2014 Pontiac GTO “The Judge” Converted Camaro: eBay Find
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Although Pontiac hasn’t had any offerings in a few years, that doesn’t mean that the loyal aftermarket should ignore the fanbase. As you should probably know, SEMA is the best place on earth to display custom cars, with insurmountable amounts of money invested into them. Under that logic, it only makes sense that the 2014 Pontiac GTO “The Judge” Camaro was featured there.
A company by the name of Trans Am Depot has performed one of these incredibly thorough conversions, adding flair all over the place, from performance parts, to paintjobs, to new seats. The particular specimen for sale right now started off as a Camaro SS at about $35,000. After all of the modifications were complete (totaling at $44,985), the price for the reborn GTO finished at $79,985, according to the listing.
Sure, you could buy a loaded C7 Stingray at that price (if you like waiting), but it’s not quite as unique as a custom-built Chevy/Pontiac, long after the brand is gone. So, if you had the money (or even if you already do), would you like to see this SEMA-worthy frankencamaro in your driveway? Let us know.
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Oh, what could have been.
A lot of money for a car with a nose.
For that kind of money I would rather have a real restored GTO.
Seeing this really, really makes me want Pontiac to come back. . .
Reminds me of this one:
http://i41.tinypic.com/i72xic.jpg
Hey! I was at my hometown Heritage Days and they had that exact same car at the auto show!
I think its a real cool car, and would love to have it in my driveway, but i don’t think i would convert my ss.
Seeing this makes me glad Pontiac is gone! The extra money and time being spent on a 2nd pony car is now being used else where!
Corvette camaro cts v ATS v and on on on!
I would much rather have a ATS the a firebird!
The Firebird was always better than the Camaro in certain ways. The engines might have been the same, but the exterior of the Pontiac always looked better. . .
The “extra” money was being wasted on the Camaro that didn’t look, feel or drive like the Firebird! My grandma who died in 1995 gave me her 1973 Firebird! I gave it to my mom out of respect and we pull it out of the garage every summer and give it a wash/clay/wax/detail and drive it down the highway and have fun! It is a great car and I think it was money well spent for GM!
“but the exterior of the Pontiac always looked better”
Appearance is always subjective. A Ram-Air hood may look appealing in 1999, but it’s too gaudy and over-styled to work in 2013.
Well, of course! When did you get so smart? Design attributes of cars these days are getting to the point where sometimes I think it will be impossible to make them any better (even though that may not be true). Someone needs to take the first step in a different direction and maybe GM can do that. . .
Couldn’t agree with you more. Not only was their additional cost but styling suffered too.
I wish Gm would find a single exterior design for buick and opel. Seems like a waste to have two different exteriors. All the German cars sell well in Germany and us. (And china). Love to see a front grill which looked like the audi with buick elements.
This is car and others like it are why Pontiac ended up failing.
One must ask what is a real Pontiac. If you can say a car with clean styling, advanced features, special performance tuning in the suspension and engines prepared to a state no other GM division offered then you would be correct.
The last so many years the Pontiacs were a mishmash of Chevy and Buick parts with sometime good like the Bonneville GXP styling to the bad Vibe/Sunfire/ Aztek. GM would give you a car with very little tuning changes and the same engines found in a Buick or a Chevy and add some red dash lights. This is not Pontiac was from 57-79 and that is why so many hardcore Pontiac fans never revisited the brand. There were some glimmers of greatness but nothing sustained or built upon as for every G8 you had a G6 Torrent and G3 to offset the greatness.
It is a shame as so many who defend Pontiac today are folks who have never owned or driven a real Tripower GTO or got to feel the power of a 74 455 SD let alone know how smooth and stable a 69 GP with a 428 is at 130 MPH. They never knew how special Pontiac was as they had a OHC engine in the 60’s and tried to offer rear disc brakes and radial tires in 1966 till GM stopped them. They at one time were a very forward looking division that just expressed engineering and were in no way you could confuse them with a Chevy.
Even in their worst case where they were forced to use the Camaro in 1967 they did their own thing with engines, the suspensions were an inch lower and had traction bars tied to the floor to stop the axle wrap of the Chevy springs. and more.
I know some are still deluded to the idea that Pontiac was a thriving healthy division and if you are one I would ask you to look back and really see what the real Pontiacs were and represented from 57-79. I still own a 85 Fiero and will get a Old GTO at some point again. I have owned many post 79 Pontiacs and while I liked the styling better and a few options like HUD there really was nothing on these cars I could not find at Buick or Chevy. In fact my daily beater is a Chevy as I wanted a Eco Turbo with more than two seats and non was offered at Pontiac.
