Euclid
05-09-2005, 04:30 PM
A New Use for the New GTO
The new GTO may not be doing very well in the civilian market, where sales are neck and neck for last place with Pontiac's latter-day Edsel, the Aztek, but cops are taking to the reborn muscle car icon like a 16-ounce cup of coffee and a dozen Bavarian cream doughnuts.
I spied my first one maybe three months ago, a red one that at first seemed to be just a new GTO, the first one I'd seen near where I live. Then I caught those wig-wag lights on the dash; otherwise, it looked dangerously, deceptively stock, the kind of car you'd be tempted (well, if you were me!) to slide up next to at a light, gun your engine and "see what she's got."
The surprise would be an ugly one.
I thought maybe it was an aberration, an asset-forfeiture/drug seizure vehicle turned to police service. But then in the paper this morning, there was an article about the Boones Mill, Va., (not far from where I live in rustic Floyd, Va.) acquiring a brand new "Goat" for service as an unmarked pursuit vehicle, a role for which the GTO's 350-hp V8 and a six-speed manual transmission are ideally suited.
Ouch.
And you can bet your bippie if small town departments like Boones Mill (a real- life Hazzard County if ever there was one) think it's worth the scratch to buy GTOs for high-speed pursuit/traffic enforcement, big city departments are going to follow suit.
It's only a matter of time before you find yourself being pulled over for a piece of paying paper by a reborn legend. And if you plan to run, son, you'd better be packing some serious heat. The '05 GTOs will have even more horsepower--an almost NASCAR 400 hp, in fact--and have 160-plus top-speed capability.
The long arm of the law just got a lot longer!
The new GTO may not be doing very well in the civilian market, where sales are neck and neck for last place with Pontiac's latter-day Edsel, the Aztek, but cops are taking to the reborn muscle car icon like a 16-ounce cup of coffee and a dozen Bavarian cream doughnuts.
I spied my first one maybe three months ago, a red one that at first seemed to be just a new GTO, the first one I'd seen near where I live. Then I caught those wig-wag lights on the dash; otherwise, it looked dangerously, deceptively stock, the kind of car you'd be tempted (well, if you were me!) to slide up next to at a light, gun your engine and "see what she's got."
The surprise would be an ugly one.
I thought maybe it was an aberration, an asset-forfeiture/drug seizure vehicle turned to police service. But then in the paper this morning, there was an article about the Boones Mill, Va., (not far from where I live in rustic Floyd, Va.) acquiring a brand new "Goat" for service as an unmarked pursuit vehicle, a role for which the GTO's 350-hp V8 and a six-speed manual transmission are ideally suited.
Ouch.
And you can bet your bippie if small town departments like Boones Mill (a real- life Hazzard County if ever there was one) think it's worth the scratch to buy GTOs for high-speed pursuit/traffic enforcement, big city departments are going to follow suit.
It's only a matter of time before you find yourself being pulled over for a piece of paying paper by a reborn legend. And if you plan to run, son, you'd better be packing some serious heat. The '05 GTOs will have even more horsepower--an almost NASCAR 400 hp, in fact--and have 160-plus top-speed capability.
The long arm of the law just got a lot longer!