Only The Pointless Die Young

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

Pickuptrucks.com has learned that the Pontiac G8 ST has been canceled. Incidentally, Automobile Magazine is reporting that the Suzuki Kizashi has not been canceled, but will debut in production form at this year’s New York Auto Show.

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • ItsABrandNewCar ItsABrandNewCar on Jan 07, 2009

    It certainly looked cool when I first saw it up close at the Dallas Auto Show last year, and no doubt it would've delivered in performance with that V8 under the hood. Yeah, I could see it as being only a niche seller, but certainly GM could've recouped some of it's investment selling "special edition" niche vehicles to enthusiasts as Kurt suggested, right? I think Droid800 hit the mark a few posts up. With this canceled, Pontiac has...what, in the pipeline? Nothing? This decision probably has less to do with the G8 ST's profitability and more to do with the Pontiac brand's future - or lack thereof. (BTW, long time reader, first time poster. You guys are doing a great job on this site, keep up the good work!)

  • Noreserve Noreserve on Jan 07, 2009

    Producing niche, arguably even eccentric looking vehicles like this will continue to get GM laughed out of the industry. They have absolutely no business wasting resources on something like this. Good decision. Now, get down to somehow eliminating everything but Chevrolet and Cadillac and get to work on producing a few very good vehicles in each stable. The CTS is a great example. GM just can't pretend to have the resources to do anything but if they want to survive. Better to have two fantastic vehicles from Chevrolet and two from Cadillac that people will actually buy than a shitload of offbeat exercises like this one that will die an early death and water down the marque.

  • CarPerson CarPerson on Jan 07, 2009

    I’ve owned a couple El Caminos and would love to be able to pick from two or three new ones in today’s market. The early Ford Ranchero was also a great task machine. To those who call this a POS, please park a Chevy Luv beside it and tell us again which is a POS. General Motors has what, 5 “pickups” on the market? Three of which I cannot visualize what market they were seeing. What’s one more? Good economy, fun to drive, good reliability, $19,500 start, $24,500 optioned out would put it on radar. Bring in a few of these and we’ll use them as Flower cars. (The flower car is the one carrying the flowers behind the family limo, which is immediately behind the Hearse. For the Hearse we’ll use any Chrysler 300 wagon.)

  • Joeaverage Joeaverage on Jan 13, 2009

    I think there is ALOT of practicality in a trucklet like this. Its capable of towing a trailer with motorcycles or a thousand pounds of whatever. You can carry all sorts of smallish boxes and parts in the bed. Most trucks I see are empty anyhow whether it be a work day or weekend. Yeah it probably wouldn't sell very well here. We say we want a variety of vehicles to choose from but mostly we all want the same stuff from a narrow selection of vehicles. Not enough people daring to be different. Don't have to be obnoxious to be different of course. FWIW I like the SSR. Never closer to one than in traffic but it is unique. I think GM had a great product even if it was too rich for me. The used market prices I could deal with except I am in that period in my life where I HAVE to have a backseat b/c a couple short people that look alot like my wife and I follow us around everywhere. FWIW I drove alot of the little Euro-utility vehicles back in the early 90s. I doubt many here would be satisfied with them (slow, very lightweight, more utility than looks) but they did carry an amazing amount of stuff and were pretty frugal. Better than you'd imagine. A friend in South Africa has the Ford equivalent to this Holden. He says it is very functional, he does drive it for his business, and he likes it very much. Unfortunately for some reason (previous owner gets alot of the blame for neglect) he has had alot of reliability problems with it.

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