$70,000 Cadillacs? Huh!!!

First they introduce the CTS-V, a manual-only sports sedan with a parking brake pedal and no manual parking brake - think about that one and that Bob Lutz let it get through, to compete in the BMW M3 super sedan market at $50,000. By all reports it is a nice (if funny-looking) car. It sells poorly. At $40,000 and with an auto option it would sell well if not great.

Now GM is going to introduce an STS-V at about $70,000 to try to compete with the BMW M5, the ubber-god of super-sedans. By all reports it is a very nice (and much less funny-looking) car. I predict it will sell poorly unless massively incentivized. $70,000 is just way too much for a Caddy (with the possible exception of that Corvette-based sports car they sell whose name I don't recall).

I just don't understand these very high sticker prices GM is putting on Cadillacs. They know darned well that people will not pay them. Are they just building in a huge mark-up so they can go straight to incentive mode and make people think they are getting a big discount while paying the price that GM wanted to get for the car in the first place? That may work, but it also makes the cars less attractive to people who see that sort of thing as a way to move dogs.

And where the heck is the Camaro replacement, Mr. Lutz? Or is GM going to wait for that market to peak before introducing a replacement.

And how about a real GTO, Mr. supposed car guy? GRL

------------ Cadillac isn't doing all to shabbily selling their cars right now. Personally I like the STS and CTS, I think that they're better looking then the 3-Series and 5-Series. If you think that people who're looking at the M5 aren't going to look at the STS-V, I'd reconsider that thought. The M5 is supposed to cost, from what I've heard, around 90k when it comes out. Sure

70k may be alot for a Caddy, but 90k is alot for a not so limited production Bimmer.

GM Truck Sales

GM truck sales declined 4 percent versus year-ago levels. GM led the industry in truck sales by over 20,000 units in October and over 440,000 units for the calendar year-to-date. Cadillac set a new monthly truck sales record, beating the previous record set in 2003.

GM Cars

· While GM's total car sales declined 5 percent compared to last year, several vehicles had year-over-year increases including Cadillac XLR; Chevrolet Malibu, Impala, Corvette and Monte Carlo; Pontiac Bonneville; and Buick LeSabre. Additionally, Pontiac G6 and Cadillac STS sales are exceptionally brisk as production ramps up.

Divisional Sales Highlights

CADILLAC

· Cadillac's calendar year-to-date sales are its best since 1990 and are up 9 percent compared to year-ago levels. Cadillac's share of the luxury market segment has increased by 0.8 percent. · Escalade ESV calendar year-to-date sales have increased 24 percent, with the Escalade brand calendar year-to-date sales up 7 percent. · The Escalade line-up leads the large luxury utility segment in both sales and share for the calendar year-to-date.

BTW...There're rumors abound that GM is working on a Camaro replacement due for 07/08 model year.

One of my peeves is about how people are complaining about the GTO, I like how it looks, I wasn't around for the "original" one though. Why aren't people complaining about the Grand Prix, Bonneville, Monte Carlo, Impala, LeSabre, Malibu, Century, and others being "real" or "original"? They have nothing true to their heritage except their name.

Ahhh...you'd have to have owned one of the originals to understand. The GTO

*was* a VERY, VERY special car. Mine was the 1967 model. My guess is that whoever at GM made the decision, really does not understand the dynamic at play here.

By comparison...take a look at what Ford has done with the 05 Mustang. No matter what angle one chooses to view the car, one knows immediately that it is a Mustang. When one buys a car like that, most want it's heritage to be unmistakable and immediately evident (or why bother buying it?). The GTO simply doesn't come close to delivering in that area. It doesn't scream GTO! Actually, it doesn't scream anything "special" at all. So, it's really plain and simple! Ford has outdone GM big time in that regard! At least so far.

Lutz made the decision I believe.

While I think that the new Mustang is a throwback to how the old ones looked, I'd rather have a GTO then a Mustang. I personally think that the new Mustang is an ugly retro design. The reason the last generation Mustang sold so well is because there were tons of younger people buying it, it looked modern. I'm part of this younger age bracket, I have no recollection of the older vehicles except from family and friends that restore them and collect them. I'll bet that if you went and asked people under...25 or so, they'd say that the GTO is the better looking of the 2. But most people under 25 can't afford a GTO or Mustang. Rest assured, when I hit 25, if there's not a (decent) Camaro replacement I'll be getting a GTO (gift to myself for getting done with medical school).

Performance wise the GTO and Mustang GT are pretty close, its all a matter of how it looks. Retro is all fine as long as it's done right, to people that were born around 1979 and later they don't actually (most of them) can't make a connection to the new Mustang and the Mustangs of yore, same goes for the GTO too though (just different years).

Back to your quote though about "When one buys a car like that, most want it's heritage to be unmistakable and immediately evident (or why bother buying it?)" wasn't the Monte Carlo sort of a sporty/luxo coupe, V8, RWD and all that stuff? Fast forward to 1995 and now. Those are some blah (1995) and IMO ugly (today's) designs, with a V8 just starting to go into them again.

