GTO is not american

[ExtreemATV]

The GTO is not an amerian car

It was built in Australia and shiped off to america with a new grill a new badge, and a new name.

Check it out for yourself

HOLDEN MONARO
http://www.holden.com.au/www-holden/...?modelid=12001

PONTIAC GTO
http://www.pontiac.com/gto/index.jsp?brand=home

[GTX Playa]

This is not news. In fact, there are no "100% American" cars or trucks anymore. This is not the first car GM has imported from its foriegn divisions and it will not be the last. All automakers do it.

[BNaylor]

Originally Posted by GTX Playa

This is not news. In fact, there are no "100% American" cars or trucks anymore. This is not the first car GM has imported from its foriegn divisions and it will not be the last. All automakers do it.

I agree. I've noticed that every GM car I owned from 1996 and up are assembled in Canada. Therefore, they are technically made in Canada.

[Omega_5]

Originally Posted by ExtreemATV

The GTO is not an amerian car

It was built in Australia and shiped off to america with a new grill a new badge, and a new name.

Check it out for yourself

HOLDEN MONARO
http://www.holden.com.au/www-holden/...?modelid=12001

PONTIAC GTO
http://www.pontiac.com/gto/index.jsp?brand=home

Man, i think that over 95% of the people here already knew that. GM even anounced it on their website when the concpet was released. Besides that, either way its a GM car, Australian or American. As long as it's not Japanese, i'm cool with it.

[Ridenour]

Originally Posted by Omega_5

Man, i think that over 95% of the people here already knew that. GM even anounced it on their website when the concpet was released. Besides that, either way its a GM car, Australian or American. As long as it's not Japanese, i'm cool with it.

[rzkz8k]

Originally Posted by ExtreemATV

The GTO is not an amerian car

It was built in Australia and shiped off to america with a new grill a new badge, and a new name.

Check it out for yourself

HOLDEN MONARO
http://www.holden.com.au/www-holden/...?modelid=12001

PONTIAC GTO
http://www.pontiac.com/gto/index.jsp?brand=home

So... Better build quality and better inside materials. Beside, I bought my Goat for the LS2 (like most of us) and that was built here as was the tranny (both A4 and M6).

Don't think these pople are getting anything over on you, your correct, it seems that they dont care, but thats fine for them, 8k was silly enough to buy one, thats his problem, if he has not allready found out is that most real Pontiac people and chevy people hate the car, and Ford Mustang owners hate it because it looks like one.

so HA HA the jokes on them. hope they injoy the next payment on the car and the feeling of taking away American Jobs.

Originally Posted by GTX Playa

This is not news. In fact, there are no "100% American" cars or trucks anymore. This is not the first car GM has imported from its foriegn divisions and it will not be the last. All automakers do it.

Sure not many cars are 100% anything, but it's kinda funny how american cars seem to suffer the most from that.

One can even say that the WW2 Jap 0 was American, since the Japs bought nearly all steel from america.

You hurting the Country, the worker and yourself when you buy stuff that Americans make. We don't even make TVs in America, and we made the TV!

Some people who live here dont care about it, the kinda people who buy the chevAussiGTO!

[MrPbody]

Rather than complaining and taking pot-shots, maybe you should actually DRIVE one.
It amazes me how many people are out to "kill" the car over such reasons. The same crowd would buy a Subaru simply because it was .1 second "quicker" in the 1/4 mile. The fact that GTO is a true V8-RWD tire-shredding muscle car cannot be ignored. Mustang is NOT. Never was, never will be. At least Charger isn't retro... Not very fast, toug. If it was, Dodge would be up in our faces with speeds and times. IMO, "retro" is whoring a car that tries to regain past (lost) glory. True GTO people NEVER bought GTO for what others thought of how they "look" in it. They bought them for the view over the hood, the dash, and the moonsterous torque and power. No toher muscle car ever quite got the balance of class/performance GTO had. Some were quicker (especially if you compare the big-motored Chevelles and Olds to the smaller Pontiacs, like the "shoot-outs" always do), but they just didn't have that extra "something" that added handling and classy lines. Being heavily involved in the GTO "hobby", I see all kinds. The only old GTO owners I hear complaining are "band wangoneers" (bought their "restored" GTO because it was "cool"). Old timers that love GTO think the modern one is right there with the old ones. It meets all the criteria originally outlined by Mr. DeLorean and Mr. Wangers. And it does with a subtle class not found in other makes. Car & Driver said it best: "Don't look a gift-goat in the mouth". We should be proud of Mr. Lutz for having the sack to bring the car over here in the first place.
And you really need to get over this obsession with calling LSx engines "Chevy". They are NOT. They are a GM corporate effort with contributions from each division regarding design and production. It shares no architecture with SBC OR SB2.

