Holden had serious trouble finding a name for its big meanie until one of their technical staff stumbled across it on the Monaro Shire offices while on holiday in Cooma. There are no coincidences. One of the men responsible for the Monaro lines that ran like arteries of aggravation over the staid old HK bath tub was John Schinella, a talented young designer on loan from Detroit. He was to later impart the same sense of urgency over the whole passenger car range on the arrival of the HQ.
Latin blood ran through his veins and it was he who is credited with applying the GTS tag to the sportier versions of the Monaro in sympathy for Ferrari. For what it is worth, GT in Italian is Gran Turismo. Add an S for GTS in Ferrari speak and you get Gran Turismo Spyder or an open roof version. Add a B for GTB and that means it's a Gran Turismo Berlinetta or a two seater fixed head coupe. It is a nomenclature used to this day on Ferraris. The Monaro was often ruthless, never roofless. The Monaro gave GTS its own special Australian meaning. Today's GTS superimposes a more authentic European flavour over the brute force of the early Monaros. The local GTS lineage is a story of being there when the time was right and absent when it wasn't.
