Here we go again — the always churning, ever yearning, never learning rumor mill is speculating that Pontiac might be headed for an Oldsmobile style fate (i.e. murdered without dignity). But I remember that when Olds was put down, it had no reason to live. Does Pontiac? And seeing as how my very first car was a Pontiac, do I care if the brand gets driven off one final cliff? Looking at their line up, that’s a tough call. Shall we go one by one? G6 — meh. G5 — double meh. The new G3 (a rebadged Chevy Aveo) is actually grounds for homocide. Grand Prix? OK, that’s just sad. I mean, it’s old, not much bigger than the G6, and its only selling point — you can get the maniac GXP version with a V8 — has been rendered moot by the G8. Torrent — what the hell’s a Torrent? Anyhow, I couldn’t care less. The all new Vibe is a Toyota Corolla. So far, I wouldn’t shed a tear. The Solstice. Oooooh. Suddenly my heart is in this. The Solstice is gorgeous, and a wonderful counter punch to all that the General has accomplished over the last three decades (outliers like the Vette and GNX excepted). Then there’s the aforementioned G8. You will be reading my review of this car next week but let me just say that in my mind the G8 and the G8 alone is reason enough not to kill Pontiac. What do you think?
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I, for one, will miss Pontiac if it goes away. My first car that I purchased fully with my own money was a Grand Prix and I followed that with another Grand Prix (this time GTP). I have a soft spot in my heart for Pontiac, and I think they should keep them around for the styling (I like it) and make it the sports car portion. Let’s have Chevy make bread and butter cars and Pontiac make fast ones.
Its funny, because living in Michigan I’m surrounded by people who honestly believe that Pontiac is the most popular of GM’s brands. They don’t seem to grasp the concept that they’re all nothing but re-badges.
The only thing they have going for them is nostalgia. I won’t be any more or less nostalgic when they are gone.
I thought that the Grand Prix is already dead. The Solstice is supposed to die soon, if this site is accurate, and it should have been a Chevrolet anyway from day one. The G8 is a wonderful car, but I’ll bet GM isn’t too committed to it, and it should have been a Chevrolet, too.
The Pontiac everyone remembers fondly – the Pontiac of the 1960s; the Pontiac that produced the screaming-chicken Trans Ams of the 1970s – died years ago. As with Oldsmobile, this is a case of putting another brand whose best days are long gone out of its misery.
Too late; it’s already dead. GM needs to get down to Chevy and Caddy, STAT.
(Said with fond memories of those great Pontiacs of the 60s — GTO, Grand Prix, Bonneville, and Catalina 2+2.)
I’ll cry for the idea of Pontiac – that GM has given up any pretensions of a sporty brand, and will churn out Malibus and Impalas for the masses.
I won’t miss it.
The Solstice is going away ($10k loss a car?), so why not just rebadge the G8 as a Chevy, drop the rest, and call it a day? Isn’t that what happened to Geo?
Short of sorting out the dealers, of course…
I say kill it. The G8 could just as easily be a Chevy, or a Buick. The Solstice is dead after its model run and look at what you are left with.
Although I dont it is necessary to kill the entire brand, just most of the lineup. It could still make sense to have it as an outlet for Holdens and other performance models from other markets. What needs to be done though is to kill any stand alone Pontiac dealer so in the future the Pontiac/Buick/GMC dealer can cope with having no more than 2 strictly performance oriented Pontiac’s on the lot. Get rid of the G6, G5, G3, Vibe and Torrent.
The G8 and Solstice is a pretty nice lineup. It would compliment 2-3 Buick models and 2 GMC models on the same dealership lot very well.
Bottom line, if GM’s RWD program doesnt have a future, neither does Pontiac. I guess its a lot of coulds and woulds, the brand is expendable and the writing is on the wall.
My first car that I purchased was also a Grand Prix (’87) and for that reason, I’d shed no tears over Pontiac’s death. I can still hear the squeaks and rattles from that nasty interior, still remember that disgusting dealership, and still mourn the money I lost on it’s blown transmission + horrible depreciation. Worst car ownership experience of my life.
