WTF??????????????????????????????

GM only likes to keep products around for that long anyway. Why try to keep a vehicle around for a long time? If they were like Toyota and stick to their guns on quality and persistance, they might actually make money. Even in rough times, GM just doesnt get it.

Jeebus H. Christopher GM, why can’t you just keep your corporate yap shut about anything? Gee everyone, you’ve got five years to buy a lame duck. GM couldn’t market its way out of a kangaroo’s pouch.

back to badge engineering? jesus christ… just when i thought they were smartening up
put the turbo-4 in the G8 and see what happens

Hey guys if you want this model to hang around – buy it. If you buy a lot of them – perhaps they’ll keep on coming. Otherwise it is another Lutz’s sweet dream turning into GM’s nightmare.

Just like the GTO… these nice austrailian sourced cars don’t last long… so can we expect Camaro to be gone by 2014?

There are so many wrong things with this article. First, the G6 is to a large extent a rebadged Malibu/Aura. Secondly, the G8 isn’t getting killed in 5 years, it’s merely going through a platform change from the Monaro to the Commodore.

Its retarded moves like this that make me feel no sympathy whatsoever for domestic brands…

Borat — with how crappy the economy is, who has the money to drop on a G8? And most people will “dispose” of cars after 4 years … a domestic car that is discontinued will depreciate faster than anything on the road. Sad to see how nearsighted GM will be — you’d think they’d learn their lesson! (And last time I checked, US$1 = A$1.50 and oil is below $70/barrel !!! So how expensive it is to bring over a rebadged Holden Commodore? Or better yet … why not make these on this side of the Pacific? (ie bring some of those Aussie engineers to this side of the world. They’re not backwards … we are!)

I’ve often wondered…

…is it “righty tighty – lefty loosey” in Australia, too?

(es un chiste – it’s a joke)

Pontiac??? Crap….Camaro????…Crap, Jeez and these guys want to take chrysler over…..good lord!!! I have to say, I have driven the new Challenger…and WOW!!!!!!!, if that was the standard that all american cars followed….it would be huge!!! Dodge has got it going on right now!!!! Nissan Getting them to build the new truck for them!!!!!!I would take a Dodge Chrysler or a Jeep over any other American car right now, Fit and finish and the warranty work is down 43% in tha last 3 years????? The toyota store across the street from my local dodge store has 43 service bays….ALWAYS FULL!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wayne, yesterday it was 36 service bays. Remind me not to take you fishing.

Well, GM, I think I may just become a FORD fan. GM really knows how to make stupid ass moves. I guess the camaro will be killed off again b.c of CAFE soon too. Then all of this hype for the past 4 years will be for nothing! Well, here is to hope the Challenger and Charger stay around.

You’d never see Toyota announce it’s going to discontinue a key nameplate in five years, no matter what the inside dope was. This is an idiotic thing to say. Now G8s are going to look like low-value orphans before they are even assembled and shipped.

Wow…It seems like it’s so obvious to all of us that this is one of the worst decisions they could make, yet the execs just don’t get it. Pontiac was once again turning into a company of some value, but they’ve just thrown all of their progress in the garbage. Way to go guys. These guys are all so afraid of the CAFE standards they couldn’t figure out how to wipe their own asses. Here’s an idea, keep building the good cars, just put turbo’d smaller engines in them. Or advance fuel saving/horsepower making technology like VVT or Direct Injection. It is through advancing technology that cars will survive, not cutting the good ones.

I had a dream (oops nightmare!) that I have to eat and schtup afterward surgically enhanced Mrs. Lutz! Now I understand why EVERY decision on top of food chain in GM so screwed up!

GM doesn’t need the G8. Sorry, folks, that may be hard to swallow, but it’s true. Times have changed since the G8 was given the green light. Yes, oil has backed off its record highs by better than 50%, but it’s still 100% more expensive than it was just a few years ago (isn’t it nice how OPEC has trained us to think that $70 oil is cheap?). It’s under $70 now, but would you trust OPEC to keep it low enough to make a trip to the Hummer store tomorrow? Think Ford’s sales of Explorers are going to rebound? Notice that line of customers at the Toyota dealership clamouring for the Tundra? Of course not – OPEC is already talking production cuts in hopes to keep the price up (watch what happens to the price of oil tomorrow – it’ll be temporary, but the price WILL spike). Even with oil and gas prices completely out of the picture, there are the environmental and political aspects. Cheap OPEC oil is still OPEC oil. People are starting to resent making Arabs and South American dictators silly rich while listening to them talk about how much they want to kill us (indeed, we are actually funding those efforts). Oil is not an infinite resource. Whether you believe the “sky is falling” peak oil pundits or not, the fact is that there is only so much of it in the ground, and it’s getting scarce. It may last through our lifetimes, it may last through our childrens’ lifetimes, but it will run out eventually, and as it gets closer to running out it will get more expensive.

