Cool Wall: 2000-2007 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS

  • Thread starter Snikle
  • 16 comments
  • 2,625 views

2000-2007 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS


  • Total voters
    45
  • Poll closed .
1,090
United States
United States
Poll 1468: 2000-2007 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS nominated by @GranTurNismo
1641588369653.png

Body Style: 2-door coupe
Engine: 3.8L L36 V6, 3.8L supercharged L67 V6, 5.3L LS4 V8
Power: 200hp (2000-2003), 240hp (2004-2005), 305hp (2006-2007)
Torque: 225-323 lb-ft
Weight: 1540-1600kg
Transmission: 4-speed automatic
Drivetrain: front engine, front-wheel drive
Additional Information: The last full-sized FWD performance coupe. A minor facelift was given in 2006 to match the styling of the redesign of the Impala that it's based on. Given the sharp decline in sales toward the end of it's life, the Monte Carlo did not live on to see another generation after it's 2007 discontinuation.
maxresdefault.jpg

2006-Chevrolet-Monte%20Carlo-FrontSide_CHMON061_505x375.jpg

maxresdefault.jpg

29772771-2004-chevrolet-monte-carlo-thumb.jpg

2004_chevrolet_monte-carlo_coupe_ss_i_oem_1_500.jpg

Dale Earnhardt Edition:
2004_chevrolet_monte_carlo_1553786681d208495dIMG_1368-e1554484948664.jpg
 
Last edited:
The proportions of this car have always looked strange to me. The cabin is so far forward and the window doesn't go back far enough leaving so much blank space on the side of the car, only broken by those weird haunches. And the 2006 facelift looks laughable, with the new front removing any sense of sportiness, leaving only the strange body to hint at whatever performance there may be. It's not all bad, some of the engines are probably a hoot, and the pre-facelift front end is alright. A resounding meh, which is probably still cooler than most other Chevrolets from the time.
 
Mostly dedicated NASCAR Chevrolet fans loved this car. I would see this car being driven on the road at times, but never to any serious degree. I even fancied this model Chevrolet Monte Carlo in NASCAR. That even included my beloved Jeff Gordon and then later Jimmie Johnson. As for this car here, no real reason to be excited for this car. It just... lives. Easy Meh call for me.
 
This was made when GM was at their peak of making garbage vehicles. I actually haven’t seen one around here in years, I’m assuming they’re all rotten by now. Uncool.
 
Last edited:
Surprised you could buy this with a V8 but that doesn't mean it's that cool...
Having said that, I would own one (the SS especially) but the car itself is uncool.
 
This was made when GM was at their peak of making garbage vehicles. I actually haven’t seen one around here in years, I’m assuming they’re all rotten by now. Uncool.
The only ones that are left are the few with the Earnhardt-themed trim packages that pop up in auto trader magazines every few years with very optimistic asking prices, and even the carefully preserved examples of those are a bit shabby looking just because GM vehicles of that era were destined to aggressively fall apart at the end of their warranty period.

That said, this car would have been mostly forgotten about if not for its NASCAR connection, and once the sport fell out of the general public's interest after Dale Sr. was murdered by NASCAR officials to keep him from surpassing Richard Petty*, that's mostly what did happen. Leasing taking priority over selling in the mid 2000's just put the final nail in its coffin, nobody wanted to pay glorified rental fees for a car that developed a reputation for high maintenance and low reliability.

The Earnhardt Jr. themed "E-stripe" ones do amuse me though, not just for the cynical marketing aspect of it but also because that would eventually be the part of his career that Junior wants to forget about entirely, so it's appropriate that a forgettable car is attached to it. Uncool.

*Did you know that even 20+ years later, there are still people who think this is true?
 
I'm going to ignore all of the "INTIMIDATOR SS" and horrible styling and catastrophic early 2000s GM quality and that this is basically just an elaborate refresh of a car that was already showing its age when it was new in 1995, and focus instead on one thing:

1644671750248.png


R.0dfa5b70491e25daa68d91b5ef59da69



Story time:





Back when the W-Body was new, Pontiac bolted a turbo on their top spec V6 at the time, leading to a massive 70+ jump in horsepower but curiously only 40 more pound feet for a total of 205/220. It still made it a reasonable performance car for the times, though Pontiac had clearly had goals higher than "slightly less performance than what the SHO already had" when making it; particularly since the car-specific engine that the Grand Prix Turbo had pushed prices way beyond being competitive with the most obvious contemporary.