If GM could make Pontiac a full RWD lineup, from the compacts to the large sedans, like BMW, then it would have a reason to live.
But Pontiac’s price points aren’t right for a full RWD lineup, and that’s supposed to be Cadillac’s thing anyway. Isn’t a new smaller RWD Caddy supposed to be coming?
The Sky looks better than the lame duck Solstice (although the Solstice Targa is hot), and moving the G8 over to Chevy would allow for a proper Impala and a proper El Camino.
Back in the early 50s, when I was a bright new fighter pilot, every few weeks the local Pontiac dealer would park a shiny new Pontiac in front of our apartment, knock on the door, and hand us the key with “Try it for a few days.” I’ll bet I test drove at least a dozen Pontiacs. I ended up buying a Studebaker coupe that I stll recall fondly.
I never bit on a Pontiac, but a lot of the other newly prosperous pilots did.
Pontiac…Pontiac…tryin’ to remember. Um.
Didn’t George Washington cross the Pontiac at night to fight the British?
I won’t cry for the Torrent or the G4 or the Grand Prix. I will cry for the G8, the Solstice, the Fiero, the GTO, the Firebird, and all the other cars Pontiac made/has made that [at least tried to] lived up to their image, and weren’t merely clone-car filler (okay, I guess the Firebird was kind of a clone-car, but at least it was sporty).
What I will cry about is the fact that if Pontiac dies, so will the Zeta platform in North America.
My first two cars were Pontiacs (’76 Ventura & ’78 Firebird) and among the GM clan they were my favorite. The tupperware cars they built in the 80’s and 90’s were so unappealing that I wrote them off years ago. The new GTO made me notice them once more. The Solstice got my attention. The G8 had me rooting for them again.
But short of obtaining DeLorean’s DNA and making a clone to put in charge of a proper Pontiac Motor Division, you just know that however bright the possibilities, GM will just screw it up.
Kill the Poncho? One of those heart says ‘No!’ head says ‘Meh’ dilemmas.
I’m a big time Pontiac fan. I own 3 right now, and my family has owned about 12 overall.
Even on a G5-type rebage, putting the arrowhead on a car causes me to like it enough to at least give it a glancing look.
If GM does need to get rid of the brand, then I will really miss it.
Kill it. There’s no real reason for it to exist – the Solstice and G8 can be renamed and moved under the Chevrolet umbrella rather easily. Come to think of it the Solstice wouldn’t really have to be renamed but the G8 most likely would. Every other model in their lineup is irrelevant or a rebadge.
I recall GM saying a while back that they wanted to turn Pontiac into an American BMW… what happened? All they did was rebadge some Holden’s. And rebadging Holden’s does not BMW’s make.
I love Pontiac – at least what I remember Pontiac to be. The ’60’s were the time to really be a Pontiac fan. I am trying to gain some favor for the G8 but their website is total ****. That is reason alone in this day and age to die.
I like the G8 and Soulstice.
But as a brand, I’ll have to quote Aldo, the first ape to speak against his human masters.
“No.”
Miss Pontiac? Not a chance. GM should keep a minimal number of brands for sale in the USA: Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC (for trucks), and Saturn. I say send Pontiac after Oldsmobile now then give Buick the boot soon after.
I haven’t thought through the other worldwide brands, and I’m not sure what to do with Saab, but the above should take care of the traditional American GM brands.
Every time I hear the dead brand walking-mantra, I ask myself, what stops GM from selling some particular niche vehicles as separate brands at the local Chevy delarship? Pontiac Solstice does not have to be killed, just all the dealers and all the franchises. Pontiac as brand does not have to be killed, just all the overlapping models that doesn’t make anybody happy. Take whatever niche vehicles that make a selling point and scrap the rest. And sell them at combined dealerships. Why have trim-lines with different names, when you can differentiate via different brands?