Then there’s the environmental aspect. Again, whether you believe in global warming or not (I live in eastern Canada, where it is currently about 45 degrees – I say “BRING IT ON”), the fact is that oil pollutes. Every aspect of oil pollutes, from taking it out of the ground, through transporting it, through refining it, through using it. “Green” is now becoming chic. People are now paying premiums for hybrids that will never pay themselves off, just to feel good about themselves (and to impress their neighbours, much the same reason those same people were driving a Suburban last year). Small and efficient is in. Larger, powerful vehicles that were once envied are now looked upon with disdain.

No, Pontiac does not need the G8. Pontiac, and GM in general, needs small, efficient, but high quality and stylish vehicles that can go toe to toe with the Civic, Yaris, Fit, Fiesta, and the rest. Pontiac needs a Malibu-based car that’s as good as the Malibu (not that G6 POS). A few years ago, when Chrysler unleashed the 300/CHarger/Magnum, the classic RWD “American” sedan was a good idea. Now… notsomuch. GM (and Ford) missed that boat. Well, only Ford REALLY missed it – GM jumped on just as it was sailing into the sunset. The next boat has docked, and that boat is small.

Now, all that being said, one does have to wonder at the intelligence behind announcing a car’s demise five years ahead of time (and only one year after it was introduced!). On the surface, it looks like piss-poor marketing, but even still there is a silver lining. To car guys it looks like a stupid move, but to Joe Sixpack it may look as if GM is making an attempt to show that it’s finally aligning its products with what the mainstream car buyer will actually want five years from now…

If true, this further demonstrates the misguided top management for bringing the G8 to fruition, and then ceasing it as they have. They never should have released it to begin with and the GM execs clearly knew this fact, but big-mouthed Lutz has to get his way so that he can stand by his deliverance. No wonder GM is miserably failing to the point of no return. Fire Lutz and Wagoner today!

There have been some problems with this car. They brought it over from Australia and they didn’t Americanize it. My tricycle has more options then this car, the freakin tata motors $2500 car has more bells an whistles then this car. GM took the wrong approach they took the car and tranplanted just like the GTO what did they expect to happen. Some features that im pretty sure would start making this car move off the lot. Bluetooth, GPS navigation, HID lights, and an AWD option somewhere in there. The outside of the car looks the parts but where I think GM is like is inside with the options. Americans like choices to make their car different from someone else’s. This car would be a viable option for many people if it came in an AWD and had some more features. Just my opinion

This is to bad I really liked the G8 it was a real contender. Then again remember this could be Edmunds pulling **** our of their mouths, this really isn’t GM announcing this.

The New Challenger really isn’t all that great to tell the truth, In the Car & Diver Vol.54 No5 the 2008 Chevy Cobalt SS bet the Challenger at the Track Meat along with the Mitsubishi Lancer, BMW 135i, Lexus IS F, Audi S5, Honda S2000 CR, and many other just read the copy for yourself. The fact that the Chevy Cobalt SS was capable of beating all of these cars makes it a real contender and has had an undeserved reputation for quite sometime.

you might as well kill pontiac while your at it and buick for good measure

Kill Pontiac already! It’s over let it go. Sell Buick to the Chinese, they’re the only ones who care about it anyway. Nobody thinks GMC is any more “heavy duty” than Chevy.

Toyota is a $150 Billion cash cow selling just “3″ brands Toyota, Scion, Lexus. GM should wake up and realize it only needs Chevy,Cadillac, and Saturn.

Wait a minute. Thunder Chicken? Is that you, Carmen? HAH! Eastern Canada? Yup.

Good to see you in here, man. And keep on preaching.

Though I don’t agree with you. Say what you will about fuel economy, but the G8 and the Solstice are the FIRST Pontiac vehicles to get this kind of massive public support and approval since………. well, I can’t remember the last time you’d have heard a domestic dissenter say ‘Damn, that Pontiac’s killer! I want one!”. The public is pricking up their ears whenever the G8 or Solstice is even mentioned, and these people are putting a good face to Pontiac for the first time in their lives. Now listen to what people are saying about the cars they plan to bring them into the future, like the G3/Wave, G5/Pursuit, or any other badge engineered Pontiac. They’re saying “Screw you, Pontiac! You let us down! This is what got you into trouble in the first place.”

