<VV>Retro

Fri Nov 24 16:56:28 EST 2006

Is the new Camaro "Joker" RWD or FWD ?

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tony Underwood" <tonyu at roava.net>
To: <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
Sent: Friday, November 24, 2006 4:29 PM
Subject: Re: <VV>Retro

> At 11:24 AM 11/24/2006, Russ Moorhouse wrote:
>>Pontiac never intended for the new GTO to be a retro car.  It was their 
>>idea to produce the kind of car the GTO would have been today, had it 
>>remained in production all those years. Considering that the original GTO 
>>was a mid-size car with a big engine in it's day and the way the cars have 
>>decreased in size over they years and the styling changes since it went 
>>out of production, I think Pontiac hit the nail on the head.
>
>
> But Pontiac DIDN'T hit the nail.    GM was in a rush to get something out 
> there to grab a piece of the performance car market.    They had NOTHING 
> with a RWD platform available, having already dumped their LAST 
> substantial RWD platform in the F-Body.
>
> There wasn't anything else in the GM stable (outside the Holden in 
> Australia, which had NOT abandoned RWD) that fit the bill.    Thus, the 
> "borrowed" Holden Monaro rebadged as a GTO.
>
>
>>  It is a modern day mid-size car with a big engine and it's rear wheel 
>> drive,
>
> ...something Chevrolet didn't have then and still doesn't have now.
>
>
>>more than you can say about the new V8 Monte Carlo and Impala.
>
> Best they could do was cram a V8 into a FWD platform...  in the meantime 
> we now have GM engineer sorts working on getting a RWD car back on 
> showroom floors again.    Hopefully it's not too little too late.
>
>
>>Why are people snapping them up when they are far from being retro.  The 
>>Impala's sure don't look anything like my old 58 Impala did.
>
> Chevy fans have been treated to cars with so little left of what THEY 
> wanted in a car, that the new V8 option, FWD or otherwise, is at least a 
> step up from the previous offerings with the biggest engine available in 
> your new Impala being a 6-banger.
>
> Sure as Hell isn't your father's Impala...
>
>
>
>>Unfortunately, for Pontiac the fickled buying public wanted something 
>>retro instead of what the GTO would be like today.
>
>
> It wasn't a Pontiac.  People in the know who wanted to get themselves a 
> performance car with an identifiable badge (GTO) made it a point to know 
> something about what they were buying.
>
> GM had spent far too  much time building beancounter cookiecutter cars 
> with marketability based on the "color code" concept...
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "What sort of car are you looking for today?"
>
> "A red one."
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Performance car customers today are a little smarter than that.    A new 
> GTO pops up in the picture...  car guy realizes that GM had abandoned RWD 
> tech along with almost everything with only two doors outside trucks and 
> Corvettes, but here's this new RWD 2-door "Pontiac" that doesn't look like 
> anything GM ever made and in fact resembles the styling you'd expect to 
> see in an Asian coupe.
>
> Ya think they were just gonna go buy one on a whim because it had GTO 
> badges on it?   And when they found out how much the damned thing cost, a 
> lot of people backed off quick.    Thus, the new "GTO" was hardly the 
> blistering seller that the '64 GTO turned out to be.
>
> Now it's slated to be dumped from the lineup.   Nobody seems to have much 
> interest in them... in SPITE of the car having some damned serious 
> performance.    Improper marketing combined with a very high price... 
> which kinda flew in the face of the original Pontiac GTO concept which was 
> to produce an uncomplicated performance car that looked distinctive and 
> was affordable.
>
> I don't know very many people at all who liked the appearance of the 
> Monaro GTO.   I also know almost nobody who ever bought one.   They're 
> seldom seen on the streets...  maybe see one once a week or so, to and 
> from.
>
> Meanwhile, I'm tripping over new Mustangs.
>
>
>>Due to poor sales, the GTO turned out to be one of the best high 
>>performance car bargains you could buy.
>>
>>I've often wondered why Chevy doesn't offer the Corvette as a retro 
>>version of a '57 or '58 Corvette,
>
> Because they're selling all they can build as-is.   Why offer a stripper 
> that takes just as long to build and garners you less profit per car? 
> Hell, it's highly likely that a LOT of people would want a stripper 
> 'Vette, but I'll bet that in the end it would likely cost almost the same 
> as the loaded variants... after you waited weeks and weeks for it to show 
> up.
>
>
>>in addition to the existing Corvette.  Being a fiberglass body, it doesn't 
>>seem that it would be that difficult make a retro body and fit it on the 
>>same chassis and give the buyers a choice of the style they want.  It 
>>would be a great anniversary promotion.
>
>
> They're not gonna do it for the same reason you'll never see that retro 
> Bel-Air showing up on dealer floors.   GM isn't gonna waste their money on 
> anything that's not gonna bring in max profits with minimum expense... 
> they *Can't*, until they do something about the unions that are bleeding 
> them dry.
>
>
> I liked the Oldsmobile marque...  had hopes for a new 442 to come along 
> maybe...  not to be.
>
> And the sad part was that in order to get rid of the ones on dealer lots, 
> GM was running Olds commercials touting the Olds name with reverence and 
> spouting off about how they were building new Oldsmobiles around the clock 
> to make sure that you could get one.   This, after the marque had already 
> been cancelled.
>
> Bullshit...
>
> General Motors just hasn't been doing its job as of late.    I can't 
> honestly say that they make ANYTHING that I'd want to buy, if I hit lotto 
> and could afford to buy *anything* available.
>
> Frankly, if I wanted a useful performance car I'd find myself checking out 
> the Ford dealership and end up looking at Mustangs.   Of course, if I 
> wanted a real musclecar I'd be hitting up the specialty arenas and 
> scouting around for a '68 Charger R/T or a '68 Hemi Roadrunner...  seeing 
> as how lotto had made money no object...   and then I'd start in on 
> restoring the '66 Satellite I've been collecting parts and pieces for all 
> year.    Hell, I'd even be scouting around for a body for that 'Vair based 
> kitcar chassis around back.
>
>
> Of course, I'd have a sizeable piece of property outside town, not too 
> far, already seen a place that would work out nicely...  and stock it with 
> state of the art facilities for doing whatever I wanted to do to a car, 
> and also have it stocked with about a dozen or so Corvairs, various 
> models...   including the ones already here that deserve better than what 
> they're currently getting for lack of time and money.     I wonder if the 
> Mustang GT would look too much out of place among all the '60s vintage 
> cars...
>
> All I need is to win lotto and I'd be on my way.
>
>
>
> tony..
>
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