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# Pontiac: No longer your Grandma’s car
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/pontiac-no-longer-your-grandmas-car/
- Published: 2008-09-09T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-25T00:58:08.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By Steve Parker Tornante*

WHAT IF THEY BUILT A POWERFUL, family-sized sedan with all the right bells and whistles, priced so reasonably even your mother wouldn’t object — but no one could afford to put gas into it?

Meet Pontiac’s 2008 G8, their all-new (and Australian-built) sedan. Plain G8 has a 256-hp, 3.6-liter four-cam DOHC V-6 and five-speed automatic transmission. Its bruiser version, G8 GT, comes with a pushrod, 361-horsepower, 6.0-liter V-8 mated to a six-speed automatic.

Both transmissions can be set in either “full auto” mode or the driver can select semi-automatic, clutchless sequential shifting. GM calls this “manual-shift capability”.

Pontiac says the near-two-ton G8 GT will hit 60 mph in 5.3 seconds. Those numbers compare favorably with the world’s original muscle car, another Pontiac, the 1964 through 1974 GTO.

The V6 base-prices at $26,910, while a V8-equipped G8 is $29,310\. That works out to about $1,500 each for the two extra cylinders offered by the GT, or around $30 for each extra horsepower.

Both G8s run on 89 or 87 octane gas; you can forget 91 grade, and save from 50 cents to over $1 a gallon.

The cars’ relatively low prices include four-wheel anti-lock disc brakes, front and side-curtain airbags, traction control and, with the V8, an engine smart enough to run on only four cylinders while cruising the freeway. GM calls this feature “Active Fuel Management.”

G8’s exterior is pleasant enough, but not so striking as to call untoward attention to itself; a sleeper, and for some, perfect for those many “Stop Light Grand Prix” events run daily on Lincoln between Pico and Ocean Park boulevards.

In the 1950s, Pontiac’s were derisively called “Grandma’s cars,” and while G8 is definitely modern and sporty, Detroit (and Holden, apparently) can seem to do only so much with four-door design. Apart from Cadillac’s CTS, try to quickly name another striking new sedan from any of the Detroit Three. See?

Some drivers will find G8 interiors have too many buttons, knobs, screens, gauges and switches for a truly easy-to-read and operate whole out of just too many elements. Video game champ? Then there’s no problem.

Front seats are supportive while not too stiff, and there’s good legroom, but not so much in the rear. The high and wide center tunnel reminded us of one thing we sometimes don’t like about rear-drive cars.

There’s no map-based navigation system, but G8 has standard OnStar and a live operator always available to help, like John Wayne might talk down some kid in a cockpit in a war movie.

Order the XM satellite radio option, too.

The sounds pump just right through G8’s Blaupunkt audio system.

Handling is what an experienced driver would expect, especially one use to cars from Detroit. We had no real complaints, and enjoyed the positive and confident feel of a rear-wheel drive car.

G8 is an American-ized version of the Monaro, a popular four-door made in and for Australia by GM’s division there, Holden. Bob Lutz, GM’s executive in charge of North American products, who was responsible for the Dodge Viper and ersatz hot rod Plymouth Prowler when he was at Chrysler, ordered the G8 from Holden.

Lutz was also behind the short-lived “new” 2004 Pontiac GTO, which was also built for the US by Holden, on the platform under their Monaro coupe, an older, two-door version of what’s under the G8.

G8 V6 with the five-speed, if one is willing to use the tranny in “shiftable” mode, is the best value for the money between these two.

G8 GT is considerably less than the price of a BMW 5-series, yet delivers 75 percent of that car’s performance, but without the bank-vault-tight feel of that car. If that equation sounds right in this economy, get thyself to a Pontiac store.

STEVE PARKER has covered the world’s auto industry for over 35 years. He’s a two-time Emmy Award-winner who reported on cars for almost a decade at both KTLA/TV5 and KCBS/TV2\. He is a consultant to the NBC-TV show Whipnotic and the show’s companion web-site, www.Whipnotic.com. He created, writes and moderates the only all-automotive blog on The Huffington Post at www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-parker. Contact Steve through his own automotive issues web-site at www.SteveParker.com.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/090908-12_01.jpg)

(Photo: Photo Courtesy Pontiac)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 9, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/090908.pdf?ref=smdp.com)