[Shotimes] Pontiac unveils SHO successor?

[Carl Prochilo]

Don,  Okay, you're forgiven.  :D

The GP would have been an excellent platform to provide a sports sedan
with an MTX.  Not sure why Pontiac doesn't finish the job.

A few years ago, Lincoln made a feeble attempt with the LS.  Down here,
you couldn't find ANY of those cars with the Getrag tranny.  They just
can't shake their image of bluehair customers, nor do they seem interested
in doing so.  At least down here.  The dealers know where their revenue
comes from.  If they had offered the manual with the V8, I would have
ordered one, even with the obscene financing they were forcing on those
cars.

Cadillac CTS doesn't look right to me, but I might go test drive it.

I still won't go into any Chrysler showrooms from past horror.

So as far as American manufacturers are concerned, there is nothing out
there that is appealing in a 4 door sedan format.

As for the rest, Nissan's Maxima is a good solution.  And of course the
german BMWs are always out there.  Even in automatic form, my brother's
525 is an awesome handling car to drive.  But living in Santa Monica, not
sure a manual would be a good idea as a daily driver.
-- 
Cheers,
Carl Prochilo
92 Ultra Red Crimson

On Sat, October 30, 2004 10:11 am, Donald Mallinson said:
> Carl,
>
> Notice the ? in the subject line?
>
> No it doesn't have a manual tranny, as a fan of enthusiast
> cars, I would have hoped they would put one in, but that
> isn't a realistic hope with almost all American autos.
>
> No the new GP V8 isn't a real V6 SHO successor, and it
> probably won't handle near as well as the V8.  But one thing
> I have come to realize, is that since we could not have the
> V6 MTX SHO anymore, the V8 SHO is a better FWD "sporty"
> sedan than anything in its price class at the time, or even
> today.
>
> As for a limited slip in the new GP, I doubt it, but it
> probably will have some form of traction control, at least I
> would hope it would.
>
> Cadillac managed to control torque steer really well in the
> 275/300 hp big cars they made and still make.  The former
> FWD STS and Current FWD Deville are really very good driving
> cars that don't reveal their FWD genes until you drive them
> well beyond their intended limits.  For 99.9% of highway
> driving, even very spirited driving, they are extremely well
> behaved.
>
> Maybe they put some of those good traits into the new GP?
>
> I am in favor of neat new cars, even FWD ones.
>
> As for the GM FWD heritage.  At the time GM led the parade
> to FWD, all the press was blasting GM for not being "Modern"
> and forward looking like the europeons and japanese and
> going to FWD.  SO GM rushed in some stopgap FWD cars and
> then changed everything to try to keep up and keep market
> share.
>
> I think a lot of us (but not me) have forgotten how anti-RWD
> most of the country was at that point.  It has only been the
> last 4-5 years that RWD has started getting some acceptance
> among the general population, and only because of better
> traction control systems.  Some of you may have forgotten
> how truly awful and dangerous RWD is in the snow if you
> don't have the right winter traction devices (snow/ice
> tires) and how great FWD is in comparison.  FWD is not going
> to go away, personally I do NOT want to go back to the main
> part of the population driving around in small light hard to
> control RWD cars.  Note also that most fans of RWD
> enthusiast cars have a FWD or AWD "winter" car for those
> that live where snow flies at ALL during the winter.
>
> Don Mallinson
>
> Carl Prochilo wrote:
>> Does it have a manual transmission?  Otherwise it can't be a successor.
>> You know better Don.