I prefer this "Trans Am" kit. The lines on the new Camaro are based off the 69 Camaro not a 77 Bandit T/A. The bandits conversions just doesn't look right compared to this 69 Trans Am conversion IMHO.
The Hurst TA version at least paid attention to the interior as well. It's one of the better done ones, but I still don't think the 2nd gen styling cues fit with a retro-1st gen body.
Notice even the gauges are redone in the style of the 2nd gen TA dash.
And the seats were redone to match.
It's more thought out than slapping on a different nose and tail and a paint job.
The fronts look ok to me. I dont like the slapped on rear end at all...tacky... That roofline makes an awful ugly looking T top. Since Pontiac no longer exists, what branding would they use GMC, Buick....?
The reality is Pontiac is gone and re bodied Camaros are no better than what GM did post 1979 accept for a few odd editions like the Turbo Pace cars.
For the money they would want for these I would rather spend it on the real thing from 70-74 with a 455 4 speed fully restored that will only increase in value.
Lets face it other than a few odd models like the Fiero Pontiac was just a re bodied other GM brand with red gauges. Be it often they looked better but they really offered in the way of anything different than just trim in most cases. This is what killed Pontiac.
Thats the same for all GMs...for a given platform Pontiac, Oldmobile, Buick all had clone models of a Chevy. Same goes for Ford and Mercury (ie/ Lincoln Town Car is a Mercury Marquis). Chrysler does the same with Chrysler, Dodge and Plymouth (ie/ Caravan, Voyager, Town & Country). It saves lots of money.
Thats the same for all GMs...for a given platform Pontiac, Oldmobile, Buick all had clone models of a Chevy. Same goes for Ford and Mercury (ie/ Lincoln Town Car is a Mercury Marquis). Chrysler does the same with Chrysler, Dodge and Plymouth (ie/ Caravan, Voyager, Town & Country). It saves lots of money.
It is also why there is no Pontiac, Olds, Mercury and Plymouth today. You can save money but if you do not share platforms correctly you end up with more problems.
It is to a point but you can do it better. Today case in point the new Cadillac ATS and CTS will share the Alpha platform but will also not share many other things like the Twin Turbo V6 and some suspension bits. While both will be good cars they will not just be the same car with different dashes and bumper caps.
At the beginning Pontiac was forced to use the F body platform of Chevy but at the least they offered different engines and even the suspensions were different. Pontiac used traction bars and even lowered the cars 1 inch over the Camaro. You had options of the Pontiac V8 and even a OHC 6. At least back then they made an effort to stand apart and later they did very little.
Platform sharing are a necessary evils but it can be done well if companies do not get lazy. Another food example is the Buick Encore is the same platform a the Chevy Sonic. Few people notice.
Originally posted by hyperv6: Lets face it other than a few odd models like the Fiero Pontiac was just a re bodied other GM brand with red gauges. Be it often they looked better but they really offered in the way of anything different than just trim in most cases. This is what killed Pontiac.
What killed Pontiac was poor managerial decisions, and increased competition from "imports" (quotes because many are made/assembled in the US). It had very little to do with platform sharing (granted there were some poor management in certain areas of that too).
Every major manufacturer today has platform sharing. Lexus & Toyota, Infiniti & Nissan, Audi and Volkswagen, and on and on.
Do you also know the original K car platform is what is under Aries, Reliant, 5th Ave, ES-600, LeBaron , Voyager & Caravan. After 30 years its still under the Chrysler minivans, although modifed some now....mostly to allow for stow away seats.
Nope. Buick Encore and Chevy Sonic are NOT the same platform. The Encore is a common platform to the Chevy Trax.
See GM has even fooled you as they have learn to make platforms very flexible.
The Encore, Sonic and Trax are all based on the Gamma II platform. They all share the same basic architecture but they are very flexible to do very different vehicles. The next Equinox and Terrain along with a new Buick will share the new Dx22 platform with the new Cruze and Verano.
The Alpha and Omega will also produce not just coupes and sedans but also a variation of a cross over too.
GM has made these new platforms more expandable than ever and we will see some very diverse cars and CUV models from them.
What killed Pontiac was poor managerial decisions, and increased competition from "imports" (quotes because many are made/assembled in the US). It had very little to do with platform sharing (granted there were some poor management in certain areas of that too).
Every major manufacturer today has platform sharing. Lexus & Toyota, Infiniti & Nissan, Audi and Volkswagen, and on and on.
Sorry it is not just that simple.
While I do agree with Managerial decisions the competition is not an excuse. If things were done properly they would not have had to worry about the others.
Pontiac lost it's way as GM really had no idea how to deal with Pontiac. They loved to call it a performance division but then they started to gut the performance from them. Like Bob Lutz told them when he arrived you have a performance division with no RWD cars? Also Chevy offered a Cobalt SS with a Turbo 2.0 but none in the Pontiac version?
