AUGUST 2019 CARCRAFT.COM 47showroom-fresh and lightly used front-drive 1995-up Monte
Carlos were all over the roads of New England. Their sporty
flair and front-wheel drive allowed year-round traction—
with style.
Buyers agreed, from 1995 through the end on June 19,
2007, when the last Monte Carlo rolled out of GM-Canada’s
Oshawa assembly plant. A total of 675,891 front-wheel-drive
(W-body) Monte Carlos were built. They couldn’t have been
that bad!
Brian agrees: “These were the cars that were new and
exciting when I was a teenager and getting my license. In
the early 2000s, GM had done away with the RWD F-body
Camaro/Firebird platform, and at $44,800, Corvettes were
way out of sight financially. But the Monte Carlos, Impalas,
and Pontiac GTPs, these were the affordable domestic plat-
forms of my generation.” With hard work, Brandon enjoyed
his senior year at high school (2005) wheeling a used 2000
V6 Monte Carlo.
So when Chevrolet announced the LS4 5.3L V8 option for
SS models in 2006, Brandon was curious. “It was the first
V8-powered Monte Carlo since 1988 and was a rocket ship
compared to the old-school Monte Carlo SS with its retro
Quadrajet carburetor. But with list prices starting at $32,000,
buying one new was out of the question.
This led Brandon to own and explore a string of used
Monte Carlos with the next-best-thing L67 supercharged