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Driving Impressions
We drove one of our favorite roads, from San Diego to Borrego Springs, over winding roads with good visibility into the desert in full springtime bloom. We came back without a single dissatisfaction with the performance of the G8 GT in those qualities that matter most: engine, transmission, suspension, brakes.
The 6.0-liter overhead valve engine (like the engine in the Corvette) makes 361 horsepower and 385 pound-feet of torque, which peaks at a fairly high 4400 rpm, although the engine doesn't feel peaky. Overall, the GT feels trim. In fact, from the driver's seat, it feels smaller than it is. It has more power than any Pontiac in history (take that, you Firebird Trans-Am Ram Air big honkin' hood scoop muscle cars), but it's totally tame until you want to use that power. Then it will accelerate from 0 to 60 in 5.1 seconds and knock off the quarter-mile in 13.8. And with all that torque, the engine just lopes through places and situations that cause other sedans to take a harder swing.
But maybe the best thing about the all-new G8 is the six-speed transmission in the GT. Pontiac has joined the slim ranks of the savvy, by making a tight-shifting automatic transmission with manual control that's absolutely faithful to the driver's commands. It makes sport driving of the GT such a pleasure.
There are three modes to the Driver Shift Control transmission: Cruise, Sport and Manual. Cruise is fully automatic; Sport is automatic with more aggressive shift points, and Manual is, totally, manual. In Manual, it will short shift: that is, upshift under hard throttle but below redline. Sometimes that's a useful and smooth technique, and far too many automatic manual transmissions are programmed to disallow that; the thinking (by some engineer, somewhere) is that hard throttle means full speed means full revs. No, not necessarily.
The transmission employs rev matching for smoother downshifting, and the revs are just right. There are rational limits to the manual control, however: It won't let you downshift if the lower gear would cause the engine to reach redline where there's a rev limiter. But it will allow you to reach redline on the upshifts. It won't upshift for you, in manual mode, which you control with the lever. No paddle shifters, here. Not missed.
Cruise mode is true, too: for smooth cruising. You don't feel each downshift at every red light and stop sign. It understands gliding.
Sport mode is actually useful. Some aren't, because they just make the power delivery jerky. It can be an engineering tightrope walk, to find that happy medium between cruise and manual. It's a function of the programming and the engine characteristics. But it works with the GT.
However, Sport mode on the G8 with the V6 doesn't do much but make the shifts rougher. That's because the V6 and five-speed transmission lack the range of the V8 and six-speed. We got some good miles in the base G8, and through the twisties, in Sport mode, it kept kicking down like crazy. But it was smooth in Cruise, and true (and fun) in Manual.
The V6 is basically the same engine as in the Cadillac CTS, a 3.6-liter making 256 horsepower and 248 pound-feet of torque at a low 2100 rpm. The acceleration is good, but the exhaust note is raspy and not very pleasing, when you're hard on the throttle. On the freeway at steady light throttle, the engine is quiet.
Also, the suspension in the G8 doesn't have the same taut feel as in the GT. The variable-ratio, rack-and-pinion steering rates are different; also, the G8 brake rotors are smaller. The G8 is for those who love the style but don't really want the performance. It's less aggressive in every respect. It only gets one more highway mpg, but at least it runs on regular fuel, unlike the V8 which needs premium.
The 6.0-liter V8 engine (built in Mexico) uses active fuel management, which edges it up to its EPA rating of a combi
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