Pontiac ??? What is that ??? Ahh, the modified Chevrolets I see on the road.
I wouldn’t. But I don’t think the brand has to leave. It just has to do a better job of being Pontiac.
How come there’s no talk of killing Buick? All Buick is is three or four cars marketed toward card-carrying AARP members. (No offense, really) And what about the rumors of the G6 becoming RWD within the next couple of years? That alone would get me excited about the Pontiac brand…but the G5? The Vibe, even though my roommate has one? And yes, the similarities between it and the Toyota Matrix are eerie at best.
I say that this is not a product of the Pontiac brand outliving its lifespan, but of the GM brass not having any. The guy that mentioned the rebadged Holdens hit it right on…you can’t even DARE to compete with a BMW if all you’re doing is recycling cars from other markets. Get some ideas of your own…some fresh ones designed from the ground up…and if they’re on par, then go for it. But this rebadging crap has got to end…it’s what’s bringing down the American auto industry when Europe and Japan is bringing in fresh new pieces for us.
So I say this: if GM is gonna reface the Pontiac model, then let it stay. If not, then it should go…and while you’re at it, take Buick with you as well. Seems like the only GM brands that matter these days are Chevy, Cadillac, GMC and Saturn. And yes, I’d sooner drive a Sky than a Solstice…Red Line, black-on-black, and fully decked out.
Not that this would help many of the dealers but….
couldn’t GM sell a basic line of cars from a “GM” dealership. The “chevy” grade being basic and you upgrade to “pontiac” for sport trim, “buick” is your near-luxury option. In other words, they aren’t brands but are trim or option levels.
Oh well, it’s all I got……….
Has TTAC turned into GMI?
GMI is full of threads speculating on the future of GM’s brands and Pontiac in particular. Moderator Nsap has an editorial suggesting Pontiac is going, going, gone, while Moderator Nadepalma has an opinion piece suggesting Saturn should be dumped to save Pontiac.
IMO, it’s clear at least one of GM’s car brands has to go, either Pontiac or Saturn. To accomplish this, you could combine the ranges to create the best line up possible, i.e., kill Vibe, G5, and G6 in favor of the Astra and Aura with the G8 as a range topper with the Corsa below (with the Sky/Solstice, Torrent and possibly the Outlook going away).
I would have considered a G8 myself – but the V6 is underwhelming and the car overall not as good of an overall package in terms of features, fit/finish as other cars.
Pontiac has been tormented by wasting disease for many years. May she finally get the chance to rest in peace.
The Solstice may look good, but the Solstice/Sky twins fail to be usable as CARS. They are ergonomic abominations, with the most awful trunk and top you could imagine. Compare against the Miata which has a real trunk, a beatufully easy top, and superb, driver-centered ergonomics.
The Solstice is only a good outlier in terms of looks for GM. If you actually want to talk about being a real car, however, they are worse than usual, even by GM’s standards.
I remember Pontiac. I loved the ’64s especially. But they’re long gone. As for the Solstice, next to the Miata, it’s just a pretty face.
Will I cry about Pontiac’s demise? Not as much as I did for Oldsmobile. But it will be another nail in the coffin of GM’s great (pre-80’s)heritage, when they knew what their brands should mean.
Let’s try this, GM: put back on the market replicas of ’61 Tri-power Venturas and ’65 GTO’s and see what that does for sales. Oh, I know, that’s just a fantasy. But a guy can dream…
No, Pontiac at it’s zenith has been long dead. The brand is terminal and flatlining today, it’s final gasp was the Firebird which GM cruelly axed and will not resurrect with the Camaro, so really the brand is nothing more than just a name on some cars today.
There is nothing to mourn, we simply need to move on. And so does GM.
There’s no reason those nice Holden vehicles couldn’t be sold as Chevrolets just as they are in other parts of the world and without a Firebird or other cars like there’s really no reason for Pontiac to continue on.
