Pontiac's Great G8

The Pontiac G8 is a tight, well-built, powerful sport sedan that offers superior performance at a price under $30,000

by Thane Peterson

Editor's Rating:

The Good: Speediness, well-built feel, clean interior lines, price

The Bad: Not much

The Bottom Line: Can't afford a Caddie CTS? Check out this new Pontiac

Reader Reviews

• View Slide Show

Up Front

General Motors' (GM) new Pontiac G8 GT surprised me as much as any car I've ever reviewed. I was expecting a mundane family vehicle. What I experienced was a tight, well-built, rear-wheel drive sport sedan with speed and handling akin to the Cadillac CTS, one of the hottest-selling models GM has come out with in years.

Just how good is the new G8 GT? Car and Driver magazine dubbed it "the BMW that Pontiac always wanted to build" because it matched a BMW (BMWG) 5 Series sedan (a $60,000 car) in most performance tests. That's amazing considering the G8 GT's starting price is just $29,995. And the Pontiac not only is powered by a huge, 6-liter, 361-hp V-8 engine but also has a clean, well-appointed interior and comes with standard equipment that includes six airbags, 18-in. aluminum wheels, a tilting and telescoping steering wheel, cruise control, a trip computer, and full power accessories. (For those on a budget, there's also a base model G8 powered by a 3.6-liter, 256-hp V6 that starts at just $27,595.)

At 196 in. long, the G8 is about two inches shorter than the Pontiac Grand Prix, the model it's replacing. But it's still a good-sized sedan that's 4.5 inches longer than the Cadillac CTS. The Pontiac's rear legroom and big 17.5 cu. ft. trunk almost exactly match those of the Chrysler 300, which looks bigger than the G8 when you see it on the road.

The GT's fuel economy isn't half bad, considering its size and the fact that it accelerates like a Bimmer. It's rated to get 15 mpg in the city and 24 on the highway, and in 215 miles of fast driving I got a respectable 22.9 mpg. The base-model G8, which is rated at 17/25, only does moderately better.

Will it sell? The G8 is made in Australia, where a similar model is marketed as the Holden VE Commodore. That isn't necessarily a formula for success, given the fate of the Pontiac GTO, another rear-wheel drive model imported from Down Under that bombed in the U.S. and had to be dropped after the 2006 model year.

GM sold a total of 2,126 G8's in April, the new sedan's first full month on the market, so it's too early to know for sure, but my guess is the G8 will fare better than the GTO. Pontiac could use a boost: Its overall sales fell 8.6%, to 96.386, in the first four months of this year—on top of a 12.7% decline to 358,022 units for all of 2007.

Behind the Wheel

The stunning thing about the G8 GT is how fast it is. I clocked my test car at 5.5 seconds in accelerating from zero to 60, which is about what the company says it will do. That puts the GT midway between a BMW 328i and the superfast BMW 335i—and makes it about 1.5 seconds faster than the base model Pontiac G8. However, the GT's ride is so smooth and quiet it doesn't feel that quick. The first time I clocked my test GT in a zero to 60 run, I didn't believe my stopwatch. So I tried again—and got exactly the same time.

In addition to being fast, the GT is fun to drive. It comes with a six-speed automatic (vs. a five-speed in the base model) with a manual shifting function that in my test GT was quick. The steering is precise and well-balanced. The suspension is stiff enough to handle hard cornering without making the ride too hard.