May8
The Pontiac G8 sport truck has yet to receive its official nameplate, but it looks as though 'El Camino' will almost certainly not adorn the truck's tailgate, a new report finds. General Motors opened a web site earlier this year to let the general public suggest what the G8 sport truck should be named.
The El Camino name reportedly received the vast majority of the votes, but GM officials are torn about placing a Chevrolet nameplate on a Pontiac product.
In an interview with Cars.com, Brian Shipman, the man in charge of the G8 line, revealed that GM executives were leaning towards leaving the El Camino as a Chevrolet product.
However, GM has whittled the names down to 10 and is expected to reveal the winning name within the next few weeks.
What a pile!
Why is this going to Pontiac??? 'El Camino' has history and would bring instant name recognition. Instead of reinventing the wheel, they should see what happened when Ford dumped the 500/Montego names for Taurus/Sable
El Stupido.
They should just call it the Tampon because of all the red ink it's going to create.
wow c'mon GM don't be any more stupid about this. Either keep it with Pontiac and call it the G8 ST or just give it to Chevy like you should have done from the beginning (like I've been calling) and call it the El Camino.
GM is going to have to keep it with Pontiac which they are and they are just calling it the G8 ST, it's already signed on the dotted line.
^lol @ johnnycanuck! That was good!
Oh FYI, spoke to an engineer at the Ren Cen, (I posted this in some of the real early Pontiac G8 truck posts on LLN) and GM originally brought this over, then scrapped it and decided to give the G8 wagon the go. They wanted to compete with the Magnum, then Chrysler announced that they were killing the Magnum and then GM brought this back to the table. It's coming people. End of next year.
If they sold it as a CHevy El Camino people would be crying "REBADGE!!111!!!!" everywhere. GM can't win this one. I'm going go with something completely different. Throw a Buick badge on it.
Rather than call it "El Camino" they should call it "El Alameda de las Pulgas."
johnnycanuck, this is better then SNL! Corporate $$$ at work! Then everybody wonders why Toyota makes money and GM loosing. Explanation fire 25% of bureaucracy to see profit appearing at no loss to productivity and then fire another 25% to see real money. I am writing it from work
, but not at GM.
making it a chevy would require them to manufacture a totally new front end for the car, which would increase costs. this is simply cheaper.
Nah, they always just slap bow tie on the grill and drop price $15 vs. Pontiac.
If they truly wanted to do an El Camino that can just slap a bowtie on the Holden styling and call it a day. Come to think of it, that would look better than the G8 does.
How about El Commodoro?
It should be a GMC Caballero. Branding it a Pontiac when they both share the same showrooms (for the most part) is bizarre.
"El Camino it should be, yes."
Yoda
It will be the Torricane.
Then what the fuck was the point of that website… they should have know almost everyone was going to stamp "El Camino" on the virtual tailgate. I actually thought they should have just brought back the Caballero name, simply because it was the lesser known of the two… or maybe they could just do a Pontiac-G spin on it and call it the "Gaballero," lol.
Either way, I think there's definitely a market for a vehicle like this, as long as it's well priced and well made… there are plenty of people who don't really like trucks or like the idea of having a truck, but would love the utility of one. Plus, it's not like this will be as useless as that wretched SSR.
Of course Chevy would be the obvious choice for this… but if they're not going to get it, I'd rather see Pontiac get it than GMC - partly because the last thing GMC needs is a car and partly because I'd like to see GMC make that Denali concept.
I think they aren't wanting to use "El Camino" b/c it will bring back too many memories of mullets.
I'm personally for using G8-ST… since everything else pontiac makes is numbered now-a-days.
Though they could just call it the "Guzzler" and get the point across better.
I think Pontiac Safari would be a good name.
uhh you couldnt even traverse a dirt road with this thing nevermind the african desert so Safari sounds a little dumb.
i saw an SSR the other day… i forgot those ever existed
GM has been name badging everything, slap a "chevy" badge on and call it 'camino.
How about El Douchemobile?
Pretty lame letting the public name a vehicle, the corporate homo's cant figure this one out.
Dang, I forgot about the Caballero. With SUV and truck sales declining, this may be a good option for GMC.
I think they should call it G1115. Wouldn't that be a pissa?
Just call it a GTO. Why not? It's going to have the same fate as the 04-06 goat.
A4… I believe the "Safari" comment was alluding to the late, great Pontiac wagons which held either the Safari nameplate or the "Safari" trim-level.
El Mullet
"Making it a chevy would require them to manufacture a totally new front end for the car, which would increase costs. this is simply cheaper." Jordan
Yea no… that just means that they would be able to import it from here in Oz w/out having to redo the front end to make it a Pontiac… which in turn would save a little much needed GM cash.
However, I agree with the suggestion of calling it the G8 something or another.