To me Pontiac will never be gone as the real cars are still here and are being restored, driven and enjoyed. Last summer cracking open the Tripower and hammering though the gears of my buddies 1964 GTO is a feel that reminds me of what a Pontiac really was. I have owned Chevys and other GM cars but that feel is unique to a Pontiac in feel and sound. I did like my SSEI and GTP Comp G but they never felt, sounded or ran different from any of the Buicks or Chevys I have owned or drove.
You want a real Pontiac get a 64 GTO and restore it. You not only will have a great car you will have a real investment that will only appreciate in value each and every year you own it were the thing on this page will be worth little in 10-15 years.
Sorry for the vent but I really wish people who have never been around or have driven or let alone own a pre 79 Pontiac to investigate what they really were in the details and they will find out what many of us long time owners know and why we are not unhappy with the loss of what we have now. For many the Pontiac we knew was lost years ago.
Here is a bit of trivia. The last all true Pontiac was a 1988 4 cylinder Fiero. It was a true Pontiac only model and platform. It used a Pontiac Iron Duke 4 that was build and designed by Pontiac and the car was the last Pontiac built in Pontiac Michigan. These are things even some of the older models could not claim.
Putting all the time in New camaro and ATS is what GM should be doing not thinking about bringing this stuff back
Ahhh….. That is what GM is doing as this is not their project.
You may note that this is from Trans Am Depot and aftermarket parts house that supplies Trans Am and Camaro Vintage and performance parts.
You may want to read the story it explains it.
GM Is not going to put a finger on anything named Pontiac other than license the rights to use the name.
I disagree with your last sentence! I still see a goal for Pontiac! I might have been born in 90′ But I do know what can make profit if tried hard enough. My motto is never give up, even if you are failing! GM has done that several times and I don’t think they could disappoint me worse than what happened in early 2010. . .
Although your personal drive to achieve is commendable, sometimes it is best to, not give up, but to retreat and rebuild before trying again.
It’s not giving up, it’s stopping procedures to reevaluate the situation before trying a new method of approach/attack.
When doing so, you can decide whether or not something is worth doing based on available resources, time, and energy you wish to expend. In GM’s case, it’s wasn’t worth it to keep pushing Pontiac along.
In a way, I agree with you. I understand the fact that GM is just really starting to get up on their own feet and they need time to “stretch” if you will. I get it, I really do! In the end, Pontiac was nothing to be proud of whatsoever! The G3/G5 etc. I think if GM aimed higher with Pontiac to have it compete with the sports – entry level luxury category, they would have succeeded. What happened was the whole “efficiency” thing that wreaked havoc on many manufacturers. GM was marketing Pontiac against Toyota and Honda instead of lets say oh Infiniti or Audi. It started to clash and the whole “efficient/cheap sports car” thing just doesn’t work well (You’ll end up with a brand like Scion) and GM found that out the hard way. .
Money well spent just not anymore!
Without the money they earned back then, they wouldn’t have had the financial base needed to grow a company! It (IS) money well spent.
Yes spent well back them but there’s no need for two pony cars today!
One badass camaro is all that’s needed
Two problems here. While what you say is great in many cases there is another saying to know when to stop.
There are time especially in the cooperate world that you can keep banging your head against the wall to knock it down. Too often you end up with a banged up head. a lot of medical bills and nothing to show but a wall that is still standing unblemished.
This is a real world issues here where to have fixed or bring back Pontiac would take billions of dollars. It also would have to just rebodied cars and engines that Buick or Chevy already are using. This formula did not really work before and has no real chance of working again especially if they want to make CUV models and small economy cars in a Division that claims to be performance that it really was no longer less two cars. .
Now with 3 car divisions out there and still in need of billions on special product for each the money would be best spent of finishing the rest of Buick and fixing cars like the Malibu to be best in class. GM has shown they can do it but they still have more work to do.
Also the Global factor. In a day and age where Holden may be shut down and Chevy is being pulled form Europe where are you going to sell Pontiacs? Just to sell them here and Canada is no longer enough and you have to have global markets. Out side North America where is there a great need for Pontiac? Thye have yet to establish a Camaro and Corvette as global platforms and you really thing people overseas would really embrace Pontiac right now.
Also the real factor here is you may fool a hand full of people with a rebodied Camaro but you still lose part of the Pontiac base that was lost years ago. They know the difference and you can not fool everyone.
Even many collectors born in the 90’s know the difference.
I would agree if GM was fixed and number one with high profits but right now there is plenty of work to do vs. taking a big gamble that really would not pay off big even if it works. The profits from a North American division would not be enough to justify the risk.
Buick will still have a presents in Europe in Opel and China. And even Chevy less Europe will still be a global company In most other major markets even as Holdens down under.