1990-Pontiac-Grand-Prix-ASC-McLaren-Turbo-engine.jpg



Knowing that wasn't a long term solution, GM as a whole went and bolted a DOHC head onto their normal pushrod V6 (making it both fantastic sounding and impossible to service). It was noted at the time that they had intended to make it had 250/250 in preproduction (which would blow even the later V8 SHO into the weeds) and had reliably tested the engine to 275 hp; but ultimately had to detune it to 210/225 stop it from eating the manual drivetrain (and detune it even further when paired with a slushbox to keep it from destroying the automatic). This is, of course, kind of pathetic, since at this point GM had spent 3 years developing a Taurus SHO competitor and come up with something that essentially was only "as good" as the SHO immediately before the Taurus went through a full model change and only as good if you weren't paying for the maintenance costs.

R.8c790896dc6044b28b993c52a93c80c0



This engine soldered on, destroying people's wallets in spark plug changes, until it was replaced with the normally aspirated Buick V6. A notable drop on horsepower (down to 200/225) and character, but in all honestly only barely worse performing (6 years is a long time for a performance engine to basically not be improved upon) and significantly more reliable, much cheaper to build and service, and more fuel efficient; and besides at that point GM had largely abandoned trying to make actually sporty cars out of the W-Body (outside of Pontiac who kept putting up the good fight) since Ford had also basically given up when the oval Taurus SHO met the market with a thud.

1644673994928.png



Clearly, ~225 lb-ft of torque is a magic number for this:

R.0dfa5b70491e25daa68d91b5ef59da69




And conveniently that brings us all the way up to speed to today's subject, since Chevrolet not horribly tried to shoehorn already questionable 1970s RWD car styling cues into an upright stubby-looking FWD car, but they continued by adding wholesale name debasement by applying "SS" and horrible NASCAR theming to something that had no more power than mid-trim Accord or Taurus. But we'll ignore those things others have already touched on in order to continue the theme of this post.


2004 has rolled around. The Grand Prix coupe is discontinued and the Camaro is long gone, so Chevrolet is finally interested in actually adding some sport to the Monte Carlo Super Sport.

pa0714-195050_3.jpg


240 horsepower, 280 pound feet of torque. Finally, this engine makes its way to the Chevrolet W-Body. It's 7 years after Pontiac had put it in their Grand Prix and so late that now you can get an Accord and Altima coupe with the same amount of horsepower and a 6 speed (and that the Grand Prix moved on to a more powerful version with 260 hp), but hey, at least things are looking up. I'm sure GM also did stuff to make sure that, having finally broken the ~225 mark, the transmission will finally be upgraded to deal with the problems that had plagued it all the way back to 1989; especially since Pontiac has been putting that engine in thousands of cars for nearly a decade now.


Right?

Wow look new engines!

R.59a10f8cee897a6cf1d3f5a9415590ef

2150_1410069_21939714_1402121402019.jpg


The skinflint model is even more powerful than the SS of just a few years ago, with 211/214! And the the mid-spec engine breaks the mark of the immediately previous SS, with 242/242! Those Accord coupe drivers can't make fun of you now (yes they can, and just stay away from Altima Coupe drivers)!




And then all of the engine gaskets on it disintegrate at once because GM rushed the 3800 out of production; then the tranny grenades anyway.


Nevermind wow look here's a V8!

2008_pontiac_grand_prix_gxp-pic-3021841640306265728-640x480.jpeg


303 hp! 323 ft-lbs! Even the Northstar owners can't make fun of you now!



Wait what was that transmission rated for?




1644676745602.png




Oh well I'm sure that GM significantly upgraded the internals when they started attaching it to engines that have exactly that amount of torque (or 15% more).


Right?

1644677684895.png


Oh.










"But wait," you may say, "How come Cadillac sold hundreds of thousands of Northstars that had more torque across more RPM than any but the latest of W-Body cars and the last problem any of those has is the transmission even when being used as hearses or limos?"



Well:

4T80Evs4T60E4.jpg

4T80Evs4T60E1.jpg

4T80Evs4T60E5.jpg


Northstars always used the 4T80 (the big transmission) even when put in the Aurora, and W-Body cars always used the 4T6x (the small transmission) even when attached to engines more powerful than the FWD Northstar ever was.









Now I'm not saying that the Monte Carlo specifically is why GM declared bankruptcy immediately after it was discontinued. But selling millions of cars as corner-cut and underveloped as the Monte Carlo was across two decades, up to and including selling hundreds of thousands of cars with engines more powerful than the transmission they were attached to was rated to handle (a problem that GM knew was going to be an issue almost immediately after the platform debuted in 1987), probably did have something to do with it.




