The Ultimate Pontiac GTO Picture Site 2004 GTO Parking Lot by Sean Mattingly.
There's no bigger GTO image collection anywhere!
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Here's a selection showing six different front end treatments from John Gregg. CLICK->
John has been listening to your comments about his work. For this version he made the factory grille smaller which lowered center of hood, he widened and pushed back the hood scoops, added side
exhaust, turn signals in the mirrors, rear brake vents, and he altered the lower radiator intake. Stay tuned because, he says that his next version may be in black! CLICK->
So what does John Gregg's 2004 concept GTO look like topless? Take a look at this one! CLICK->
John painted this one green and made the front end a bit more square. CLICK->
How about a new roof style! This time John Gregg tried out a Targa Top! He also opened up the grilles. CLICK->
How about a blue one with a Targa Top. John commented, "Here's a new twist on the grille area. People have said it needs to be blacked out so I did. The other thing is I moved the air intake up on the scoop from the others I have done." Tell him what you think. CLICK->
Here's another version of the blue targa-top 2004 GTO concept from John Gregg. This one has a different front end, spoiler, wheels, and fender flares around the wheel openings. The flare lines around the rear wheel opening really help the look of the car. CLICK->
We haven't been getting that many viewer concept drawings lately. John Gregg sent us another. He comments, "I flatten out the rear quarter and made it more defined where the rear window meets the quarter. The clip photo on left is the factory and the one on far right is longer behind the rear wheels. The ones in between show with or without different wings. I also just read today in the paper that the 05 GTO is going to get the new hood with scoops." CLICK->
Anthony Vega made some modifications to Pontiac's 2004 concept GTO. He added ground effects, a Ram Air hood, and a set of Rally stripes. CLICK->
Roby Domenigoni from Switzerland went retro. He drew this wacky concept 2004 GTO. He says it has the 1971 GTO style. It sure does. But is that good or bad? CLICK->
Andy Ryan sent in this picture along with a little history lesson. I bet you didn't know that back in 1955, this HQ Belair Chevrolet GTS was a Top Secret prototype built in partnership with Chevrolet in the USA and Holden in Australia. This was long before todayıs association between Pontiac and Holden with the new Monaro being re-badged in the States as a Pontiac GTO. Ryan tells us this:
In June 1954, Bert Kransen, the President of Chevrolet in the US decided to mount a takeover of Holden in Australia knowing that at the time, most Australians were still driving Vanguards, Zephyrs, auxhalls, Simcas and Chrysler Centuras and not buying Holdens in great numbers and especially, he thought, pre-1948 Holdens.
After initiating the Holden takeover Bert Kransen sold all of his shares in Chevrolet to raise the required capital. In July 1954, it emerged that Holden was already owned by General Motors, the parent company of Chevrolet! President Kransen resigned later on that day, however Bert Kransen got Chevrolet thinking.
What if Chevrolet and Holden could build a car together, thus catering to both the American and Australian markets. This way they could utilise the same chassis platform, running gear and engines. Even the radios could be used for both vehicles with the Australian car having a very large aerial in order to pick up American radio stations, which were the only ones available at the time.
A centralised driving position would be compulsory to eliminate messy and outdated safety laws that required the steering wheels and gloveboxes to be placed on opposite sides of the dashboard in the USA and Australia.
Australians preferred their gloveboxes in front of the passenger instead of the driver. Chevrolet had been building larger versions of Holden designed cars for many years. For example the 1957 Chevrolet Belair was almost an exact copy of the 1962 EK Holden Special. It is not well known that the V8 engined Belair had only six working pistons, the remaining two pistons could not be produced within the allocated budget. Chevrolet had already designed and produced their new 3 dimensional chrome V8 badge and were too embarrassed to change it after they realised that the cost of producing an actual V8 with eight operational cylinders was going to be far too expensive.
It was decided that six cylinders would be enough and hardly any one would notice. Customers would marvel at the economy and not marvel very much at the lack of power. And not to mention the rattling noises coming from two conrods slapping around inside the engine block which only occurred after the engine was started up.
At the same time, back in Australia, Hubert Quinn was a young car designer working at Holdenıs design studio at Fishermanıs Bend in Melbourne, Victoria. He was commissioned to work on a futuristic prototype for the 1970ıs which was still 15 years away. He needed plenty of time as full scale clay models could often take up to four years to dry and even longer before they could actually be driven.
Hubert Quinn or HQ as he was better known, was approached by his GM
counterpart from the US, who was on an exchange program, to share some of his ideas with the design department in Detroit as part of a feasibility study into building the Australian and American joint venture vehicle. However back in the 1950ıs there werenıt the luxuries we have today such as the internet or the telephone. All communication had to be carried out through the post or by using Morse Code which didnıt work very well at night time. This slight communication problem could explain why the doors were eventually welded up to meet safety regulations in both countries.
Someone had misinterpreted the law in regards to kerbside parking, which in the two countries would be on different sides of the road and would be illegal and dangerous for passengers to alight from a vehicle especially into on-coming traffic. Traffic from the rear was deemed safer as the drivers were normally heading home and were tired. When reading the regulations they missed a couple of important words such as in Paragraph 32 which read: "Drivers should not be able to alight from a MOVING vehicle using the passenger door." After this error was noticed it was too late to change it as the doors were already welded up and the Design Department had closed for the day.
The 1955 HQ Belair Monaro was an instant success, however only in Cuba. The central driving position was troublesome in that there were quite a few accidents where passengers either side would accidently bump the driver, causing the car to swerve and crash. For taxi drivers this became quite uneconomical combined with the early beta version of the Global Positioning System (GPS) that was often out by up to 120 degrees when turned on. However in later years the McClaren F1 Sports Car would copy this design after a Chief McClaren designer caught a HQ Belair Taxi home whilst drunk one night. The next morning it inspired him to create a one million dollar sports car with a centralised driving position and seating for three people, none of who could see or talk to each other.
This tall tale came to us from Andy Ryan. He has created over 80 different cars made from all kinds of cars. He says he enjoys this website. Being in Australia, he's curious as to what people in the U.S. think of the Monaro. The story was inspired by GM's decision
to finally build an Aussie car after 80 years of building American cars. Yeah, he put a bit of a twist in there! CLICK->
Chris Stone calls his 2004 GTO concept interior, "The Midas touch." Notice the gold trim accents. This concept was taken from an image which is slightly different than the one pictured earlier on this site. This one has a different steering wheel and is an automatic. CLICK->
Chris Stone calls this version of the 2004 GTO concept interior, "Sunrise". It's got a tip-tronic shifter and upscale fluorescent gauges all part of the package. CLICK->
Here is Eric White's concept drawing of what he thinks the 2004 GTO should look like. Eric commented, "After attending the 2003 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, I came away with mixed reactions concerning the new GTO. In order to work out my angst, I have taken to the computer and created my interpretation of the improvements that Pontiac could implement that would make me extremely proud to own and drive a new GTO. I call it the Heritage Package
option. The changes I have incorporated in this image are: Ram Air Hood w/identification badges, Rally V wheels 19" x 8", Red Stripe P-zero 245/35 ZR19 tires, 360hp 5.7 liter LS1. If you're really observant you'll also notice that I have increased the size of the rear wheel opening." CLICK->
Dominic Blaszak created his concept 2004 GTO from stratch. Its a wide-track design with a new split grille design, 65-67 inspired hood scoops and rounded rear fenders.
Here's a comment from a recent visitor...
Says Darren Snow (rocket88.@marz.com) from St. Louis -"All those photos of GTO models has got us in the mood for building one! Keep up the good work."