Like someone else said, retro works, but when it comes time to redesign a car do you go more into the future then the original retro? God forbid how the next ones'll look if they go and do the 87-93 ones as retro.

Name any Pontiac car that's screamed anything lately :P. So the GTO looks like nothing special. In a year or 2 when there're more Mustangs out they won't be anything special to look at either because everyone'll have seen them. The Thunderbird had the exact same problem.

I can think of one ! I believe that the "Astek "

(or however it's spelt) screams " AGRHH !!!!!!! "

every time that it looks in a reflective surface.

You know, only after I typed that did I remember that one.

Yep, I remember the original very well. I don't think the concept of big motor/RWD/plain wrapper is all bad. 'Sleepers' like this do cut down on the 'Cop Bait' factor, which can be an issue if you need to continue buying insurance, etc. But yeah, just don't call it a GTO!!

Regards, Al.

People don't bitch about the cars you mention being recast as mediocre new cars quite unlike their forbears because the forbears were mediocre cars. (Ok, there were 1 or 2 Grand Prix's that were arguably "special", but most were mediocre.) The "Goat" is a different matter. It started the super-car wars and went through a series of great iterations before fading from the scene with the final insult of a Nova-based flavor that no one cares to remember. The GTO is an American icon. Every male with any interest in cars who was a teen-ager or adult in the mid-60's to early 70's will reeber watching with envy as some dude tooled by in a "Goat". Lutz sure remembers. The new GTO is a nice Australian sports coupe with a magnificent engine, good handling and comfort. It offers better performance than all but a few of the 60's/70's GTO's. I test drove one last year, liked how it drove, loved the low price ($29,000 out the door including tax), and could live with the bland styling. Was turned off by the poor rear seat access (stupid power front seat)and the tiny trunk. But it is by no stretch of the imagination a real GTO. Heritage and lineage mean something to motor-heads and this new GTO has none. If they had named it Monaro, it's real name, and sold it as an Aussie car it would sell as well or better and piss no one off.

As it is, they'll sell it another year or two, replace it with something more like a real GTO and no one will ever remember it is five years. It's resale will sink like a rock.

- GRL Phillip Schmid wrote:

looking then

Cadillac XLR;

Bonneville; and

segment in

replacement due

It already has. '04 GTO's with less than 5,000 miles are in the $20-23,000 range while 2001-2002 WS6 Trans Ams with simular mileage are $24-26,000.

I feel sorry for the people that HAD to be the first with a '04 GTO and payed $40,000!

Let's see, the original GTO was a Tempest with an engine package. Car was pretty "vanilla" as it looked just like other Pontiacs out there. Cars changed exterior designs appearance a lot more frequently in those days, so GM could change the styling just about every year. They're doing the same with the new GTO (at least from '04-05 - probably not the lame-duck '06 model).

The new GTO looks a lot like the Grand Prix/Grand Am in the front, and kinda like a Sunfire/Cavalier from the rear. But it's got the HP, and, unlike the classic GTOs, it can handle the corners and twisties, too! And it's got one of the best interiors GM's ever made.

Why isn't this car a "real" GTO? Please explain to me. It's got a big V8, it's RWD (a lot of the GTO resurrection concepts from the 90's were FWD - now then I'd agree that's not a "real" GTO). It goes like stink, yet it looks like other Pontiacs. Hmm, sounds exactly like the 1964 GTO.

I don't understand the hate from the fans of the older cars. Some people think the car's not a "real GTO" because it has a "Chevy" engine under the hood. Tell me, what was the last Pontiac-created engine? I also never heard anyone say the current Grand Prix "isn't a Grand Prix"...

The current car is a stopgap. If Pontiac didn't have this, it wouldn't have a RWD sports coupe until 2007. New platforms don't grow on trees, not to mention the logistics of finding suppliers, doing crash and other integration testing, allocating assembly plants, et. al. If you'd ever get over your prejudices, you would know it's one hell of a car, well worthy of the GTO name.

It was just explained and you weren't listening (or didn't get it).

Compare the "new" GTO to the "new" Mustang. The Mustang looks and evokes the *emotion* of the legacy Mustang just by looking at it. The GTO simply doesn't do that. I was a '60's GTO owner not a '60's Mustang owner and I'd take the "new" Mustang over the "new" GTO in their current forms for reasons just explained. The Mustang screams "I'm a thoroughbred Mustang". The GTO screams, well nothing much except I'm a RWD Pontiac with a GTO badge. Big deal. At least adding some of the trademark GTO styling (hood scoops for example) will help some.

The sales numbers tell the story.

James, it seems to me that it is you who doesn't "get it".

How can it? The Mustang, during it's glory years, had a look all it's own. There were changes, but the Mustang still looked like a Mustang and didn't share that look with anything else. That can't be said for the GTO. Depending on the year, from a block away the goat would have looked like a Skylark, Chevelle, Cutlass, Tempest, Le Mans, etc, etc.

