Pssst...Bob, Not That One. It's Over Here.
First Drive: Pontiac Vibe GT-R
By: Michael Levine Posted 07.13.2002 01:00 PDT

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Unless you live in a wooden shed in the wilds of Montana you have probably heard that Pontiac is reviving the famous GTO badge for 2004 and attaching it to a domestic version of the Holden Monaro, a two-door hot rod from GM's Australian subsidiary.

Shouts go out to General Motors, especially to product development czar Bob Lutz, for bringing back a rear wheel drive touring coupe with a killer V8 that remains true to the original GTO spirit. But there's something slightly wrong with this resurrection. This new GTO is still your father's GTO.

With a sticker price expected to be over $30 large, the new GTO will break one of the first tenets of the original 1964 GTO - high performance but at a budget price. Back then a loaded GTO with 348 horsepower and 428 lb-ft of torque would have set you back around $3,000. That's only about $18,000 today, adjusted for inflation. Almost the same as today's base Vibe GT! Unfortunately, the new GTO's price tag doesn't fall within the range of somebody looking for entry level high performance. It's going to appeal to affluent, older car enthusiasts, likely to be in their late thirties to early sixties who can afford it - pretty much the same guys who bought a GTO the first time around and want to relive their youth, but this time with a little luxury.

Now, while the size of their wallets hasn't really changed over the decades, young buyer's tastes for performance cars certainly have.

Today's young buyer, the one every car company is bending over backwards to appeal to like Pontiac did in the sixties, has likely been raised on a steady diet of front wheel drive compacts and intermediate sized sedans, not the 'Detroit Iron' rear wheel drive cars their dads had growing up. This has certainly impacted their buying preferences because over the past 10 years the youngest and fastest growing segment of automotive aficionados is performance compact enthusiasts.

Which brings me to what I think is the true evolutionary (note, I didn't say spiritual) successor to the GTO, the Pontiac Vibe GT-R concept. Pontiac has aimed the GT-R right at today's performance compact enthusiasts, who pick up where the original GTO owners left off. And what's really nice about this is that Pontiac has managed to produce a vehicle unique to the compact tuner market while introducing its distinct heritage to a new generation of drivers.

The Vibe GT-R concept was built for last year's SEMA by General Motor's in-house Special Vehicles Group in cooperation with General Motors Service Parts Organization (SPO). Led by Jon Moss, GM Special Vehicles is tasked with taking each GM brand to its high-performance cutting edge and trying out new ideas and technologies.

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Origin of a Classic:
Pontiac's Tempest GTO

It was a stealthy effort in 1963 led by Pontiac general manager Pete Estes, lead engineer John DeLorean (yes, that DeLorean) and advertising exec Jim Wangers to get the GTO to market. The goal was to get young buyers, especially guys just coming out of school or the military, to embrace Pontiac and its racing heritage but GM's chairman had just handed down a corporate edict that halted all racing activities that year.

GM had been under pressure from the government and certain consumer groups to dial back its racing efforts because the big block, full-size Pontiac Catalinas it was putting on the track for NASCAR were being bought by testosterone filled males every Monday after they won on Sunday.

Pontiac had even gone so far as to offer Super Stock Catalinas with "Swiss cheese" frames, (grapefruit sized holes drilled into the chassis rails), 421-cubic-inch high output engines and plenty of other race ready modifications. These 4000-pound steel monsters could run quarter mile times in the low 12s at more than 116 mph.

It was just too much legal liability for GM to handle.

So, to keep the performance audience satisfied and sales up, Wangers suggested taking Pontiac's new compact car, the 1964 Tempest, and dropping in GM's full-size car 389-cubic-inch engine in place of the standard 326-cubic-inch motor. DeLorean verified it could easily be done because the 389 and 326 were both the same size on the outside, only bored differently inside, and Estes approved it. GM Leadership never caught on until it was too late.

The GTO's price and configuration must have really hit the sweet spot because while the marketing gurus at GM originally estimated only 5,000 cars would be sold, that first year over five times that many screamed off dealer lots as word hit the streets.

- ML