GM and  Chrysler showed off their big guns in New York yesterday while the Hemmings crew scarfed down hot dogs, shopped for camera supplies and punished their livers at one of New York’s most notorious dust mite breeding grounds. Read on if your stomach can handle it…
O.K, we’ll start off gently and work our way down to the most shocking things that this Hemmings blog correspondent witnessed in New York yesterday. Here’s a GM handout photo of the Pontiac G8 GXP, replete with a thundering 402hp 6.2-liter small block and a Tremec six-speed manual transmission. The General says it should good for 0 to 60 mph in 4.7 seconds and a 13-second quarter, plus it handles and stops. Just the thing for blowing off haute tuned-up German sedans and the poseurs who love them.
This is the Pontiac G8 sport truck–another import from GM’s Australian arm, Holden. The General says it “blurs the line between cars and trucks” and “is creating an all-new segment in the North American car market.” I say it blurs the lines between the 1982 Dodge Rampage and every other Pontiac built in the last 15 years with that over-the-top bird-of-prey nose treatment. I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict it will outsell the Lincoln Blackwood by a two-to-one margin (approximately 25 total units) before the plug is mercifully pulled.
Be still my heart: The 620hp, supercharged ZR-1. Not to mindlessly parrot GM propaganda, but they’re boasting that it has a better power-to-weight ratio than the Porsche 911 GT2, the Ferrari 599 and the Lamborghini LP640. It’s supposed to run 0-60 mph in under 4 seconds and break the 200 mph mark in sixth gear. The hood, fenders, that front splitter and the roof are all made out of carbon fiber, which help the car weigh in at 3,350 pounds. Get one, if you can swing it, before $5-per-gallon gas forces history to repeat itself on muscle car era version 2.0.
Even a ninny like me can see that this is going to be a home run and a future collectible. Feast your eyes upon the 2009 Dodge Challenger SRT8 with a 425hp 6.1-liter HEMI, and an available new-for-2009 six-speed Tremec manual transmission or a five-speed automatic transmission with Auto Stick. You can’t see it in this photo but the small rear deck lid spoiler is black to match the stripes and the front air dam. Dodge stylists deserve a standing ovation for exercising so much restraint on this rig.
And if you’re short on cash and gas money, there’s also going to be a V-6 version of the Challenger: the Dodge Challenger SE powered by a 3.5-liter V-6 with a four-speed automatic transmission. It’ll have 250 horsepower and prices are supposed to start in the low $20,000s.
Since we were in New York, home to some of the world’s finest restaurants, Hemmings Sports and Exotic Cars editor Craig Fitzgerald led us all to a place where they serve hot dogs and bananas, or something. I honestly can’t say because I decided this would be a perfect day to start skipping lunch. Pictured clockwise from left, most of the Hemmings delegation: Ed Heys, Daniel Strohl, Matt Litwin, Jim O’Clair, Fitzgerald, Richard Lentinello, Tom Comerro and (pictured right, facing the camera in the blue and gray coat, enjoying something out of a cup) David LaChance.
Full of tube-shaped grub (actually, I think we might’ve been here before lunch, but then you don’t really care anyway, do you?) we went to one of New York’s 9.7 kagillion camera/electronics stores, where some of us shopped for stuff that should eventually make our magazines even more richly illustrated. Subscribe now so you don’t miss anything.
Our final stop was at McFilthy’s, er I mean McSorley’s Old Ale House where the only thing older than the tapestries of dust hanging from the light fixtures are the microscopic organisms living in them. At McSorely’s you’ll delight in a wide selection of not one but two types of beer, cleverly known as “light” and “dark” as well as goofy tourists like us taking pictures of each other. Pictured here, left to right, are Messrs LaChance, Terry McGean, Jim Donnelly, Fitzgerald and Heys. A finer group of drinking associates you won’t find, other than, of course, the rest of the Hemmings guys who wisely chose not to be in this picture.
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