Why save the GTO, when it's not being cut?
Detroit Free Press has confirmed that the current GTO will end with the 2006 model year and return completely redone as a 2008 model.
Here is the Link:
http://www.freep.com/money/autonews/gto28e_20050728.htm
GM plans all-new Pontiac GTO
Sales of 400-hp coupe take off
July 28, 2005
BY MARK PHELAN
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER
General Motors Corp. will stop building the Australian version of its Pontiac GTO performance coupe later this year, but the U.S. model will remain in production at least through the 2006 model year, and an all-new model is in the works, a Pontiac spokesman said.
After a slow start in 2004, U.S. sales of the 400-horsepower GTO have taken off this year. Pontiac sold 87% more GTOs in the first half of 2005 than for the same period last year.
The car is based on the Australian Monaro coupe, which went into production in 2001. GM's Australian unit, Holden, will drop the Monaro this fall to concentrate on getting a new model of its higher-selling Commodore rear-drive sedan into production. The new Commodore goes into production in mid-2006.
The Monaro and GTO are built in the same plant in Elizabeth, near Melbourne.
The next-generation GTO will come from a new global family of rear-wheel-drive cars, Pontiac spokesman Jim Hopson said.
GM insiders say that car's appearance will be more eye-catching than the somewhat anonymous GTO. The new model is likely to go into production in 2008 and will probably be built in Australia.