It’s too costly and will never happen so don’t even worry about it, thank franchise laws
Found a pretty good article about it here:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/09/04/060904ta_talk_surowiecki
Jonny:
I hate to be a nag, but my late English teacher Mrs. Baird would haunt me from her grave if I didn’t point out that ‘homicide’ is the killing of a human being, while ‘homo-cide’ might be defined as, well…let’s not dredge up any archaic stereotypes, shall we?
No doubt she’ll turn over in her grave for my run-on sentence, anyway. I can’t win.
Sorry, Mrs. Baird.
I still maintain that Buick should’ve gotten the axe in 2000 instead of Oldsmobile.
And I won’t cry when Pontiac is killed, just a solemn moment of silence.
I drove by the former Pat Clark Buick/Pontiac/GMC dealership in Las Vegas today.
They quit selling GM cars. Now it’s just Pat Clark Auto Sales.
It doesn’t matter *what* GM builds, if they can’t get anyone to sell it. This is the 2nd major GM dealer in Las Vegas to close in the past month.
TriShield:
There’s no reason those nice Holden vehicles couldn’t be sold as Chevrolets just as they are in other parts of the world and without a Firebird or other cars like there’s really no reason for Pontiac to continue on.
I have a sinking feeling that GM would use the closure of the Pontiac division as an excuse (but publicly call it CAFE) to drop Zeta from North America, probably permanently.
Killing a brand and killing a car are two different things. By all means, kill Pontiac. What’s taken so long?
If there are cars worth saving, slap new fascias and Chevy badges on them and call it good.
GM should just be Chevy, Caddy, and Saturn.
Pontiac has no SUV or Trucks yet they still can’t sell?
In it’s current form it is hard to make a case to save it but I sure would miss it same as I miss Oldsmobile, what a shame. Every girl I dated had an Olds and those back seats were great, except for my wife who had a Pontiac Grand Prix that helped in the making of our daughter. It still warrented being crush despite the memories. My first car crush was the Smokey and the Bandit Trans Am, I still would like to have one of those just because I think they look so cool.
I still think the brand has value and could be a great niche auto maker, just not under GM’s moronic guidance. I keep picturing it as a great value oriented BMW-like clone with American styling. Ditch all the crap in their lineup now and just have 3 stong models plus the convertible: Kappa based small sedan(or Alpha if it’s not too expensive since they weren’t smart enough to allow for a Kappa sedan), roadster with improvements, chop the G8 down to a midsize with 4&6 for engines, and just improve on the G8. Derive a Pontiac look thats a little bolder than what they do now drawing on its history and we have our driving excitment.
Then I wake up and realize it’s glued to GM at the hip and will only go down with the rest of the ship. Put them out of their misery now, while they have some dignity.
Given the existing channel “strategy” (a generous term for the current plan), there would be no point in killing Pontiac unless GMC and Buick are killed with it.
Given its lack of cash and time, GM corporate (although not all of its dealers) would be better off if it focused on building two brands than on killing one of them.
The G8 was the right landing at the wrong airport, that could have been a Chevy with a halo. Ditto some improved version of the Solstice.
Why Chevy wasn’t turned into the heir apparent, leaving the rest for a starvation diet, I can’t understand. Surely, they must know that they can’t rebuild eight brands simultaneously.
I agree that Olds should have never gotten the axe. The Aurora alone was grounds for keeping it alive, it was hands down the best all around GM car made at the time.
I would miss Pontiac, but I do agree the Chevy clones need to go. Bringing over rebadges Holdens to flesh out the lineup and let Pontiac stand alone would be one option, the other would be to just carve it down to the unique products and sell it alongside other brands in a mixed dealership.
GMC is the brand that really has no point, as everything availible as a GMC can be had as a Chevy. The right GM mix would be –
Pontiac – Chevy Dealers
Pontiac would have the sporty models, the models designed with more aggressive looks for younger consumers, and Chevy would have all the base cars and Trucks.
Buick – Cadillac Dealers
Buick would be the poor man’s Cadillac and hit the lower price points, while Cadillac would be allowed to go further upmarket.
