Quote Originally Posted by Kaiser
Yes, it IS a pure GM model. Holden is every bit as much a part of GM as Pontiac themselves, or Saab or Open or Saturn. Born in Australia, of the Australian idea of cars, cars like the Ford Falcon, the Commodore, the Monaro, and generations of similar cars going back. The GTO has nothing to do with the Monaro, and the design house that built it didn't look to American for any kind of inspiration. They stuck with tried and true designs that WORK and work WELL and built a beautifully solid vehicle overall. If by "Heart" you mean the engine itself, well sure, but that's akin to pointing out that most (if not all for a while there) Of Chrysler's cars were actually just Mitsubishi's, and now almost all of them are Mercedes.

A thing is what it is, and the GTO was a sales failure but a beautifully built car that has absolutely nothing to do with what Americans look for in cars. The soft lines and gentle understated look of the Monaro was simply NOT what people thought of when they thought of the GTO. Because of that there was a backlash against the idea of this new GTO and people far less informed than those of us here simply decided that Pontiac had made another bad design decision. They hadn't, and have taken what they learned from that when working with Holden on the new G8 GT.

A $6500 short block...is expensive. The one-of-a-kind custome intake manifold...is expensive...What looks to be thousands and thousands of dollars in custom-setup power adders...well, obviously expensive. The tune to keep that thing from blowing up? Expensive! The fact that it is nothing more than a Dyno-cradle queen that can run up to 2048hp on a dyno run? Means next to nothing really, now if they could keep that RPM up for 10-12 seconds, producing 2048hp the whole time, we'd be discussing a little bit of a different story here, really. What that video proves is nothing except that when cranked up and run up to top speed that engine block can withstand for an extremely short period of time that stress that comes from producing a literal "ton" of horsepower. Small Block Chevy engines have been impressing people for a long time, but they're starting to fade because they refuse to move away from "what works". The new and shiny is starting to wear off.

Most Chrysler's are based from Mercedes? Really? I'd like to see a list of Merc based Chrysler's.

Sebring...no
Pacifica...no
Caravan..no


"In 1998 Daimler-Benz purchased Chrysler, forming DaimlerChrysler AG. Chrysler Corporation then was legally renamed DaimlerChrysler Motors Company LLC, while its total operations began doing business as Chrysler Group. This was initially declared to be a merger of equals,[8] but it quickly became evident that Daimler-Benz was the dominant partner. Despite offering a range of attractive models, Chrysler went into another of its financial tailspins soon after the merger, greatly depressing the stock price of the merged firm and causing alarm at headquarters in Germany, which sent CEO Dieter Zetsche to take charge. The Plymouth brand was phased out in 2001, and plans for cost cutting by sharing of platforms and components began. The strongly Mercedes-influenced Chrysler Crossfire was one of the first results of this program. A return to rear-wheel drive was announced, and in 2004 a new Chrysler 300 using this technology and a new Hemi V8 appeared and was successful. Financial performance began to improve, with Chrysler providing a significant share of DaimlerChrysler profits due to restructuring efforts at the Mercedes Car Group. The partnership with Mitsubishi was dissolved as DaimlerChrysler divested its stake in the firm due to Mitsubishi's demand for more control in the management."