2008 Pontiac G8 GT Video

2008 Pontiac G8 GT Video Transcript

>> Kind of an odd mix of the Ascend and the Mitsu Gallant with the front clip from a BMW 3 -- nyeh. And it's strangely missing in tech in an almost their kind of way. But it's a burn burner and I gotta tell you, I kind of like this Pontiac G8 GT. Let's go find out why. ^M00:00:19 [ Music ] ^M00:00:27

>> And what technology this car offers is centered right there in a head unit that looks really promising, but promising is about all it is, 6.5-inch LCD, but no nav. Not standard, not optional, not ever. That's just the audio system and I gotta tell you, it's a good looking thing. A clear large fonted display, but getting around is a little odd. If you go to the menus here, it's frustratingly like Porsche, where you've got to roll up and down the things, click, select, click-out, click-out, go back to exit -- this makes me crazy. The guts of this is a 290-watt amplifier, it's Blaupunkt-branded as you can see, which is pretty rare. I don't recall another Blaupunkt in-dash from the factory. You've got a 6-CD changer up here, which will handle MP3 discs, AM, FM. There's no real iPod adaptor, you got to live with your auxiliary jack, which is fine, but rather dumb and you don't have any of the more elaborate features like a rearview camera on this car, not even Bluetooth on this '08. That's gonna be an '09 model year option. And even then, it's gonna be late year availability. But all of that's peripheral to what this car is all about. The G8 is a muscle car. Under the hood of our GT is a 6-liter aluminum V8 dual-overhead cam, 365 horse, 381 foot-pounds, 0-to-60 is about a 5.3 second blast and the power is quite available even though you're hammed-in to a one choice only 6-speed automatic -- that's a shame. If this were a manual gearbox, we'd be going nutty right now. Instead we're having a nice full-powered drive, but with none of that snappy crisp powertrain control that I really want with this powerplant. That said driving this automatic is not the worst I've ever had. I mean, there are a much lessier, less precise automatics on the market. You've got a shiftable gait over here on the right. No paddles, I tell you, I've seen so many cars now that are skewing the shift paddles, I think we're seeing a fad fade in the industry right now. Forward for an upshift, back for a downshift. It's a little slow on the uptake. I wish it was a real snappy automatic, but it isn't bad. Now if you're wondering what this is related to in the Pontiac showroom, not much. This comes from General Motors' Holden division. That's an Australian brand. An Australian Division of GM and down there this is called the Commodore. Luckily, it's called the G8 in America. So the dork factor has been scrubbed off, at least in terms of naming. Now in spite of this car's big displacement, high horse power and biggish package, the economy on it is not bad, 15 city, 24 highway and by the way, they accomplished that highway number partly due to cylinder deactivation. So you're not running on all 8 when you're loafing down the freeway. ^M00:03:18 [ Music ] ^M00:03:19

>> Now pricing a G8 GT is a simple affair. Basically, 30 grand and that's it. There are not tech options and not a whole lot of tech standard either, but for another 800 bucks out of pocket, you can go buy a great GPS nav device, stick it on the windshield, go get a Bluetooth kit, and realize you've got a tech toy of a different kind. One that displays a 6-liters and sounds great. ^M00:03:41 [ Music ]