Saturn Dealers
Give Saturn back its own unique R&D team and design staff and give them the credo to outdo Japanese style cars for the American audience. No rebadges, just a better Accord/Camry/Maxima/whatever but made in the USA.
Saab Dealers
Give Saab its own unique R&D and design staff and have it led by its own president (preferably someone in Sweden). No rebadges, just quirky stylish near-luxury models that are unlike anything else in the GM lineup.
Zeta is dead. My best friend is a GM engineer who worked on it and I asked him about the rumors earlier in the week. He texted me the official news yesterday.
Back to Pontiac, I just don’t know what the purpose of the brand is. It doesn’t look any better than a Chevy, or have a nicer interior. If there is no reason for doing something, why do it?
Re: Buick and GMC’s ability to live on after Pontiac, GMI suggests that Saturn may be merged into that sales channel in Pontiac’s place.
Just another chapter in the “How not to run an automobile company” handbook, by Rick W., et al. Pontiac was killed many years ago.
I’ve also heard the same thing from my friend inside that Holden’s Zeta platform is dead in the US. Other than the Solstice coupe there are also no new vehicles being worked on for Pontiac. No follow-up to the G8, no Firebird, nothing exciting. The brand is toast.
TriShield:
I’ve also heard the same thing from my friend inside that Holden’s Zeta platform is dead in the US. Other than the Solstice coupe there are also no new vehicles being worked on for Pontiac. No follow-up to the G8, no Firebird, nothing exciting. The brand is toast.
Oh I guess the Zeta underpins the Camaro as well.
Geez, I forgot all about that thing. That can’t be a good sign.
My dad had a ’54 Cheiftian. I cried when he got rid of it. I don’t think I’d ever cry for Pontiac again – it’s ruined. It’s a laughing stock.
My parents had a 1979 Pontiac Bonneville when I was a small child. Dark red with a red vinyl interior. (What happened to interiors that aren’t shades of beige or gray, anyway?) It was built to police specs and my sister racked up the speeding tickets to prove it. Before that, my dad had a mid-70s Catalina sedan, and my grandfather’s last car was a light blue Catalina wagon from the last couple years of production.
I want to like Pontiacs, I really do. I’ve driven both the Solstice and the G8 and I think they’re good cars – but the Solstice’s Kappa platform appears to be doomed and the G8 will probably go the way of the GTO. Even if it doesn’t, it would do at least as well marketed as a Chevrolet.
Pontiac is a brand whose time has passed. One day I will speak of Pontiac to my children as my mother speaks of Studebaker to hers – in nostalgic tones, as of one remembering fondly a bygone age.
“The G8 could just as easily be a Chevy, or a Buick.”
It already is a Chevy Lumina in some part of the world. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised to see someone order the Chevy parts from Australia and make their own neo El Camino the day after the G8 STs come off the boat.
“How come there’s no talk of killing Buick?”
China. They buy more Buicks than we do. Of course, they are actually offered desirable vehicles wearing the trishield.
Actually Olds had every reason to live. GM just missed managed it. They sold over 120-150k cars even in its last years. Compare that to Buick, Saturn or Pontiac today. All are much lower than that.
They’re already making the bumper covers to switch the G8 to a Chevy, although the Luminia name will have to be replaced by Impala and El Camino in the US (the fwd Impala can be changed to Caprice or Lumina):
Impala:
http://www.chevrolet.co.za/content_data/LAAM/ZA/en/GBPZA/001/models/1F/gallery.html
El Camino:
http://www.chevrolet.co.za/content_data/LAAM/ZA/en/GBPZA/001/models/1G/gallery.html
Pontiac is already dead. The new cars all are, for the most part, badge engineered. Pontiac today isn’t anything like Pontiac in the earlier years. If anything, continuing building these cars dilutes the legacy of the brand. Pontiac is like a sick dog that you like. It’s time to take it out back and shoot it in between the eyes. Pontiac needs to be taken out of it’s misery.
