Well, so much for that. Only days after announcing that the Pontiac G8 would return to the U.S. market as a Chevrolet Caprice, General Motors vice chairman Bob Lutz has announced that the rear-drive sport sedan is well and truly dead for the U.S. market after all. Sounds like the right hand gave the left one a smackdown, if you ask me.
Posting on GM’s Fast Lane blog, Lutz said that with his new “marketing hat” on, he couldn’t make the case for a high-level sedan for Chevrolet, considering that the company is in a cost-cutting and fuel-efficiency-enhancing mode.
In the meantime, if you’re a fan of the Pontiac G8 GXP, you’d better get one quickly. According to Jalopnik, Pontiac marketing chief Cheryl Catton has said that only 2000 of the sport sedans will be built, along with 2000 examples of the Pontiac Solstice Coupe GXP. If you like hot Pontiacs (and maybe want to gamble on a future classic), you’d better get one pronto.
Among the corporate reshuffling that is taking place at the new GM is the retention of Bob Lutz, the product czar that is largely responsible for the lack of suckiness in the company’s most recent offerings.
Staying on as vice chairman responsible for all creative elements of products and customer relationships, Lutz has made his first proclamation: According to Automobile Magazine, the much-loved (but little-bought) Pontiac G8 will live on as the Chevrolet Caprice. Since this is a car that’s already sold as a Chevy in the Middle East (see photo), this is a pretty obvious move, but one that was recently denied by CEO Fritz Henderson, who said that he wasn’t a fan of rebadging. Hey, left hand, check out what the right’s doing!
Anyhow, no timetable was given, but the only real question is whether we’ll get the actual Caprice that’s sold in the Middle East with its longer wheelbase, or will the Middle East’s Chevy Lumina simply be rebadged as a Caprice for the States? I’m just glad we’ll have this platform around a while longer. Now, if GM can upgrade the interior a bit, that’d just be icing on the cake.
Automobile Magazine
Well, so much for that. Only days after announcing that the Pontiac G8 would return to the U.S. market as a Chevrolet Caprice, General Motors vice chairman Bob Lutz has announced that the rear-drive sport sedan is well and truly dead for the U.S. market after all. Sounds like the right hand gave the left one a smackdown, if you ask me.