Quote:
Originally Posted by Martinjlm
A lot going on around this one. The fact that there ever was a Zeta platform GTO or G8 comes back to Bob Lutz and Tom Stephens. Tom was the head of Powertrain and he and Bob were buddies. They were trying to fill the gap created by Camaro end of production. They swung a deal with Holden (GM’s Australian unit) to import the Monaro as the GTO. Several issues though. Since the plan was to import the car completely assembled, there was a cap on the number of cars that could be imported. I don’t remember what it was but I think it was about 30,000 cars. Not enough to justify a program, but they got it done anyway. Catch was, there would be no engineering beyond what was required to meet crash test, fuel economy standards, and emissions regulations. Therefore, no work on design beyond Pontiac fascia. It did lead to more conversation around using Zeta platform for Camaro and the eventual build of a module in Oshawa to produce Camaro 5. Ironically, the way they got that through the bureaucracy was not too different than the way DeLorean got the first GTO through by making it a variant of the Tempest grandmother’s car.
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Martin beat me to it. I was going to say that IIRC the SS and GTO were never meant to be big sellers as their was limits on how many they could bring in and sell.