I am only 22 years old, so I do not have nostalgic memories of the apparently once great Pontiac. What I do have memories of though, is my friend’s 2001 Pontiac Grand Am breaking down numerous times. I remember how cheap and rattly the Grand Prix I rode in was.
Pontiac may have been great at some point in the past, but to the new generation of car buyers, it represents cheap, tacky attempts at “sportiness” without any actual sportiness dialed into the drive train. I say good riddance! Pontiac has not been competitive for a while now.
The last “original” Pontiac was the Aztek and we know what every one thought of that.
Haven’t almost all Pontiacs since the beginning of time been rebadges or similar to other GM cars?
People make it sound like this is something new.
GM cars have all looked alike since the 50s.
It’s easier to count the Pontiacs that look original than the ones that don’t
I can come up with the;
Fiero
Aztek
I’ll be sad, at least. I felt nada when Olds was given its dirt nap. But I have some very fond Poncho memories. At one time, they really were among the most roadable ‘murrican cars. Have had a ’64 GP, a ’68 Goat coupe, a ’77 Formula (my fave) and finally, an ’83 Trans Am.
They started losing “it” around then.
I’m genuinely sorry for the clock-punchers who will be losing their gigs. Shame the suits won’t feel the pinch.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say GM never needed Pontiac, at least not since the war. It was a hairsplit between Chevy and Oldsmobile. There were occasions where it probably offered the best variation on the corporate theme du jour, but its image, when it had one, was more about hype and well-constructed PR gestures than substance. Everybody loves the (original) GTO, but did GM need four versions of the A-body? Of course not. Two versions of the F-body? Not so much. I can’t help feeling that even in the sixties, GM would have been better off if it had rolled all the good qualities of its various variations into a single set of good cars, rather than letting the divisions relentlessly cut each other’s throats. (Which they were doing with glee as far back as the early 1950s.)
With very rare exceptions, Pontiac never offered anything you couldn’t find elsewhere, usually elsewhere within GM. They certainly don’t now.
This isn’t to say Pontiac never built any appealing cars, because they did. But I’m not one to wax nostalgic over PR campaigns past.
No tears from me.
Kill all the divisions, eliminate the middle management associated with separate divisions, and sell all of the “brands” at a GM dealership. Eliminating familiar brand names will only speed the death of GM.
Here is the problem with you guys.
You bad mouth the US’s Big 3 because they don’t have guts.
They never put enough into a dream or a new idea.
You brag about Toyota sticking with the hybrid science when at first it was costly and nobody was buying it.
Don’t push GM into being stupid by agreeing with them not to stay with the Solstice.
STAY, I say.
Stay and work on it.
Fix it.
Promote it.
Don’t be like Ford and bring back that great Thunderbird name, price it high without a reason…and then kill it quickly without fixing it.
If Pontiac must go, keep the good ideas and stay with them.
Make the Chevy Solstice or mini vet.
Make the Chevy G8…BUT KEEP THEM!
Go through the line up of GM brands and cars.
TRY to be smart and pick out the real gems and keep on truckin’
So come on Big Ol’ USA business man(women)…stick with something for awhile!
Show some guts.
If you believe in something…see it through!
Stop panicking about your profit and the return on the dollar.
Don’t be Cowards!
Maybe the could stick an Enduraflex nose on a Camaro, paint it orange, put some wild graphics on it, and call it “The Judge” ?…….nah.
My first reaction on seeing “homocide” was that it is a misspelling of homicide. But after thinking a bit, I decided it’s actually an example of Jonny’s cleverness: homo, in the sense of “same” or “alike,” combined with cide, meaning “to kill.” In other words, to do away with a badge-engineered clone.
Am I right, Jonny?
The way Pontiac is being run now, it may as well be killed off. All this talk of a Commodore-twin Chevy or Buick will be more likely to turn into real product once Holden doesn’t have Pontiac as an export partner (ute or sedan). I like the Pontiac ideal and am sad to see it so cheapened today. It is better for GM to finish off Pontiac with a couple good products than to let it sputter along with a gas-price-sized axe in the back.