Now credit to Oldsmobile and especially Pontiac, because they both tried to turn the W-Body into actually-good cars and mostly just kind of hit the wall at GM foisting increasingly uncompetitive pap on them as bases to work from (and look at how the brands were rewarded for their efforts). But the Impala? The Monte Carlo? The Regal and Century? Hopeless.
 
Last edited:
Cool. Pontiac version looked better, IMO.

I owned the Pontiac version of this car and loved it. Comfortable, reliable, large trunk, decent mpg's for the size and performance. Also fast (with the L67) and impressive in the snow.

Never had an issue with it's 4T65-HD, which held up to me far exceeding the torque rating, and reprogramming it to do 3-1 & 4-2 downshifts. (laying rubber at 40mph was fun)

I'd still have it today if it hadn't rusted away thanks to the aftermarket sunroof drain.
 
I remember little me thinking these were awesome in the early 2000s. Probably because anything sporty-looking with two doors was exciting to me. Also on my street there was a black one with the red and silver trim like Dale Earnhardt's NASCAR. I learned later on that it was a special edition to commemorate him. That was pretty neat actually looking back on it. Probably the most interesting car in my whole town besides the last-gen orange Mitsubishi Eclipse.

Actually I shouldn't say that. There was a metallic blue BMW Z3 running around my town at one point, that's probably the coolest car I can remember.

Anyways, I miss the Monte Carlo and Jeff Gordon's iconic rainbow DuPont livery back when I actually cared about NASCAR, but the street car sucks and Imma give it an uncool. It's like "what if we took a 4th gen Camaro, but made it worse in literally every way". That's this car.

So yeah probably best that Chevrolet only keeps two sports cars around now.
 
Last edited:
Peak W-Body. Official "sports car" of the rust belt. Chances are you'll find crystal meth residue or an empty pill bottle for suboxone in the cup holder of one of these. As for the car itself, it looks quite clumsy, clearly burdened by its FWD proportions. Though, it didn’t really have any competitors. After all, it is a full-sized coupe, a breed of car that died long before the Monte Carlo finally ended production in 2007. It’s quite bigger than an Accord Coupe or Camry Solara. The early models were quite frankly, ridiculously underpowered. They could churn out a 0-60 time in the mid 8 second range, about what the Cavalier/Sunfire could do at the time. Even with 305hp they weren’t especially fast, having been unable to break 6.2 seconds in the 0-60. Nevertheless, the Monte Carlo, at least from 2000-2005, sold decently well, as they seemed to be a hit with blue-collar folks who wanted something big, cheap, and a little sporty. After all, there was really quite nothing like it left on the market. It was bigger, but cheaper than a Grand Prix coupe, so I guess you could say there was a niche market for it.

I do wonder though, why was GM so insistent on stuffing a measly 4-speed automatic in literally every “sports car” of theirs other than the Corvette and Camaro in their lineup, from the 1990s all the way to the late 2000s? Things like that are one of the main reasons why GM’s glammed-up “sporty coupes” of this era weren’t taken as serious competitors to the imports. A 6-speed manual would be nice, but even just a 5-speed manual or a more responsive 5-speed auto is a much better bet. Was there really no other transmission GM could use in its W-Bodies than the outdated 4-speed? Perhaps that’s a question @Tornado could answer.

Anyway, uncool.
 
Last edited:
Mk1 Hyundai Tiburon that's going through that awkward phase of puberty? Very oddly proportioned and nothing interesting in the detailing. Uncool.
 
Mk1 Hyundai Tiburon that's going through that awkward phase of puberty? Very oddly proportioned and nothing interesting in the detailing. Uncool.
I don't see the connection. For starters, the Monte Carlo is nearly three feet longer than a Mk.1 Tiburon.
 
Now I'm not saying that the Monte Carlo specifically is why GM declared bankruptcy immediately after it was discontinued. But selling millions of cars as corner-cut and underveloped as the Monte Carlo was across two decades, up to and including selling hundreds of thousands of cars with engines more powerful than the transmission they were attached to was rated to handle (a problem that GM knew was going to be an issue almost immediately after the platform debuted in 1987), probably did have something to do with it.




Now credit to Oldsmobile and especially Pontiac, because they both tried to turn the W-Body into actually-good cars and mostly just kind of hit the wall at GM foisting increasingly uncompetitive pap on them as bases to work from (and look at how the brands were rewarded for their efforts). But the Impala? The Monte Carlo? The Regal and Century? Hopeless.
Okay, I just voted meh for this car, but your um...criticism made me think I was too generous. :lol:
Let me guess, was Roger Smith why this car and its transmission was such a disaster aswell?
 
Back