’s really not much to choose from. If anything there are entirely way to many sedans… Please no more boring ass sedans

Why kill the #3 GM brand? Why not try and make it better? If GM touts Pontiac as their performance division, then make it so! Quit diluting it with crappy knock offs of other GM cars. I keep beating this dead horse but GM should kill the ugly ass minivans and SUVs and make Pontiac all performance/sporty CARS. The GTO was a good start – it only needs a little updating – not discontinuation. Pontiac needs a flagship American sports car (RWD V8, 400+ HP) to keep its image. The Solstice is killer (for small people) and the GXP is only going to be better. The G6 and especially the bfugly Grand Prix need work. GM needs to focus on quality if they want to resuscitate their near dead image.

I’m just disappointed in the same rhetoric coming out of GM. They’ll build ‘this’ to compete against ‘that’. Is there not one innovative employee in all of GM to design a vehicle the others will compete against???? ONE CAR, I can think of and that’s the Solstice. And that car only suffices as a second vehicle in the stable for most of us. Let alone competing in a market of 3 cars total, one of which is a GM vehicle. They can kill GMC. Kill Buick. Keep Pontiac, and as most of us agree, start putting the horsepower where their mouth is in that division. But before anything else, axe Rick Wagoner!

well, techincally all of these cars are following the original pontiac gto from 1964, which is, i think, the last time pontiac actually came up with something original…

Downshift (Comment #1) says exactly what I’ve been thinking for years. Not one automaker builds a smallish, simple, sporty RWD sedan. The only ones available are overpriced (because RWD makes them ‘premium sedans’, apparently), and overloaded with crap that creates weight, complexity, and cost, yet does not help the driving experience one iota.

GM could fill a niche that is currently completely void. Bring us the Holden Torana TT36 concept (Google it!) for

Cont…
for

WTF?
for $25K with a 200-250hp Six, and the necessary go-fast goodies (manual, LSD, steering feel, etc.) and nothing more. They could then build it into a family, with a ’soft’ model (automatic, softer suspension, luxury goodies – this would be similar to how Nissan worked the Maxima LE and SE), and semi-stripped entry model, and a ‘halo’ model, much like the concept car (twin-turbo Six, or ?). Maybe consider **optional** AWD on some or all.

One thing Downshift missed was that they NEED to offer a proper manual with all engine choices, even if a paddle-shifted jobbie is offered. GM (and others – see Lexus IS250/350) is infamous for coming close to doing right, then throwing it all away by half-assing something that should be obvious.

Oh, and my IS350 comment reminded me of one other thing – KEEP THE ELECTRONIC NANNIES AT BAY!

By the time they get it to market the craze will be over again. Way to miss your mark GM….again.

I think the funniest part of this article is that GM will have an answer to the Chrysler 300 in 2009. Good product planning there guys.

How about they kill buick, and GMC, and just bring us Holden.