The previous plan for putting B/P/G into a single channel was great on paper. The plan, unfortunately, met the reality of GM’s bloated and whiny dealer network. GM’s various divisions couldn’t help but go back to their old badge-engineered ways. If the previous plan had been executed with a minimum level of competence then Buick would have never received a minivan, Pontiac would not have the G5 or the Torrent, and GMC wouldn’t have the Canyon. Ideally they each would have lost another model or two as well.
The only other option would be as Ingvar mentioned: turn Pontiac into a hot-rod trim level along the lines of HSV or AMG. Obviously rebadged Chevies with 2-tone interiors, upgraded electronics, turbos & blowers, scoops, vents, and spoilers. And throw on that new-style chromed arrowhead from the G8 concept to indicate a clean break with the full-line brand that brought us the Aztek, Montana, and Torrent.
My parents owned 3 Bonnevilles from 1987 forward.
Here’s my take – forget the brand names. Don’t rebadge anything, just make an example of each market segment with multiple levels of trim/engine choices.
Offer clearly defined trim levels (alphanumeric?)
From now on the cars should carry nothing but a tiny “GM” logo and the model name.
No front wheel drive; offer RWD and an AWD stand-alone option.
Don’t package together seemingly unrelated items as options.
Don’t jerk me around with a car you call a “Special Edition” when I can buy the same damn car configured exactly as the special edition without the stupid badges. Truly make it a special or limited edition in some way.
Pick the best of the cars currently available from GM and stick with them. Continuously improve them year after year a la 911, BMW 3 series, etc. Create quality cars to fill the holes in any market segment.
For all car manufacturers, stop bringing back stupid names that bear no resemblance to their historically romantic past such as GTO, Thunderbird, etc. If you’re going to resurrect the name, resurrect the image and the likeness, etc. Or create a custom coachbuilding division for those who customers who want to create their own Ferrari P4/5 or whatever…
Ford could have done so much with the Focus. Look at all the japanese tuners and the popularity of the small FWD/AWD rockets turned out by Japanese car manufacturers; Ford could have brought over some Euro models looking like quasi-WRC cars and made a killing (well…maybe).
Even the Fiero had potential; as a pace car, that had some serious cajones and the air intake creeping up over the back window.
When you bring a concept car to a car show, be serious about it. Don’t tease your customers with “styling exercises.” They may serve a purpose from a design standpoint for the future, but you’re just disappointing the people who are less design-savvy or unable to comprehend the risks involved in bringing a car to market when you tell them there an “no plans to put it into production.”
I could go on and on…
If you ask me, Pontiac died when they released the Aztek. The brand that used to be an American BMW had been turned into being nothing more than a Chevrolet with pointy spoilers and lots of cladding that was marketed to teenage potheads.
BTW, if you ask me, Buick or Saturn should have been killed in 2000 instead of Oldsmobile. Olds’ heritage alone made the brand worth saving, and it still had a lot going for it when it was killed. Besides, around that timeframe, Saturn was barely still alive and Buick was nothing more than a brand that sold generic fluff-mobiles to rental car companies.
Ummm, I hadn’t noticed that Pontiac was marketed to “teenage potheads.”
Actually, I think that Pontiac has not been marketed much at all in recent memory.
All I’ve seen is grainy footage from the 60’s where a tiger jumps into/out of a GTO or something. Oh, and something about “Wide Track” that has come and go over the years. I never noticed that Pontiacs were any wider than any other GM clone.
P.S. +50 for rebadging the G8 as a Chevy Impala. The rest can go. All things die!
It’s too costly and will never happen so don’t even worry about it, thank franchise laws
Found a pretty good article about it here:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/09/04/060904ta_talk_surowiecki
That isn’t a “pretty good” article it is a wonderful summary of GM’s franchise history and problems with its dealers.
