2005 Pontiac G6 GT

General Motors has had a number of perfectly decent but far from outstanding compact and mid-size cars in its stable over the past few years. They know who they are, models like the Chevy Lumina and Cavalier and the long-serving Pontiac Grand Am. These cars were okay — the automotive equivalent of a meal at McDonald’s, serviceable good-value stuff — but not really first-class road chow like Wendy’s. (Real potatoes? Meat you can identify? What’s not to love?)

GM desperately needs cars that rise to my personal “Wendy’s Standard” in order to survive in an increasingly finicky and demanding marketplace where $12,000 Hyundais have become a serious threat to $18,000 Hondas and Toyotas.

Enter the new G6, which replaces the Grand Am in Pontiac’s lineup and is the leading edge of a divisional restructuring that will include a replacement for the aging, Chevy Cavalier-based Sunfire that will be called the G4 and a new top-of-the-line Pontiac luxury-sport sedan called the G8 that will retire the current Bonneville sometime in late 2005/early 2006.

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