From the outside, the G8 appears to be a beefed-up family four door. Now we’ve seen a lot of this style vehicle over the years, and many of them have been pretty good. However, most of the true fast-family rides have hailed from Germany and lately, Japan. Now I’m not going to take anything away from the Germans because they do produce some wonderful cars, if you’re willing to pay the price. Even the Japanese seem capable of this, although they’ve also placed a price premium on these types of vehicles.

This, in many ways, has left most U.S. manufacturers lagging behind. Oh yes, we North Americans are extremely apt at lobbing honking great V8’s into reasonably priced four-door family vehicles, but these creations always seem to suffer in the handling department (If you don’t believe me, check out any Euro Journalist’s website to see what they really think of our vehicles).

Enter the G8, because this vehicle not only performs, but it also handles extremely well, and it is reasonably priced (The G8 range starts at just $31,995).

My test vehicle featured the 3.6L DOHC V6 VVT engine, which was coupled to a 5 speed automatic transmission with driver shift control and sport mode. It was also loaded with everything which you’d expect from a vehicle like this, including a very nice 7 speaker Blaupunkt stereo (Yes, I know, German!).

The G8 looks and feels like a typical American car. It is of reasonable size, which is perhaps because the Australians also live in a large country and don’t feel the need to cram everything into a small Euro-box design.

However, that’s pretty much where the similarities end because once you set off in the G8, you start to realize that it is something slightly different from what we’re normally accustomed to with N.A. vehicles. The vehicle seems incredibly tight. It doesn’t float and pitch all over the place like many U.S. made vehicles. Perhaps the best way that I can describe it is this... it’s like an American car where the manufacturer ran out of N.A. suspension parts at the factory, so they borrowed some from Audi, or some other German manufacturer.

Don’t believe me? Well, I would have loved to have been able to provide you with glorious shots of me throwing the G8 around the twists and turns, but unfortunately our Canadian weather had other plans (See photo gallery).

So let me point you towards a great video review of this vehicle from a colleague of mine (And fellow Brit), Mr Graham Fletcher of Motoring TV. Click on the link below and watch Graham put the G8 through its paces, and then you tell me that this vehicle doesn’t handle!

http://www.motoringtv.com/singleviewclip.php?section=test_drive&vName=seg_TD09Ep11.flv&yr=2009

Graham says it all in his last comment, “Why has it taken GM so long to come up with this?”

I couldn’t agree more! The G8 is a wonderful vehicle and is truly worthy of the Pontiac nameplate. It took a while getting here, and it might have a little overseas blood in its veins, but this is exactly what we’ve been yearning for from Pontiac... A true GM that performs!

Graham's G8 Video courtesy of Bradford Productions. To view more great automotive news and reviews from Motoring TV, visit  http://www.motoringtv.com/ or watch them Saturday mornings on TSN