Pontiac may be gone, but it left behind some of the coolest, most ambitious vehicles America has ever produced. However, one enthusiast couldn’t decide what he liked better between the modern Solstice roadster and the classic GTO muscle car, so he decided to mix the two.
This mix of cars combines elements from 1965 and 2005. And as is usually the case, the generation gap results in a real eyesore, like wearing your grandpa’s jacket to the club or grandma getting her first tattoo.
But the more you look at it… the more you wonder why somebody went to all that trouble. This build has just popped up on Reddit’s WeirdWheels, but it’s actually a few years old. The first sighting I could find dates back to 2016.
There’s no kit to face-swap a GTO/Tempest LeMans onto the Pontiac roadster. So the car is a one-off and most likely the creation of a fiberglass expert with too much free time. The whole front end must be a big clamshell that needs two people to remove, since there’s no room for hinges.
The 1965-67 GTO is obviously a different kind of car. It arrived at the dawn of the muscle car era was distinctive due to its vertically-stacked quad headlights. The roadster has also received parts of the grille and had its hood re-shaped a little.
A custom bumper has also been rolled onto the front end, immediately clashing with some of the more modern-looking elements, such as the chromed wheels. For the record, the Solstice is only about 2 inches narrower, so the transformation isn’t totally uncanny.
Body swaps, a common thing for Corvettes and Miatas
When I first saw this, I immediately thought of the Mazda Miata, not the Solstice. Pontiac’s 2005-2010 roadster was never the target of butchering. But MX-5s are often chopped up. There’s a company in Japan that even turns them into mini C2 Corvettes.
Speaking of the Chevy sports car. The Solstice has been dubbed the “anti-Corvette” by some. And due to their fiberglass bodywork, Vettes are often transformed into something else. Classic Reflection Coachworks can make a C6 look like it was made in the 1960s, for example.
In case you’re wondering, the Solstice didn’t have engines that could rival the Covette, but it did oppose the Miata quite well. You had a choice of a 2.4-liter naturally-aspirated L4 making 177 hp or a 2.0-liter turbo, making 260 horsepower. A dealer-fitted option could boost output to 290 hp, which isn’t bad for that era.
The Solstice rode on the KM Kappa platform, shared with the Saturn Sky, Opel GT, and Daewoo G2X, which were nearly identical. This was Pontiac’s first 2-seat sports car since the Fiero, but also its last, since the brand was killed off in the wake of the 2008 recession.