I know many people at GM that were in and around Pontiac and you could write a book on many of he reasons that it failed. It almost died back in the 80's to but the new Firebird and Fiero drew a lot of interest to the Grand Am and lead to the death of Olds first.
The fact is Pontiac lost it's true identitiy. They did not have their own powertrains. They did not have much special other than styling left to them. Most of their technology was sold in other GM models.
The fact is in the end they only had two cars worth calling a Pontiac and one was the Solstice that was near the end of it's life also share with two other divisions and a Holden that is already back as a Chevy. The G4-G5-G6 were nothing special as they had no real performance. Also what was Pontiac doing with a Torrent? That was better left to GMC as we can see the Terrain has done so much better at GMC.
The death Of Pontiac started in the early 70's and declined slowly till the end. What finally killed them was a changing market where Companies can no longer afford 50 different models of the same car any longer.
I could give you many other issues and examples but the bottom line was the end was coming for a long time and the only person since Delorean that had any idea of what Pontiac could be was Bob Lutz and he came way too late with too little money and too little time to fix them. Even then it still would have been a challenge.
True... It's one thing to share a platform but to do nothing other than to change the bumper is a death sentence for any car division.
The Trans Am started to die when it no longer had a pontiac engine. The chevy engines are nice but what's the point? I always did like the Trans Am styling better, but not enough to pay $60K+ to make a Camaro look like a modern version of one.
The writing was on the wall when the average age of a new Pontiac buyer in the 70's was in his mid 20's, while the average age in the 90's he was in his mid 40's. In other words, the same people who had been loyal Pontiac owners were still there, but they weren't bringing in any new buyers. It had become a nostalgia brand by the 90's. Lutz was doing some good getting them turned around. The GTO was the right idea, but wrong marketing. They should have brought over more Holden models to offer something different from Chevy and Buick. The G8 was the best car Pontiac had sold since the '93 Firebird with the new LT1 engine.
The writing was on the wall when the average age of a new Pontiac buyer in the 70's was in his mid 20's, while the average age in the 90's he was in his mid 40's. In other words, the same people who had been loyal Pontiac owners were still there, but they weren't bringing in any new buyers. It had become a nostalgia brand by the 90's. Lutz was doing some good getting them turned around. The GTO was the right idea, but wrong marketing. They should have brought over more Holden models to offer something different from Chevy and Buick. The G8 was the best car Pontiac had sold since the '93 Firebird with the new LT1 engine.
The real trouble with the GTO was Bob wanted a new RWD performance car and wanted it now. The problem was Pontiac did not have many options and had no money to pull it off.
The reason the first year GTO did not have hood scoops and duel exhaust was because they did not have the money to do it in 04. This came from Fred Simmons at Pontiac directly to me.
The reason it had the older Holden styling is they could not afford to change much of the car. The whole thing was done on the cheap with money beg, borrowed and stolen from other programs. Marketing was an issue because there was none. No money for that either.
There was hope for a GTO on the Camaro platform later but it never came as the end of Pontiac was already known internally.
Originally posted by hyperv6: Sorry it is not just that simple. .
Exactly. There are a million reasons that Pontiac had to be shut down, but almost none of them were due to the shared platform. Pontiac has had shared platforms with Chevy/Buick for 50 years. Continuing to have shared platforms for the last 5 years wasn't what did them in. They've been on a downhill plunge since the 90s. Of all the things Pontiac should have never done, shared platforms would be at the very bottom of the list. Minivans, the Aztek, Torrent, etc… would be at the very top, followed by jumping the shark into the world of the mundane, with the G3/G5/G6/G8 branding.
And all of those things do boil down to bad decisions on the part of management.
Exactly. There are a million reasons that Pontiac had to be shut down, but almost none of them were due to the shared platform. Pontiac has had shared platforms with Chevy/Buick for 50 years. Continuing to have shared platforms for the last 5 years wasn't what did them in. They've been on a downhill plunge since the 90s. Of all the things Pontiac should have never done, shared platforms would be at the very bottom of the list. Minivans, the Aztek, Torrent, etc… would be at the very top, followed by jumping the shark into the world of the mundane, with the G3/G5/G6/G8 branding.
And all of those things do boil down to bad decisions on the part of management.
I think it better is not the shared platforms but how they shared them is the better way to say this. Also todays market it is nearly impossible even for a company the size of GM to make 5-6 models on the same platform and still make a profit. The cost of development and marketing is just too great.
Also add in the older platforms were not as flexible as they are today with the ability to build vastly different vehicles off the same platform.
The fact remains the cars were too similar and needed to be much farther apart.
