Could this be how the legend returns?
As much as we hate to admit it, Pontiac and the GTO are as dead as a doornail (that’s really dead, if you were wondering). That fact hasn’t kept people from speculating about what a modern Pontiac GTO would look like, which brings us to this rendering. Instagram user Timothy Adry Emmanuel whipped out Photoshop and a picture of the current Buick Regal GS, creating something we think needs to be shot and buried.
Learn how one man is trying to open a Pontiac museum right here.
Pretty much this was a bad idea from the get-go. We get it, the guy got all excited about the return of the Pontiac GTO for reasons we can’t even begin to fathom. Then he just started doing things, never mind learning the most basic things about the GTO.
For starters, he picked the wrong platform for a modern GTO. The muscle car has always been rear-wheel drive, but the modern Buick Regal GS is a front-wheel-drive vehicle. Sure, you can get the current Sportback with all-wheel drive, but that’s not the same thing. This right here tells us Emmanuel did zero actual research.
While we like the hood tach, the random blower coming out the hood in the one rendering is ridiculous on a modern car. Hasn’t this guy wondered why there are no Hellcats or GT500s with such a thing? Or that the final-generation GTOs didn’t have them? To top it off, someone in the comments said something about the “turbocharger on top” being “pure sex appeal.” Ugh.
Then there’s the issue of the front grille. While the final Pontiac GTO had the bisected grille, making them distinct from the Holden Monaro (which was what they really were), this new grille is something else. It basically makes the GTO look like a BMW, only somehow making the giant kidneys aesthetic far worse. Yikes.
Finally, randomly throwing “The Judge” graphics on the doors doesn’t make this thing retro at all. In fact it looks out of place on such a bubbly, modern, non-muscle car. This is what happens when people with Photoshop don’t do their homework.
