We lost some pretty cool car models when GM closed Pontiac back in 2009. The Holden Commodore-based G8 sedan was possibly the coolest, what with its rear-drive platform and available V8 power. While we did get a follow-up with the Chevrolet SS, which continued with the Commodore base, at least until Holden was shut down, too, it seems Pontiac had bigger ideas for the big sedan. GM Design once again has shone a light on a never-before-seen concept car from the automaker’s archives. It’s a Pontiac G8 concept from nearly the final days of the brand.
The Instagram post notes that the show car was finished in 2008, the same year the production G8 launched. We only see it partially finished in the post, as well as some renderings, but it’s clear Pontiac had some big ideas for the car going forward. The concept has bold, vertical headlights and huge kidney grilles. The sides have a pronounced Coke bottle shape with the pinched section at the doors and the rising lines over the fenders. The fastback roofline hides a hatchback instead of a trunk, and the tail almost seems to take some inspiration from the Solstice and Saturn Sky models.
The interior reveals a dashboard that looks a surprising amount like that of the C8 Corvette. It has the same sort of driver-centric layout with a conspicuous barrier fencing off the main controls from the passenger. Only four seats appear, with a full-length center console dividing each side. It definitely suggests more of an upmarket grand tourer than a family sedan.
It’s interesting to see just how big a departure this concept was to the actual G8 and the SS, both of which were pretty much Holden Commodores with different badging. This show car looks like a more fully baked idea. It makes it seem like, in a world where the financial crisis didn’t hit so hard and GM didn’t go bankrupt, we might’ve seen the G8 develop into something all its own. Or at least, as much as a company dependent on shared architecture could allow it to be. Bob Lutz even suggested that the lowly front-drive G6 was considered to get a future generation on the ATS platform, so a more developed G8 would seem pretty reasonable.
While none of that happened, it certainly is interesting to see and wonder what could have been.