Car and Driver - USA (2020-05)

84 ILLUSTRATION BY ANDY POTTS ~ MAY 2020 ~ CAR AND DRIVER

... AND ONE WORTH GIVING UP ON

IT’S TIME TO ADMIT THAT THE MODERN EL CAMINO

THAT ALMOST WAS, NEVER WILL BE.

If Lao Tzu and the 1988 Pontiac Fiero GT

are right that the flame that burns twice

as bright burns half as long, how brightly

must the flame burn that is extinguished

before it even ignites? As General Motors

stumbled into the Great Recession, Pon-

tiac revived the Chevrolet El Camino,

introducing the G8 ST (for “sport truck”)

at the 2 008 New York auto show. Shar-

ing its powertrain with the G8 GT, the ST

combined 3 61 horsepower, a six-speed

automatic, and a lightly loaded rear axle.

Visions of oversteer danced in our heads.

GM intended to make the ST by rebadg-

ing one of its Australia-market models, the

ungracefully named Holden Ute, which

took the front half of a Commodore sedan

(sold in the U.S. as the G8) and married

it to a short pickup bed. In Australia, the

things were so popular, there was a racing

series in which they battled against Ford

Falcon Utes, the Ranchero of its day.

Performance wasn’t limited to the

track, though. While GM’s LS engine family

was Hulking into ever more muscular deriv-

atives here, the same engines kept ending

up in Utes Down Under. Dubbed Maloo, after

an aboriginal word for “thunder,” perform-

ance editions topped out at 58 3 horse-

power in the Holden Special Vehicles GTSR.

But on our shores, none of it was to

be. Less than a year after the G8 ST’s

debut, Pontiac called off the plan as part

of a desperate restructuring. Just three

months later, GM announced it would pull

the plug on the entire Pontiac brand. The

unreasonably optimistic might have held

out hope for the return of the sport truck

as a spinoff of the Chevrolet SS, but then

the Ute died as Holden shuttered its Aus-

tralian manufacturing facility in 2017. And

GM announced in February that it will dis-

continue the Holden brand altogether. So

really, you can stop waiting. —Jared Gall

ARE YOU

STILL HERE?

—

Fine. We’ll let you in on

a secret. You actually can

get a G8 ST or a Holden

Ute in the U.S. after all.

The folks at Left Hand Utes

in Colorado import the

trucks from Australia,

strip them down, and then

rebuild them using just

enough parts from a

Chevy SS or Caprice or

a Pontiac G8 or GTO so

that they can be titled and

registered in the states.

Prices range from

$35,000 to $125,000.