Michael Passarge's 2008 Pontiac G8/GT

Vehicle Features Dave MacKinnon | Photos by Mark Privitera

For those of us with a little bit of petrol flowing in our veins, it made no sense for General Motors to ax the Pontiac division, even if it made sense on paper. One of the coolest Pontiac products of the last decade was the G8/GT. The 2008 sample you see here is owned by Michael Passarge of Las Vegas NV, and he’s got a bit of a thing for high end audio, which we’ll get to shortly.

Over the course of the past four years, Passarge has been massaging this Ignition Orange Metallic 6.0 Liter GT into something that meets his needs and urges far better than what the General could offer. The car now rolls on S3 Sport Design wheels sized at 20 by 8 inches all the way around. Sticky BF Goodrich rubber keeps the car firmly planted to the ground. Speaking of the ground, a set of Road Magnet springs dropped the G8’s altitude for a little more attitude. A BMR Fabrication front strut bar and 14” Brembo brakes round out the handling upgrades. A Rotofab intake and Flowmaster exhaust help the mighty 8 breathe effortlessly.

Opening a door reveals some subtle and tasteful changes to the interior. The seats are adorned in new Katskin upholstery in Tuscany leather with an orange stitch. The dash and shifter trim were treated to orange paint details that accent without going overboard. In the center of the dash is a JHP HSV triple gauge pod that is home to Prosport EVO oil pressure, oil temp and voltage gauges.

The audio system install started with the vehicle’s interior being completely removed for three layers of Damplifier Pro and a layer of Luxury Liner Pro. The disassembly allowed the vehicle’s Stinger power, speaker and interconnect cables to be routed cleanly through the car.

The system uses the stock head unit which sends signals to an Arc Audio SRI line level processor and on to an Arc XEQ for fine tuning. In the trunk are three Arc Audio amplifiers: a four channel KS.300.4 Bi-amped to the front speakers, a two channel KS300.2 bridged to the subs and the ever-cool 125.2 Mini driving the rears for a total system power production capability of 1,300 Watts.

The front factory speaker locations are in the doors of the big Pontiac. In those spots is a set of Arc Audio ARC Series 6.2 6.5-inch component speakers. The tweeter from the set was mounted in the factory tweeter location at the base of the A-pillar. Out back, as set of Arc Audio ARC Series 602 6.5-inch coaxial speakers fill out the sound.

Bass frequencies are reproduced by a pair of Arc Audio ARC12D4 subwoofers that are mounted in a custom fibreglass enclosure. The enclosure was constructed out of ten layers of three ounce fibreglass mat so that it would be incredibly rigid. The subs fire down into the spare tire well but are visible through plexiglass windows.

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