When I was a kid I was in love with the 1999 GTO concept. Looks like a meaner current-gen camaro.
http://www.diseno-art.com/encyclopedia/concept_cars/pontiac_gto.html
Simple question: If Pontiac were the brand that was selling 40-50K units per month in China instead of Buick, would it have survived the BK and Buick be gone? Yes. If this was the case, would Pontiac be selling (and making money) more than 20K units per month with a re-focused line-up here in the U.S.? Yes again.
Sales and profits in China is the reason why Buick is still around and Pontiac is gone.
The answer to your simple question is not necesarily yes. If (a huge ‘if’ btw) Pontiac was profitably selling well in China (which they weren’t) and Buick was profitable in the USA without China (which they were), then both could have survived. The real question that actually was asked was, “Was Pontiac profitable in the last 10 years of its existence?” The answer to that simple question was no. That is why Pontiac was shut down.
Looking at this offering from T/A depot, it is priced pretty high in order to make a profit. Why should GM try to make a profitable Pontiac, when you have places like T/A Depot? What is GM’s incentive? Nostalgia doesn’t always pay the bills.
If there is such a case for Pontiac’s ressurection, why aren’t magazines like High Performance Pontiac calling/screaming/begging for it? In the latest issues’ smoke signals page, there are many ways listed to keep Pontiac alive. Nowhere in the article suggests any action on GM’s part.
Pontiac is gone and likely never coming back, that’s the way it is.
Leading up to the BK, Pontiac definitely had some problems, but Buick certainly did also. The fact is from 2002-2008 about 2.9 million Pontiacs were sold in the US, versus about 1.9 million Buicks. How could Pontiac be so mis-managed for all of those years that it sells a million more cars than Buick, yet Buick is profitable here and Pontiac is not? Not buying that.
You really have no business sense and I so not mean that in a bad way. You lack the full dimensional thinking of this to really grasp what all is needed and involved. You just can’t pick and choose what you want to make your case as you have to take all the metrics involved.
In personal motivation this thinking is great but in the real world where you have to deal with budgets and time lines it does not work the same.
The real issue is you can not just run a car company with just heart, innovation and desire. To run a company like GM you have to have heart, innovation , desire and fiscal responsibility.
You could take a division like Pontiac and spend billions on it and try to make it work. But you have to factor in will I duplicate products I already have? Will I take sales from competitors or from my own divisions. Don’t think the up tick in Camaro sales were all from the Mustang most came at the expense of the Trans Am. Duplications of efforts are very inefficient and we have had decades of that at GM as the market changed but GM tried to force the Sloan thinking even thought it no longer worked.
The cost of developing a car properly even on a shared platform is in the billions anymore and you can not afford to just keep tossing money at a problem and hope it sticks at some point. Today cars come if they work they stay if they don’t they vanish even after a few years.
There have been some real business cases made buy some really high value people like Bob Lutz and other and even they could not prove the risk was worth the gain.
Losing billions on a reformed Pontiac when there is great needs at GM to finish the Buick rebuild that will not just service Buick here and Opel In Europe but will bring great income from China.
GM also needs to finish things at Chevy like a new Sonic, Nox, Cruze, Camaro, SS replacement and Malibu replacement in the next 5 years. Cadillac is still unfinished and has models yet to come and replace and develop.
To pump money into a division like Pontiac would be a total lack of fiscal responsibility. Now if market share had dropped a lot or if profits were down after losing Pontiac you may have an argument but since Market share did not drop and Profits are now better than even with Pontiac you really have no case.
I would be very happy to have the chance to buy a real Pontiac again someday but I also know the cold real realities of running a company and the tough completive global market it is today. When you see companies like BMW, Honda, Ford and other working together with other MFG to share development cost you should realize how tough things are. We have yet to see the last automaker fail. More will and it is a matter of time before they are sold or closed.
Don’t think that Chrysler is out of the woods yet as Fiat is failing. You may want to note other than the Dart they have no real new cars. They took the old cars and just rehashed them a little with better interiors and name. If it were not for Jeep and the now Dodge less Ram Trucks things would be much different. Even the bottom has dropped out on the Fiat plan as sales have tanked to average 3 per dealer per month.
Tell me what Pontiac can do or offer that could not be done at Chevy or Buick at minimal cost? Also where would you sell them outside the USA and Canada as if you do not have a global market you will not get approved. To make a division that would only sell 50K-60K cars would make them cost so much that few would pay the price. We already have Cadillac for low volume higher prices.
Buick didn’t make it threw BK because of china! GM kept it around because Buick can offer something chevy cannot, and at a higher price I might add!
The only thing Pontiac can offer is similar things chevy can at or near the same price!
You actually mean the only thing Pontiac DID offer were similar cars to Chevrolet at nearly the same price.
If Pontiac came back, it could offer much more than Chevrolet and Buick!
Yes Chevrolet does has some performance cars, but Pontiac would be all performance.