Bob Lutz postponed his decision to retire from GM at the end of the year, deciding to extend his career as the firm’s vice chairman in charge of all “creative elements of products and customer relationships”, and the 77-year old is offering American car nuts a reason to celebrate. Lutz, in an interview with Automobile Magazine, revealed that the Pontiac G8 isn’t dead after all.
Despite the fact that only a month ago, in a live chat with online readers, GM CEO Fritz Henderson supported that the rear-wheel drive Pontiac sports sedan won’t live in another brand, Lutz told the magazine that the G8 will be reborn in the USA as the Chevrolet Caprice.
“We decided to continue to import it as a Chevrolet, the last time we looked at the G8,” Lutz said. “It is kind of too good to waste.” Can’t disagree with Lutz on that one….
He also added that other decision factors were the export agreements with Australia and the fact that the Holden Commodore is already sold in many countries as a Chevrolet.
Lutz didn’t say in what form the G8 will survive in the USA – as a Holden Commodore / Pontiac G8 with a Chevy grille or will GM prefer to import the longer-wheelbase Holden Statesman / Caprice? That’s probably a good point to start the conversation in the comment section below.
Lutz, in addition to the G8, told the magazine that the Cadillac CTS-V Coupe could be closer to production than we think, noting that that members of the government taskforce were quite interested in the BMW M3-challenging sports coupe during the presentation of the firm’s product plan.
