One thing Holden has to deal with that we do not (persay) are treacherous roads. Other than the main highways and downtown streets, Australia has mostly unfinnished dirt/gravel roads. So they have to build their cars to handle the abuse, which means durable, long lasting plastic, solid body welds, and high grade suspension parts. When you look at it from that perspective, this could very well be one of the best cars America has ever had, foreign or domestic.

 

Holden in Australia, IS a GM subsidary...


It is the embodiment of their new direction... it doesn't say it is THEIR design.



And anyways, Bob Lutz is the chairman of GM, so, he can use ANY GM design he wants to make the new GTO... even an Australian division of GM.

 

first of all, it does have dual exhaust. the tips are just on the same side. look on pontiac's website, there's an under-car pic, and you can see it has 2 mufflers...

more like now corvette territory... the corvette ls1 has 350 hp, and ls1 f bodies have about the same. 98-00's dyno around 280-290 at the wheels, and 01-02 f body's dyno 310-320 at the wheels, stock. i forget where i saw it, but there was an article where they dyno'd i think a 98 corvette and trans am back to back, and the power numbers were VERY similar. the gto has a more aggressive cam and true dual exhaust, so i wouldn't be surprised if it actually had more power than the vette. the difference will be in weight and suspension.


who cares if they didn't design it? i'm sure people won't buy a nice car because it wasn't designed by the company that's selling it

it was designed by a company that is owned by gm. it uses a chevy engine.

i thought we've been over all this in another thread, but i guess you'll just keep hating anyway...

 

This thread is old..... look at some of the post dates. Most of the information in this thread is speculatory, whereas most of the info in this thread:

https://www.honda-acura.net/forums/s...hreadid=102225

is factual and up to date.

Mods: Lets merge them again. Thanks.

 

Mods, I think it's time to merge threads again. Let's merge this with:

https://www.honda-acura.net/forums/s...5&pagenumber=1

No sense in having one thread with rumors and the other with facts about the same car.

 

Correct, Holden is owned by GM... and has been for a very long time. The Holden Monaro is a General Motors product, regardless if it be GM of Australia. In any case, I have found that GM sells a much higher quality vehicle in other countries. While in Detroit, I sat inside of the Buick Regal sold in Japan, in the GM building lobby. The differences were night and day. The refinement, fit and finish and quality of materials was MUCH better than the Regal/Century sold here. It was also powered by a 210 hp 3.0 DOHC V6 engine rather than the 3800 motor. Id be willing to automatically assume that the new GTO is miles ahead of anything else GM has sold in the past. GM is striving to improve the quality, styling and driving characteristics of their vehicles. They may never exceed Japanese levels, but they are certainly closing the gap. IMO, the new GTO looks very handsome...it's not 'overdone' As for reliability, I've owned an LS1 for 3 years and 50k+ HARD miles... it's never been back to the shop once except for oil changes and regular scheduled maintenance. The only two issues that were common with this engine were piston slap and oil consumption. Mine does emit a slap until it reaches full operating temp (this is supposedly caused by an over boring of cylinders #1 and #2) and does burn up to 1.5 quarts per 3,000 miles if driven hard (this is caused by faulty piston rings) but the LS1 was a relatively new engine design, and flaws are to be expected (especially from GM) and their track record with aluminum engines hasn't been the greatest (a.k.a the early 80s Cadillac HT4100) But both of these defects have been resolved. Other than that, the LS1 is probably GM's most successful engine to date. If the rumors are correct, the GTO's LS1 will be even more durable. Speaking on behalf of the chassis...it is RWD w/ all independent suspension. Sounds like a winner to me.

 

You're the one that made the damn seperate thread :fawk:

 

I forgot this one existed. h:

 

Just found out the rods on the LS1 are made with sintered powerdered metal and thus require no balancing..... have they always been? Explains how free reving this motor is for a pushrod. Also gives me confidence that the motor should be near indestructable (within reason).

Still no GTO's at my local Pontiac dealers. Anyone find one yet? They were supposed to go on sale December 1st.

 

I haven't seen one, but my local dealer advertises them in the paper.