Never-before-seen Pontiac G8 concept hints at alternate universe awesomeness

There are readers today that were born well after Pontiac’s collapse and probably wonder what all the fuss is about, considering we have Chevrolet and Cadillac. For you youngest viewers, Pontiac was the brand that used to be the boldest side of GM. Well, up until the 1980s when it just became a simple exercise of badge engineering. Then, there was a spark of hope with the release of the 2004 GTO, 2006 Solstice and the 2008 G8 sedan. For the briefest moment in time, it looked like Pontiac would become the brand enthusiasts had hoped for again. Then, it died. Now, with GM Design opening its vault to virtual viewers, we now see a “what if” in this 2008 Pontiac G8 concept that never even saw the light of day — until now.

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This concept, according to GM Design, is the final concept for the Pontiac brand and was created at the Advanced Studio in California. At the time, GM was failing in the throes of the Great Recession, and required two Congressional bailouts to survive. One of the stipulations of this lifeline was a requirement to reduce the number of brands it had. Pontiac was one of the four it would end up shuttering. What we and the public at large didn’t know was that GM had an interesting future for Pontiac in development before it shuttered: an all-new G8 sedan.

Never before seen

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It’s a shame the G8 Concept never saw the light of day, as it is spectacular looking and previewed what would have been a new and distinct look for the brand, different from the rest of GM's lineup. That said, the G8 Concept does show off some of the "good" broader GM corporate design language of that era. Up front, the concept wears Pontiac’s distinct grille design, but the headlights and top fender bulges are a mix of the Solstice and Cadillac CTS cues. Interestingly, this includes the hood vents like the ones found on the Saturn Sky, a departure from the nostrils typically found on high output powered Pontiacs.

Muscular and frameless

The body sides show significant fender protrusions to indicate this is part of the “wide track” performance legacy Pontiac created in the late 1950s. We also see a bit of the Camaro’s “Coke bottle” shape in the rear quarter panel. Something that would be unique for GM at this point would be that fender port that extends into the front door, a feature not seen on a modern GM car until the second generation of the Cadillac CTS. In a nod to future car design, the front door handles pop out to open the door but then return to flush when driving. The rear doors don’t have a handle and the pre-painted concept don’t show any sort of hidden opening for one, so we’d imagine this would be a touch sensor of some sort. And, yes, the doors did open on this concept, but your guess is as good as ours on how that “floating” plate in the middle of the port moved to allow it. Most likely it was a cutout that protruded into the door.

What’s also hard to tell with the windows up that the G8 concept uses frameless doors, in that there is no frame for the windows to snug into. It also means there isn’t a full B-pillar to add structural reinforcement to the center of the roof. With modern rollover standards, and especially in the EV era, it seems like a production version would probably have lost one of those two features for safety reasons.

Following the body out to the rear of the 2008 G8 concept, we see that Pontiac had intentions of taking the design language of the Solstice into much larger vehicles. The nearly the entire rear design, including the exhaust tips formed into the rear bumper, all reference that awesome little convertible. What makes the G8 concept different is the inset rear glass design with sporty side buttresses, which would still be a bold design choice today, and the Saturn Sky-like taillights. Another unique feature for a sedan at the time would be the use of a hatch over a standard decklid trunk space. Whether a production version would keep the notchback profile or go to a more sloping traditional liftback design is anyone's guess, but the the Solstice coupe's roofline could be a hint as to the direction it would have taken.

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A future Corvette-feeling interior

The performance theme extends to the interior. The G8 Concept features seating for four with individual sports seating for all passengers. The center console extends all the way into the rear passenger area and looks like the generous opening of the cargo area allows those rear seats to recline. The interesting portion is how the driver’s side is laid out. It seems to loosely preview the C8 Corvette's bold (but controversial) center console arrangement. It also looks like the steering wheel features paddles within the finger length of the person behind the wheel, but the dashboard is fully analog rather than the large screen we’re all now used to in modern cars. The center pod between the tachometer and speedometer is a shift position indicator. We can’t help but feel that it also would have been the perfect location for a shift light, as well.

What would have been

We know, we know. The production G8 wouldn’t have been this wild, but it doesn't seem like the G8 Concept was created in vain — some of its elements can be found in subsequent GM vehicles. And even if a production G8 were watered down, the surviving influences would have made it a handsome and interesting vehicle. Could it have been a winning sport sedan? That’s hard to say, but the G8 that Pontiac actually built is generally considered to be a modern classic, and the subsequent GM sport sedans, like the Cadillac CT-series, have been dynamically excellent. It’s a fun what-if story at best because — at the end of the day — Pontiac is dead and not looking like it will be revived anytime soon.

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