O.K., fair enough. Nonetheless, the car is awesome. And Mike, you know for me to say that about a GM vehicle means pigs can fly (just saw one out my window this morning).

 

From what I understand, the engine & transmission are identical to the later model LS1 f-bodies. They have the LS6 block and intake manifold, but the standard LS1 cylinder heads (not D-ported) mated to the T-56. The GTO should also have a different camshaft than either the f-body LS1's or the C5 LS1's, but I could be wrong there.

 

you know exactly what i meant. GM didn't design the car in house. they may own the companies that put the entire car together, but it wasn't done in detroit. the original GTO was - it wasn't taken from a european/australian car.

"new" engine, meaning different from the engine in the monaro.

if they have to rely on other companies to come up with good ideas and solid cars, then i think thats pretty pathetic. the pontiac solstice and the newer cadillacs are giving us some hope that GM can produce decent automobiles, however.

 

We live in a different day and age. In the 1960's, a small car with a big engine was really a novelty. The whole muscle car/sports car/pony car concept started in 1963. It was absurd to have any other car other than the Corvette with a huge engine in a compact chasis. As the GTO started with a Bonneville 389 in a little granny Tempest, it made people in the car business go "whoa!". And in that time, remember, GM, Ford, and Chrysler were the only cars you could buy in the States. So challenges could be met with relative ease. Today, a car in that same bracket faces competition they never could forsee in the 1960's. While it is a little dissapointing that the new GTO wasn't designed and built from the ground up in Detroit, Michigan, USA, it's still a creation of a General Motors subsidiary. That is still enough to be proud of. It's not like GM went to Honda and asked them to build the car.

 

they might as well have just went to some other company and asked them to build them a great car. to me there's no difference in what they did with the new GTO. the fact remains, they still couldn't do it themselves whether they own the subsidiary or not. its not like they started holden, they bought it out.

their idea is a modern muscle car - and they fail with all of their own attempts, so they use someone else's car, stick an iconic name on it and call it their own. where is the pride in that?

 

GM is moving to global platforms.

The Solstice was at least going to be shared with Vauxhall.

The CTS and SRX are built on the Epsilon platform which, surprise surprise, will probably underpin the next Opel Omega and most of the big rwd Holdens.

Cars like the Saab 9-3 are built on the Sigma platform which of all things is also used to underpin the new Chevy Malibu.

Holden and Opel have been fully-owned subsidiaries of GM for a long time now. The old Opel Omega platform is used all over the world, not just Europe and Australia. Hell, they call it the Chevy Lumina in Saudi Arabia.

If it's still made totally in-house by a GM division then does it really matter where that GM division is headquartered?

 

Yeah, I see your point. But, I guess it's a reflection of the global business atmosphere. Technically, even going back to the 1970's Delco radios had Japanese transistors. What was the last GM car to come off the line with every single part engineered, designed, assembled, and sold completely in the United States? Tough one, isn't it?

 

You got you lines crossed... CTS and SRX are on Sigma... 9-3, Malibu, Vectra are on Epsilon

 

where would GM be if they didn't have the power and resources to buy out all of these independent companies? they'd be completely screwed, and would still just be making shitty products. the only reason they are able to go forward is not because of their own (american) business and engineering strength, its because they buy other companies out and use their ideas, engineering, innovation, parts, platforms (etc) and even whole cars like the monaro. it matters very much

that is true - i'm sure every japanese car (not including the ones manufactured in america) use parts from all over the world. but thats entirely different than taking almost an entire car that someone else designed and engineered and rebadging it.

 

The Monaro exists only because GM owns Holden. GM bought Opel and Holden a long time ago.

All of these companies designed these cars after they were already under the GM corporate umbrella. It's just that now we're seeing a car that was originally developed by a GM brand outside of this country sold here under a domestic brand.

The Opel Omega was developed by GM for sale in global markets. In Australia it happens to have Holden Commodore badges on it. The Monaro is a mutated coupe version of the Commodore. Holden created by using a GM platform. Not a GM USA platform, but a GM platform nonetheless.

Hell this is not even the first time this platform has been sold in the USA. The Cadillac Catera is a gussied up Opel Omega.