GM kills Pontiac G8 Sport Truck

The modern-day El Camino has fallen victim to General Motors’ urgent efforts to reduce spending and refocus its brands as the automaker fights to survive.

Dealers were told that the new Pontiac G8 Sport Truck, the car-pickup slated to hit the market later this year, has been killed, Pontiac spokesman Jim Hopson said.

“We always knew that it was going to be very low volume” vehicle, he said. “This would have been an extreme specialty vehicle. … From a long-term standpoint, especially with where the brand is moving, it just didn’t make sense.”

The design of the G8 Sport Truck recalled the Chevrolet El Camino, which GM ended production of in 1988, after tighter fuel rules for cars made small pickups more competitive. GM’s U.S. production of the El Camino -- and the GMC Caballero -- peaked in 1973 at nearly 72,000.

The new Sport Truck vehicle was unveiled last spring at the New York auto show.

“It definitely sparked a lot of buzz that GM would bring back what would’ve been a very unique vehicle for the market place,” Mike Levine, editor of pickuptrucks.com, said.

However, it would have been a vehicle with a limited audience. Levine said he didn’t think annual sales would have topped 5,000.

“It was a very polarizing truck. You either loved it or hated it. Those people that got it, really got it,” Levine said. “They wanted a Camaro with a bed for all intents and purposes.”

The new vehicle was going to be a cousin of the Pontiac G8 sport sedan, which was the first vehicle from GM’s Australia-based global rear-wheel drive architecture to be used in the United States. Other versions of the G8, including the sedan, will continue, Hopson said.

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