Deloren said that he would never build a GTO with anything less then a 400.

This car has more to do with the Aussis and less to do with America how can you say this???

I built my GTO for speed, not a full restore with yellow paint on my drive shaft, I built it for speed! The car became more to me when I would see Chevys with the same BS under the hood, same everything, and with the cheap engine parts chevy became more of a "cookie cut" engine meaning they all kinda looked the same, that only makes PONTIACs real PONTIACs with it's backgound and it's history instilled.

That bastard of a car is not liked by the people I know in the Pontiac world, the guys on the street and the car shows, I don't know how you can say that the pontiac people like that car!?!?

IT'S NOT EVEN BUILT IN AMERICA?????????!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you think this why don't you stop rebuilding PMD engines and push the Chevy L engine? You said it yourself, that that engine uses SBC bearings, that engine is the next SBC it shares nothing with any other engine but the SBC, no vally pan, SBC bearings, the over all mesurements allmost fit that of a SBC, even the heads Ex-manifold bolts up just like a SBC, you cannot tell me that engine is the next SBC, your correct it's not a 70s SBC but it's shares strokes and cam size that are allmost in line with a SBC, and I think it has the same fireing order!

The car is UN AMERICAN AND NOT A Pontiac GTO!
I may be wrong but a muscle car being true to the place and kinda of car is would have to at least be made in America, what car made outside the US could even start to be a muscle car ??

Why would I even care about driveing it? I think it's an insult to not only Americans but a slap in the face to Deloren.

I respect your building skills and what you build, but to say this car is a true Pontiac GTO and a muscle car is like putting a Chevy BB in a 65 GTO!

[MrPbody]

You're comparing apples to donuts. In the "muscle car era", EVERY GM division had its' own engine family. That changed in the late '70s, and will not be coming back. To use the same corporate engine in both Pontiac and Corvette, is a natural order of business.

LSx shares only the part numbers for the rod bearing (not mains OR cam) and lifter. Nothing else. The SBC has a valve layout of E-I-I-E-E-I-I-E. LSx has I-E-I-E-I-E-I-E. There's no chance of the exhaust systems even looking alike, much less fitting.
SBC has the crankshaft centerline just above the pan rails. You've complained about this in another post. Same is true of BBC and Pontiac (actually, Pontiac has the centerline AT the pan rail). LSx has the "skirted" pan rails, not unlike the Ford FE and Chrysler B/RB designs. The reason is simple. Strength. With the heavy iron and thick bulkheads the GM engines used, the skirted block was unnecessary. The later Ford BB also has pan rails in line with the crank centerline. The earlier Ford and the Dodge need the skirts for the strength, as the bulkheads aren't as thick. The Hemi came with "cross-bolt" mains. So did 427 Ford. So does LSx. Actually, LSx has 6 main bolts, not just 4.
The heads. Well, all that can be said is that I have never seen the like! They have a "cathedral window" intake port, VERY tall, and not too wide (opposite of SBC and Pontiac). A friend told me he saw a similar design on the latest version of GM's 502 (not the BBC race engine, but the pickup engine in modern ones). The heads were just like the LSx heads, but larger. Interesting concept...
Seriously, get some drawings or at least some pictures of the engine in disassembled condition. You will see, there's NOTHING SBC about it.

I have been trying to find the correct words in the last few posts about this engine, so I'm going to try to connect some dots here because I can't seem to believe that you would try to spin off this engine as a beast haveing no history.

This engine is not the same SBC as a 70 350 however you cant tell me that this is not what the SBC should be for 2005!

Do you not think this? GM has been useing SBCs in just about everything, it's first changes were roller cams (Factory) and center bolt valvecover heads, and even the heads are not the same as a 70 SBC this started in 1987, so you could even say that the 1987 engines could be GM nonchevy engines, could you not?
Lets keep going with changes to the block with gear driven water pumps and an intake that does not fit other older years and other physical changes that I really dont have in front of me right now, you could say that was the next step, right?

So now we have the BIG change, revamped heads and intake and movieng the crank into the ceneterline, cast oil pan that works as a part of the block and not just sheet steel.