What do you think GM needs more of right now? Build cars that people can go get cheaper at the Chevy dealer, making the other brand obsolete and bringing the public perception death cloud back to the giant, or build cars that people desire and connect with, ignoring CAFE? I think they should do as BMW does and just pay the damn bill. Besides, an LNF G8, built in Canada, I mean North America, with a true manual or a GM wide Dual-clutch auto (they achieve the same milage as a manual does nowadays) would be the bread and butter seller for a lot less than they’re selling them for now, and will bring them a lot closer to CAFE anyway.

Not to worry, foreign companies will still make rear wheel drive!!! i would rather have a 4 cylinder turbo with rear wheel drive, than a front heavy, understeering, v8 powered front driver anyday. Not sure how the rest of the world can do it, but american car companies can’t. whats next, cadillac going back to the fleetwoods and sedan de’villes of the 80s/90s?

Why, GM, WHY?!? FWD DOES *NOT* EQUAL fuel efficiency, d@mn it!

johnny owns yet another unsuspecting idiot. Other than this one, I just can’t imagine using Chrysler and quality in the same sentence.

1c3dog, the reason FWD does equal fuel economy is because a RWD vehicle is much bigger then a FWD car with the same interior space. The RWD drivetrain takes up a lot of space. I am not, however, trying to defend FWD because I hate it.

Well, you might as well kill off Pontiac division after this cuz there’s “performance” doesn’t scream out to me from a G5 and especially a G3. let Chevy keep them.

Bob Lutz had better of, or be planning on smackin a bitch.

Well, there goes the last reason I would have bought a vehicle from GM…

Cadillacs/Corvettes are to expensive and I don’t want to drive the same Camaro everyone else is bound to end up wiith. Same reason why I don’t want to drive a Mustang – There are just way too many of them.

This just proves that every major auto maker should have their own version of Mercury

Wow I’m not surprised at all.. Why GM. The G3 is not a good car at all. My local dealer has had a 09 aveo 5 in the shop 2 times for 2 major problems. They had to replace the motor and new axles.

I keep holding out hope for GM….they are making some fine vehicles, but this is ridiculous. If they do this (and I’m suspect of this “report”), then they might as well just go ahead and kill off Pontiac. Perhaps GM would be better off with just 3 divisions making great cars as opposed to the 5-6 with a spattering of good product.

This is getting to be too funny:-))) Geez and I thought the market Gurus on CNBC were entertaining;-) From the source: http://pontiacunderground.typepad.com/

“Every few months, it seems that another rumor hits the Internet that Pontiac is throwing in the towel. Given the craziness that is the automotive industry right now, we guess it’s not surprising that some folks want to write us off, but that doesn’t make it true.

The latest is that we’re cancelling the G8. Interesting idea…just launch what most people think is one of the best cars we’ve ever built, bring two more models (G8 GXP and G8 ST) to the market over the next year…then cancel it.

Can you say, “Not gonna happen?”

Here’s the straight scoop. The G8 is a solid part of the Pontiac portfolio…period. We’ve just started building the G8 GXP in Australia and the first cars should be here right around the end of the year. The G8 ST is still on target to start production about mid-summer 2009 and arrive in North America in the fall. And, even in this dismal automotive market, the G8 sedan and G8 GT keeps right on selling

Interestingly, the Solstice was the target of the “cancellation” rumor here a couple of months ago, yet the Solstice Coupe starts production in January. Sense a pattern here?

Look, we all know that the auto industry is under a lot of pressure right now and we’ll admit to a certain degree of nervousness about the future ourselves. But, we are a car company, pure and simple, so our plan is to keep building great cars, like the G8 and Solstice, today, tomorrow, and the next day.

We’ll leave the predictions for the future to the folks at the Psychic Friends Network.”

Thanks for that DB9. I guess what we all recognised as a fool move, Pontiac did as well. This kind of gun jumping is way too common in Blogs.

I believe Toyota has announced it will drop the Solara next year! There are way too many Toyonda’s on the road but folks keep buying ‘em! I’d much rather have a Mustang!

Too bad most posts are negative ignoramus soapbox politics. Most of these come from people who know very little about the automobile industry. I suspect they are the ones that while buying their coveted foreign love objects,they also can be heard over on the sidelines of everyother American hating groups.
Let me ask what your answer is other than to close all American car companies and worship the obviously superior camrys,& especially anything german. Lets hear some positive constructive comments or shut the hellup and let the Americans lose their jobs. Maybe yours will be gone too.The solution to the American car companies is for the citizens of this country to stop buying foreign and give the American companies the business if nothing more than to be patriotic. In WW2,the American people would not be having a debate as they sacrificed a whole lot more than to actually have to give up a camry a for a Malibu or Aura. I must be nuts I guess as I went myself to both honda,toyota,and a couple of GM dealers and if you think the styling,and pretty much everything else is worth/better than the American cars,you have allowed yourself to be brainwashed. I can see needed improvement but I see alot more needed with their cars.