While my wife appreciates what I refer to as "real Grand Prix's", those seminal rolling works of art from 1969-1972, for combining aesthetics with practicality, she really likes the last two runs of Grand Prix's on GM's late and occasionally pretty good "W-body" platform. Especially the 2004-2008 models. Seeing that I've had five Chevrolet "W-body" or GM10's over the last (good lord) thirty years, I currently drive one and, damn the critics, loved them all, it's why when I was searching for a car to replace our younger son's Camaro I made so many cars.com and craigslist searches for Pontiac Grand Prix's. The best find was a 2006 that was a lot more than just your run of the mill, rental counter upgrades. It was without a doubt the greatest car Pontiac ever made and one you probably never heard of - a Grand Prix
GXP. Incidentally, this is not the car I found and for illustrative purposes I used two different Grand Prix GXP's.
A Pontiac in the mid to late '00's with "GXP" festooned to its flanks denoted a performance orientated, front wheel drive five door cross over, four or even two door sedan. There was the G6 GXP, Bonneville GXP, Soltice GXP, the Torrent GXP and the Grand Prix GXP. Mercifully, Pontiac didn't do a G5 GXP. No doubt GM saved millions on plastic dye molds for model designation letters when they pulled the plug on Pontiac.
As far as the Grand Prix goes, for 2005, the GXP replaced the GTP at the top of the Grand Prix lineup. Although Pontiac continued to offer the GTP's supercharged 3800 V-6 on the Grand Prix GT through 2007
(that's not confusing at all, is it?), the GXP eschewed the blown V-6 for a transversely mounted version of GM's LS series based, "5300" V-8. While the big V-8 put out only forty-three more horsepower and fifty-three more pound feet of torque than the heavy breathing V-6, with the V-8 lighter than the iron block and head V-6 and maximum power coming on at lower rpm's, you don't need to be a physicist or even a half asleep physics student to realize that the GXP was going to be faster than a GTP. And way,
way more responsive.
Straight line acceleration in these cars being as heroic as it was back in the day and still is, it wasn't the only thing the Grand Prix GXP was known for. With torque steer being the bane of any front wheel drive car and in particular over powered front wheel drivers, GM engineers fitted these cars with larger front tires than the rears to offset torque steer. Doing so also, and for reasons that allude me, allow for a better balanced car that can over steer to some degree. Front wheel drive cars with the same size tires all around have little chance at over steering that, again for reasons I fail to understand on paper, is a good thing on performance cars. I have the same size tires all around on my 2002 Monte Carlo and have never experienced any problems with that set up. Then again, I've never driven my car to the extremes that I guess a car like this with more than one hundred more horsepower and pounds of torque could be driven at. Bottom line is that all that engineering pays dividends behind the wheel as these cars are a blast to drive at any speed. And for more reasons than because they're incredibly fast.
Stiffer struts, fatter anti roll bars, eighteen inch rims and a slightly lower ride height further help to flatten out handling. The end result is a car with go-kart like responses that also, thanks in large part to the huge wheels, fat tires and lowered stance, looks about as good as a front wheel drive, four door American car ever has. The ride is also fairly supple. Fairly. Supple. It's still pretty stiff and hitting a pothole can be quite jarring. And as far as torque steer goes, there's still a oh-so-slight tug on the wheel when you nail the gas but if someone didn't point it out to you you'd probably not notice it was there. Oh, and if you're really interested in one of these, make sure that the front tires are P255/45/18's and the rears are P225/50/R18's. Going with the same sized tires all around or less expensive standard sizes with negate what the engineers were able to accomplish and the car will torque steer like crazy and will not be able to over steer.
To shoehorn what's known as the LS3 V-8 into the GP, GM shortened the crankshaft by an inch and fabricated a special block just for front wheel drive applications. They also came up with a single belt accessory drive, the AC compressor on LS3's was driven by a separate belt - why is anyone's guess, and they moved the starter out of the way by mounting it to the transmission. Speaking of which, the transmission was beefed up to handle the three hundred twenty three foot pounds of torque the sideways V-8, dubbed LS4, twisted out. All that and,
voila! The monster V-8 in a front wheel drive car looks like the car was originally designed to hold it. Chevrolet also offered a LS4 V-8 powered Monte Carlo and Impala in 2006 and 2007 but they did not offer the Grand Prix's wild tire set up so those cars dance around like crazy when you mash the gas pedal.
So, what happened? Why didn't the Grand Prix GXP with all its great engineering and subsequent wonderful press sell like the 1964 1/2 Ford Mustang? Well, honestly, because no one gave a shit about it. Oh, some did but aside from the very few wankers who knew what they were buying, people in general could have cared less about these cars. What's more, the economy was tanking, Pontiac was adrift in a morass of ambiguity and the market was well on its way to shifting to do-it-all cross overs. Also, with little to differentiate the look of a GXP from a lowly base model and the substantial added cost of the GXP, the hell was the point of this car? Seriously, people like me "get" these cars but in general, who'd buy one of these?
I've driven several of these over the years and loved driving each and every one of them. There are few cars I've ever driven with the cat like, go there now reflexes these have and I put them in the upper echelons of cars I've driven. Seriously, I'd put these right up there with any BMW "M" that I've driven and that's saying a lot. Now, granted, they're up there in that lofty stratosphere of automobiles but they're at the back of the rack of cars in that rare air. Not unlike the least talented professional athlete in a major league sport, they're still stupendously talented athletes. And even new they were a relative bargain. Used they're out and outright steals. Again, everything being relative. No doubt many of these go to buyers unaware of what they've stumbled onto.
As far as the one that I found when I was searching for a car, I passed on it for several reasons. First, the very kind gentleman who owned it knew what he had and babied the thing, was asking a not out of this world $6,000 for it. However, with 95,000 miles on the clock, I couldn't see myself spending that much money on an old Pontiac sedan with that kind of mileage. Despite his asking price being fair; at least according to NADA guidelines. Yeah, 100,000 on a used car is generally not what it used to be but still, for my money, I couldn't make the mental math game work.
Secondly, the car being for our twenty year old son, I couldn't see him driving something so wildly over powered and being comfortable with him driving it safely. Yes, a car like this is safer to drive than something that can't perform at this car's level but trust me, this car will have even those most staid of humans doing things they normally wouldn't do behind the wheel. I would've taken it and given my 2002 Monte Carlo to my son but with my new job and monster commute, it didn't make any sense to purchase a car for me that wasn't first and foremost a miser on gas.
And, finally, besides, at the end of the day, no matter how cool this is and how fun it is to drive, it's just another four door sedan.
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