Even in the worst offending platform sharing GM is starting to move GMC away slowly. In time you will see more options and models not available at Chevy even in the tuck line. The profits on these lines though have made it a slow change. Kind of like how the XTS and Impala are on the same platform now but you can only get a Turbo and AWD on the XTS. Also the Lacrosse is on the same platform but the next generation will move to a new formula.
The reason the first year GTO did not have hood scoops and duel exhaust was because they did not have the money to do it in 04. This came from Fred Simmons at Pontiac directly to me.
So Fred Simmons at Pontiac didn't know the 2004 GTO had true dual exhaust?
Don't be a pita as it is well documented the 05 got the traditional exhaust one pipe on each side as Pontiac really wanted not the carry over Holden exhaust that was on the 04. I did not go into detail as I trusted you were smart enough to understand this. Sorry but I guess I was mistaken.
Fred Simmons was in charge of Pontiac Motorsport and knows more than you will ever even understand on the topic. He was one of the few there that was not part of the problem.
[This message has been edited by hyperv6 (edited 05-12-2014).]
Sorry but I feel the need to add to the comments on the 04 GTO as I own one. They do not have the hood scoops because the 04 is based on a V2 Monaro which did not have the hood scoops here or in Australia. They also still have cable throttle and I can definitely confirm they do have true dual exhaust. ( BTW the V2 ran from 2001 to mid 2004). The 05/06 was based on the VZ which had the hood scoops and the LS2 among other changes, both here and in Australia.
Also
quote
a revised exhaust system. GM Engineers benchmarked the sound of the 1964 GTO held in the Pontiac historical collection, as well as other LS1-powered vehicles, while working with the exhaust vender to tune the system. The effort was made to make the new GTO invoke the same sound as the original while still meeting the noise threshold required by some states. The 2004 GTO exhaust was a true dual system that followed the original Monaro exhaust routing, thus both tailpipes exited on the driver side of the vehicle
[This message has been edited by AADrcw (edited 05-13-2014).]
Sorry but I feel the need to add to the comments on the 04 GTO as I own one. They do not have the hood scoops because the 04 is based on a V2 Monaro which did not have the hood scoops here or in Australia. They also still have cable throttle and I can definitely confirm they do have true dual exhaust. ( BTW the V2 ran from 2001 to mid 2004). The 05/06 was based on the VZ which had the hood scoops and the LS2 among other changes, both here and in Australia.
Also
The bottom line was Pontiac wanted the scoops and the exhaust split on the traditional opposite sides. It was their concept and it was adapted to the Holden models after Pontiac initiated the changes. These were two key features on every GTO built over the years. If Pontiac had not gotten involved it is not likely either of these changes would have arrived.
Second the new engine was not ready is why it was not in the first year. It was even late to the SSR too.
The V2 and VS were much like the VE and VF changes where they called it a new platform but it was more a revision of the old one. We call them mild refresh here. They were not total replacements.
Originally posted by AADrcw: They also still have cable throttle
Because they had the LS1, which was a Gen III engine. I think all the Gen III small blocks had throttle cables, rather than ETC. The LS2 was Gen IV though, and all Gen IV engines have ETC. There were some sort of in-the-middle engines that were partially Gen III and partially Gen IV, like the LS4, which had ETC though.
GM was just transitioning over to the Drive By Wire system in the new gen engine. Holden tends to be one of the divisions who would use the older engines a little longer as GM would give the new stuff last many times.
Case in point the new SS is still using the old V8 and has not gotten the new engine yet. It may not see the DI engine till the car transitions to the Alpha.
GM was just transitioning over to the Drive By Wire system in the new gen engine. Holden tends to be one of the divisions who would use the older engines a little longer as GM would give the new stuff last many times.
Case in point the new SS is still using the old V8 and has not gotten the new engine yet. It may not see the DI engine till the car transitions to the Alpha.
The new SS is still a 2014 model. 2014 Camaro also still has the LS3. The Vette has historically been the flagship vehicle for the new small block for a while now. But this time around they put the new generation into the Silverado as well. I'm sure you can expect the 2015 SS and Camaro to get a Gen V engine as well.
The 2004 GTO getting the LS1 had nothing to do with it being a holden. The LS2 wasn't avaialble anywhere at the time. The Gen IV engines came in 2005. The trucks/SUVs didn't get Gen IV engines until 2007 along with the body change on those lines, save for the Trailblzer SS that got the LS2 in 2006. Likewise, they didn't get the Gen III until 1999.
The new SS is still a 2014 model. 2014 Camaro also still has the LS3. The Vette has historically been the flagship vehicle for the new small block for a while now. But this time around they put the new generation into the Silverado as well. I'm sure you can expect the 2015 SS and Camaro to get a Gen V engine as well.