I was a '60's GTO owner not a '60's Mustang owner and I'd

That's because it was a thoroughbred(at least on the outside). The GTO was too inbred to ever be considered such because it shared the same body with too many other cars from all divisions. The goat can never have the same visual recognition as the Mustang because it's look kept changing every two years or so and from a short distance looked like too many other cars on the road.

The GTO

If fake hood scoops(like the early GTO's) are what it takes to trip your trigger, that's fine. But it won't really change anything. You can't rewrite history.

H

Then you expalin the poor sales and all the hoopla if you don't think the two of us that have explained it to you have a reasonable explanation. You're the one that said you didn't understand what all the hoopla is all about! I've understood from the beginning that there was going to be hoopla even before the hoopla began (and said so here in this NG). So I believe, that I am probably not too far off the mark.

Having once owned a 1967 GTO, when I heard the announcement of the reintroduction of the GTO, I received the news with a great deal of excitement. I was ready to buy one on the spot. What they rolled out was extremely dissapointing. I did go to the dealer to see one, but there was no love there. Nothing. No "feeling" what-so-ever. Yes it has the performance, but...

I disagree. Yes, the GTO shared platforms with other models, BUT there were GTO distinctive design elements that were unique only to the GTO. The hood scoop(s) for one. Plus they usually changed the tail light and added some GTO-specific design elements to the grille area. One easily could tell a GTO from a Tempest or a LeMans (at least the early ones). And the GTO

*never* looked like a Chevelle, Skylark or Cutlass...not even close.

You're right about the GTO sharing the platform and some of the body, etc. with other models. But you're wrong that the GTO (the earliest ones, especially) if you think they weren't immediately recognizable from the subtle design elements that were only added to GTOs. If I'm not mistaken, I believe the early 70's Mustangs shared the platform with the Maverick, didn't it? And the mid-later 70's Mustang shared the platform with the Pinto (which killed it, but it *still* looked like a mini-Mustang even then!).

Of course! That IS the point! A GTO wasn't a GTO without the hood scoops. It IS one of the distinguishing design elements of what makes a GTO a GTO. Surely that simple concept is easy to comprehend! Just like on the Mustang...the "C"-bend design in the side panels and the three-element tail lights...those are part of what makes a Mustang a Mustang. The scoops are a part of what makes a GTO a GTO. Make sense?

Apparently the history I lived is the same one most GTO aficionados lived. Perhaps the history is skewed a bit by the "romance" one feels for vehicles like the GTO and the Mustang. But that is all part of the dynamic of how GM can reach (and sell to) those romantics...do what Ford has done. And, I see GM has now added the scoops (but I think it may be too little too late at this point)

I can't.....and I don't really care. I was only responding to your comments about the new GTO not having the same nostalgic appeal as the new Mustang.

Nope, wasn't me.

Seems rather foolish. Good thing you waited.

Mustangs didn't need hood scoops to make them recognizable. In fact you could remove the grill and taillights completely, and they still looked like Mustangs. Even from a distance. And you could do that on any Mustang from

1965 to 1973 with the same result. And that is my point, which you so obviously missed.

One easily could tell a

They shared the same basic body during certain years.

Good. We can agree that it was "subtle design elements" that separated the GTO from it's siblings(from a visual standpoint).

If I'm not mistaken, I

I bought a new Mustang 11 in 74....what a POS. The muscle car era was over by then.

Yes, that's part of it, but the rest of the car has to have "the look" too.

The scoops are a

Yes....but I wonder, if they put scoops on the GTO, will you buy one? Or will it still not be a *real* GTO. The Mustang had the same *look* from the beginning, to the end of the muscle car era, and now has it again (roughly). The GTO"s *look* changed every two years. Which *look* is it that you are after?

H

Good thing is right! ;-)

True, but I never saw any on the road without the grill, taillamps or scoops. The design of the rear window was very different on my '67 GTO compared to the LeMans/Tempest of that year. The rear glass was inset as viewed from the outside. One problem with that design was that when parked nose downhill, water would collect between the pillars and up against the glass. Never leaked though. So even on the body itself, there were usually some differences in design/style.

Sounds like it. But those design elements existed and carried through in one form or another during each year of the line (until this last one).

Yes it was. I Had the 75 model Mustang II. The emissions requirements really did a number of the horsepower. The year I bought mine they had the engine options of the 4-cylinder Pinto engine, a small V6 (which is what I had with the 4-speed manual) and the 302 V8. The 302 V8 wasn't too bad...I wish I had gotten that.

I'd be more likely to if it had scoops. My style preference is the '66-'67 look. That era's style is not very practical in keeping with today's technology. But the current model is not far off from the '69 look, in my opinion...once the GTO-specific design elements are added.

Not sure where you got the $70K number, but I have an order in at $62K with lots of nice options. Should be in my garage before April 1 they tell me.