Sure it's big changes but you cannot tell me that this was not the next step for the SBC, this is a 2005 SBC, HOT ROD just did a history of the SBC in the last few months, with pin up posters of the engine inside the mag, and I will let you guess what the last engine poster was.

As far as this AussiChevyGTO you can't tell me that it's a pontiac, come on?!? You of all people that still support an engine that has not been cast since 1978 (1979 was last year used but the block was last cast in 78 and they just let the supply run out), you can't tell me that a car made in another country shipped to the US and Pontiac arrow heads slaped on it is a Pontiac?!?!!

It's fast, sure but so is duck crap falling from 2,000 feet, it's the engine and the history or the history it makes that make the car, not a fast engine and 3M backed arrow heads!

I have loyalty to Pontiac, the American made Pontiacs with real Pontiac engines that were designed by PMD.
Thats a Pontiac, the IA engines are basicly what PMD had in mind.

On top of this the car looks nothing like any GTO, Tempest, LeMans or anything pontiac, how can you even say it is. XxX's car had more to do with being a pontiac with a dam chevy in it!!!!!!!

Sir you do very well with the history lessons of the engines, but with all that info you still not telling me why it's not what a SBC should be, and your not telling me why this car is a GTO, besides that it's fast.

[MrPbody]

I'm not going to carry this any further. I have stated, from an engineering point of view, how LSx differs. You simply WANT it to be a Chevy so you can whine about it. The one thing that mkes is different is the FACT that it came from a "clean sheet of paper" in the various engineering departments involved. And Mr. DeLorean NEVER said ANYTHING about 400CID. If you recall, '64-'66 had 389s. NOT 400s.
Keep on complaining. Pontiac is not going to move the manufacturing to the US for a variety of reasons. GTO means "Grand Turismo Olomogato", which in English roughly translated to "Grand Touring, Homogenized". It means, the car was put together with a "homogneized blend" of shelf parts and existing technology. That is EXACTLY what the Holden Monaro-modified-to-GTO is. Hope you don't think your '72 with a 400 in it is a match for that car. You could get your feelings hurt, unless you have a lot of serious aftermarket stuff in your engine and chassis.

[84fiero123]

i dont want to start a war but mr. delorean didnt want to build the gto with anything smaller than the 400. thats a fact! corporate would not allow him to put it in, if you jnow your history. i was 9 when the gto came out in 64, i remember, i'm not looking at a book or reading the idiotnet full of disinformation.
i sat in the first prototype 67 firebird at the gm factory in framiongham mass. in mid summer 66 before they even started production.
gto stands for, to the true pontiac owner; gas tires and oil. if you think different you are not a true pontiac officianado,
the firebird was the banshee, read your history books boy and girls. gm doesnt care that the car is not built in the states all they care about is the profit line and how much they can squeeze out.
my dad worked at gm framingham plant when they built the first gto's there. i was 9. i remember those cars and the only true firebirds, the first generation.
you boys with these wanta be muscle cars would not be able to handle a 60's era bird or gto. 365 hp out of the factory, no blowers no superchargers just plain old american muscle, true american muscle not built somewhere else.
by the way i worked at the same factory for 15 years until it closed.
i agree that there are no cars made totally i the usa, that is your fault, you buy them, if more americans gave a shit about buying american maybe we would have a true american muscle car. but the only way to do that is bitch to gm corporate, they are the one who think its more important to make the car cheaper than it is to have the people here make it.

[MrPbody]

Well, I gotcha by a year.. (was 10 in '64). The Pontiac 400 wasn't introduced until '67, in the 4th year of GTO production. 389 was the engine that was available before that. It is rumored (but never verified) a few of the "Royal Bobcats" were 421-powered. Non were from the factory.
Banshee has been the name used for several concept cars from Pontiac over the years. The '87 era version is almost a carbon copy of what later became the '93 Firebird body. The coolest one I remember was from '65, where there was a pic of John Z. driving one. It looked remarkably like the '68 Corvette. GM told him (John Z.) to forget it. Pontiac was NOT going to produce a car that would compete with Corvette for market share.
"my" definition of what "GTO" means is NOT my definition at all. It was Enzo Ferrari's, and that is exactly what it means. It became a class in FIA and SCCA. "gas, tires & oil", "get tools out", "garbage truck optional" are all "street slang" for GTO. Another one we heard a lot, but never quite figured out "go through Oscar's".