2010 Pontiac G8 Sport Truck Review
Hi, I’m Joe Wiesenfelder with cars.com here at the New York Auto Show with the Pontiac G8 Sport Truck. Sport Truck is in the official name. They’re letting consumers name it. What it is basically is a car and a pick up truck. You might have seen this before and the Chevrolet El Camino back in the day. Ford Ranchero has the same idea. It is quite simply a car with a pick up truck bed.
So the truck is based on the new full size G8 Sedan that’s the same front end. It’s pretty much the same probably way up to the doors—actually behind the doors and it has the same aggressive look, a little bit nostrilly I think. And this one has a 6-liter V8. Now the powertrain is shared with the GT version of the G8 Sedan. Now with 360 horsepower, this isn’t super efficient, so if you’re looking to save fuel maybe you want to go from a compact pick up to a small car type pick up, you’re probably not going to save much fuel.
Now, Pontiac said, there’s no reason they can’t have a V6 in this model because they offer one in the base G8 but there isn’t one planned yet. Now the wheel base on this sport truck is a few inches larger than the Sedan but still rear wheel drive. It’s called the Sport Truck, it seems to be a little bit more sport going on because it’s jacked up in the rear and has that sporty look. But there’s also the truck part. So the bed is also just over six feet long with the tail gate up.
It’s just under four feet wide between the wheel housings. It will come with this standard composite bed liner and it also comes with the soft cover which gives you some advantages in terms of aerodynamics and such, it keeps everything hidden too. The G8 Sport Truck interior again mirrors the G8 Sedan’s and it’s pretty nice in terms of quality, we have one on the fleet recently the Sedan to drive. It doesn’t quite look like your average Pontiac because this car is based on a Holden, that’s the brand that GM owns in Australia where these small trucks are were still very popular, they’re called Utes.
Overall, it’s totally roomy in the front just because there’s a bed back there there’s no back seat, so they give you as much room as you need. There’s actually a little bit of storage back here behind the seats. It’s not like a regular cab pickup where you really don’t have that much storage inside the cabin.
Well cars like these have been off the market for decades. The question everyone’s asking is, who is going to buy today’s version of an El Camino? And we’re not sure we know the answer yet, it maybe a car and a truck. They call it the Sport Truck for now until it’s named. Right now, I’d say with it’s giant engine, There’s a little bit more sport than the there’s truck but we’ll soon see.
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