The 2004 GTO getting the LS1 had nothing to do with it being a holden. The LS2 wasn't avaialble anywhere at the time. The Gen IV engines came in 2005. The trucks/SUVs didn't get Gen IV engines until 2007 along with the body change on those lines, save for the Trailblzer SS that got the LS2 in 2006. Likewise, they didn't get the Gen III until 1999.
Yes the Corvette is normally first or at the same time for the new engines. In this case it was the same as the trucks Any more it is about the platform changes not as much as flagship. The Camaro will not see it till the new car in 2016 with the new Alpha and the SS may not get it till 2017 when it is replaced. No sense to put it in a car for one year with all the certification cost involved.
As for 2004-2005 the engine was a 2005 as the SSR also got it the same time in 05. Much in this era was staggered out as GM was lacking the money to do too much in one year. They were to the point they had to spread the cost of platforms and engines out over different years. Even with the money they have today they are doing more staggered starts as development cost are so high it helps keep from putting a heavy load on one year. This is why we do not see coupes and sedans like the ATS in one year or a transmission till a year or two later than the engine.
This time around GM knew the VF was a short term car and with it not being around long and the Camaro near the end of its life I expect both to see the new engine once they transition to the new platform. By then the 8 speed will be widely available also.
Don't be a pita as it is well documented the 05 got the traditional exhaust one pipe on each side as Pontiac really wanted not the carry over Holden exhaust that was on the 04. I did not go into detail as I trusted you were smart enough to understand this. Sorry but I guess I was mistaken.
Fred Simmons was in charge of Pontiac Motorsport and knows more than you will ever even understand on the topic. He was one of the few there that was not part of the problem.
Uh huh. So it's just you that doesn't understand what the term "true dual" means when referring to exhaust pipes? To hear you tell it, the Fiero GT has true dual exhaust because the pipes come out on both sides. If you know so much about it, then you'd know the reason they wanted pipes on both sides was marketing, because most uneducated buyers equate pipes on one side with single exhaust, not true dual. You're saying it wasn't true dual exhaust is exactly what the uneducated believe.
Maybe you understand the engineering, but you're incapable of expressing it in English.
Uh huh. So it's just you that doesn't understand what the term "true dual" means when referring to exhaust pipes? To hear you tell it, the Fiero GT has true dual exhaust because the pipes come out on both sides. If you know so much about it, then you'd know the reason they wanted pipes on both sides was marketing, because most uneducated buyers equate pipes on one side with single exhaust, not true dual. You're saying it wasn't true dual exhaust is exactly what the uneducated believe.
Maybe you understand the engineering, but you're incapable of expressing it in English.
Stop just stop!!!!!
The point I am trying to make is Pontiac wanted a exhaust that had outlets one on each side just as nearly all GTO's had till they got catalytic converters.
I damn well know and understand you have two pipes and mufflers out the one side on the 04 and that is just what Pontiac had to use the first year inherited from Holden. Pontiac and Lutz specified they wanted it on both sides and many Pontiac GTO buyers wanted the more traditional pipe on each side as they complained they could not get it till 05. My firm sold a lot of upgraded exhaust to give the owners what they wanted. No there really was not any real performance gain and generally most people knew that they just like the balanced look of two pipes.
I caught hell for a while on the 4th Gen F bodies because Flowmaster sold a kit with one outlet. People would order it and be upset because it had only one tail pipe. They wanted to know why? I said 7-10 HP over the cross flow muffler. They understood that and would often return the other kit for the twin out let because they liked the look and balance of the pipes more than the 7-10 HP. They were not dumb they just have their preference. Even GM offered the single exhaust on 2 years of the TA and SS Camaro as an option. Few took it but the option was there. To be fair the duel outlet did sound better but it lacked a few HP.
With my work and background I can tell you many variations and situations on exhaust systems. Many today do not perform as many think or even would consider. It is like the larger single truck exhaust that flow as well as the more difficult to fit true duels in many but not all cases.
Now before you call it uneducated or anything else it is what the public in the United States wanted as a whole and if you want to sell the damn car you give them what they want if you can. Nearly all muscle cars had that kind of lay out and that is what people like. I work in the performance after market and these people are not dumb as they fully understand what is in play they just do not like that lay out.
As I was typing it out I had thought about changing my wording but I didn't want to take the time and I assumed you were smart enough to catch the drift of what I was getting at. Sorry if I over estimated you.
So I think we are clear here? Yes I am very aware the 04 was a true duel exhaust but only to the right side. And I hope it is clear to you that Pontiac had wanted the split duel one pipe on each side to better emulate the original GTO and to make the customers happy as that is what most Americans prefer.
God knows I have seen many a car with a dummy pipe on one side just for the look and symmetry because that is all they want.
So do we finally have a understanding or do we have to piss on each others leg again?
I am done but I have a big full glass if needed!
I do apologies to the others here for venting but this one got a burr in my saddle.