Pontiac dubs G8-based sport truck the Pontiac G8 ST

There it is, just about exciting as waiting for the nomination of the vice-presidential candidates, except without the white smoke from the chimney. No, wait. That's the pope...

 

Anyway, Pontiac had made a contest of it, actually: “As an important part of the G8 family, we know that ‘sport truck’ doesn’t fully describe the vehicle’s ability to blur the lines between sports car and truck,” Craig Bierley, Pontiac's marketing director, back on March 15 at the New York auto show when the truck ws announced as a coming production reality. “Because its fans will surely be as unique as the vehicle itself, we’re giving them a voice in selecting a name that reflects its appeal.”

 

The winning entry was to have been announced April 15. Whoops, not until August? Trying to build exceitement, Pontiac?

 

Anyway, they actually received more than 18,000 entries. One of the more popular was “El Camino,” because the truck resembles the late and lamented Chevrolet sporty pickup of that name. Pontiac turned that down, of course, because, well, it’s a Chevy name and you just don’t do that sort of thing.

 

So G8 ST it is.

 

Like the original El Camino, the G8 ST will be a two-door—meaning that there will limited in-cab cargo room and just two seats—but the rear-drive ST will have genuine truck capabilities, with a 1000-lb payload and a tow rating of 3500 lbs. It will have a 73.9-inch cargo bed with 42.7 cubic feet of cargo space.

 

The ST will come only with the 361-horse V8 used in the Pontiac G8 GT, and only with the six-speed automatic transmission. Which means, as Pontiac notes, “the G8 ST should offer some of the best fuel economy numbers for V8-powered vehicles with similar cargo/towing ratings while still turning in zero-to-60 times of 5.4 seconds.”

 

We still see a fairly narrow market for what is, to use the old nickname of the El Camino, a “Cowboy Cadillac." With limited cab room, almost everything besides the people will have to go into the bed, exposed to weather and sticky fingers. We see a big market in lockable bed covers.

 

We also wish Pontiac better luck than a similar recent idea had with two more doors, four fewer cylinders, two more driven wheels and the same no-lid trunk—a most certainly different psychographic—but, we think, a much cooler name. But “Subaru Baja” was already taken.

 

Still, we’d like to know what the best (and worst) rejected names were. Any ideas out there?