When it was released in late 2007, the Pontiac G8 was the most-anticipated rear-wheel-drive car from GM in decades, but it was released during the Great Recession. The G8 GT was built to look like the Holden Commodore SS. It had a 6.0-liter V-8 engine that made 361 horsepower and moved like a BMW 5 Series. A little more than 38,000 G8s were made, and almost two-thirds of them were GTs. Prices are already going up, and it’s hard to find a clean copy of this one. It’s on sale until May 9. Pontiac was fired last week, which was the fifteenth anniversary of the start of the company. It seems like it was only yesterday. Fans who were angry at the time felt even worse about it in 2009 when the band seemed to be really making a comeback. When it came out two years ago, the Pontiac G8 got great reviews from both reviewers and fans. The Holden G8, which was made in Australia, was more fun to drive than a car that had been covered in plastic. Before General Motors’ crackdown during the Great Recession, it looked like it would work out well. The G8 is a tough rival for last-of-the-line legends and future treasures, but the G6 sedan was really the last Pontiac made. Restored cars are already becoming more valuable. For example, this 2009 Pontiac G8 GT with 62,000 miles is for sale on Bring a Trailer. It is owned by Hearst Autos and Invoice Pricing. It’s clear where the praise for the movie came from. The Pontiac is the brand’s first brand-new rear-wheel-drive sedan since 1978. It looks great, moves quickly, and has the speed of its old muscle cars, but it handles like a BMW 5-series. It also looked more unique than the 2004–2006 GTO, which was Pontiac’s first collaboration with Holden. Bob Lutz, a famous product strategist, was in charge of Pontiac’s relationship with Australia. He began working at General Motors (GM) in September 2001 after reading a story about a Holden HSV that showed how to beat a BMW M5. Lutz found that Holden was still making cars that looked like Pontiac’s best years in the 1960s when he got there just in time to deal with the fallout from the Aztek. Like the writers of Invoice Pricing, Lutz didn’t understand why they weren’t sold in the United States and moved quickly to fix the problem. He did, however, run into GM’s closed-off work culture. Many people told him not to do it because, as he wrote in his book Automobile Guys vs. Bean Counters, it wasn’t “our” car; it “belonged” to GM Asia-Pacific. Lutz spent months working on the 2004 GTO and was finally able to finish it, but it was hard to sell because it didn’t look good, and the dollar’s value kept going up and down. He didn’t let it stop him. The more popular four-door G8 was built on the VE series, Holden’s next Commodore. Lutz and Pontiac planners designed it in early 2004. It was first shown at the 2007 Chicago car show. If you didn’t grow up with front-drive Pontiacs wrapped in plastic in the 1980s and 1990s, it’s hard to say enough good things about 2008. The form, which was long, low, and wide, stood out right away and went well with Lutz’s other great work, the Solstice. The angry orange gauges and stiff plastics inside the car were there, but a closer look under the engine made it easy to overlook them. Under the back wheels was either a 216-hp 3.6-liter V-6 or a 312-hp 6.0-liter V-8 engine. Most importantly, it did very well in comparison tests and reviews, and it drove just as well as it looked. Citing strong early interest, GM even thought about bringing over the Commodore car and truck models. The second one even showed up at the 2008 New York Auto Show as the G8 ST. The 415-hp 6.2-liter LS3-powered GXP, a more powerful G8, came out in October of that year for 2009. It could have had a Tremec six-speed manual engine, but problems started right away. By the time the 2009 G8s went on sale, there were already signs that GM was going bankrupt. Rising gas prices and people losing faith in GM were also factors that affected G8 sales. The last G8 was made in July 2009, and the GXP was later reborn as the Chevrolet SS. Sixty-three percent of the 38,400 G8s made were 6.0-liter GTs. With Pontiac going out of business and General Motors going bankrupt, they were hard to sell. Many of them were sold to fleets, like this one, or bought at very low prices on store lots that were closing down. It looks like it used to be a rental car from Nova Scotia. The value for money is still very good after fifteen years. This car has a sleek look, great driving, and a quarter-mile time of about 13 seconds. G8 prices have slowly gone up, but it won’t be too expensive for most people. These days, near-perfect examples like this are very hard to find. Features like heated seats and a powerful Blaupunkt sound system make them even more rare. This car is very famous, so even if you don’t drive it very often, it won’t lose much value. You can only get this great Pontiac until May 9.