Could GM get around each state’s franchise laws by dropping all of its brands and calling everything a GM like Mercedes Benz does? Every present dealer would be able to sell everything GM made. Of course many dealers would be on top of each other and many would fail but isn’t that what GM needs?
I currently drive a Bonneville. Pontiac always touched my soul in a way other makes didn’t, even when I was a teen in the ’60’s. The Catalina, Grand Prix, GTO, seemed so unique then.
Pontiac meant power, style, beauty. Even in the dark days of Roger Smith you could tell a Pontiac from a Buick or Chevy from a block away.
Now except for the G8, there is nothing unique about its models. I can’t even buy another Bonneville; If I go to the dealership, I’ll be led to a Buick Lucerne. Sorry, Buick was my dad’s car. If you’re younger than 70 and your name isn’t Tiger Woods, you’ve no reason to own a Buick.
And I can’t think of a reason to own another Pontiac. It was great in it’s day, but the world has moved on.
Pontiac. They’ll be fine. They just need to bring back some of the classics…
T1000
Aztek
J2000? (Was that what it was called?)
Sunfire (isn’t that redundant?)
Lemans (Korean POS of the late 80’s)
Montana (not Hannah, in case you don’t remember).
Somebody shoot them, quick!
If it’s so expensive to kill Pontiac, then maybe the play for GM is to limit the number of models to three. Solstice, G8 and a refreshed G6 on the new D platform.
Independent dealers will figure out they aren’t getting a full line of vehicles and consolidate into GMC/Buick, or just give up.
Multiple marques worked very well for GM in their heyday. Look how eager Ford were to emulate it when they introduced the Edsel. But it doesn’t work at all anymore. GM have proven, time and time again, that they don’t have the discipline to preserve proper identies for each marque. Plus they’ve lost too much market share, which they’ll never get back, to make it viable anyway. But they’re stuck with this business model like the Ancient Mariner with the albatross round his neck.
No tears shed here. I have noticed that a good many dead cars littering the roadside are late model Pontiacs. The last good one was the old GTO. 40 + yrs of dogs since.
Pontiac has been lying comatose and flat-lined since the 1980’s….this would be a mercy killing….absolutely cannot remember the last time GM put out a Pontiac vehicle which was aspirational…..even the Holden GTO, while impressively sporty, didn’t get my juices flowing….remove the life support…
I was admiring a G8 from behind the other day, but when I passed it and saw those horrendous faux intakes on the hood, I threw up a little bit in my mouth. They just can’t help themselves–no restraint, no subtlety, just throw some useless intakes and plastic body cladding on it and call it done. The G6 shows some tastefulness and restraint, but it’s a POS. Pontiac, with a few rare exceptions, is the embodiment of all show and no go. I won’t dance on Pontiac’s grave, but the brand hasn’t had a pulse for decades.
I might have said this in the past, but why not pare things down and have a GM dealership? Chevy, Pontiac, Saab, GMC, Cadillac. So, make these GM’s line up (using current names):
Chevy:
Aveo
Cobalt
Malibu
Impala
Corvette
Camaro
Sky (rebadged as a Chevy non-turbo only)
Equinox
Traverse
Pontiac:
G8
Solstice (turbo motor only)
Saab
9-4X
9-5
GMC:
Trucks
Suburban
Cadillac:
CTS
STS/DTS replacement
Also, I would re-name the G8, CTS and DTS back to names, except Saab. I think the alpha-numeric names are stupid with the rest of the line up being named. Keep Saab, but drop the 9-3 and use the new 9-5 as the only Saab. Keep the buyers that like the quirky/euro feel that the other cars cannot produce. Drop Chevy trucks, drop Buick, drop Saturn.
Also, make the cars less flexible in the options arena. Follow Honda’s model: Base (DX), mid-level (LX), and high-content (EX) so that the factories can be more efficient and they can focus more on quality.
I think these practices could save some cash, and deliver a much more consistent message from GM.
Yeah, but if they name the DTS the DeVille Touring Sedan, soccer moms and clueless politicians everywhere will start complaining about how Satanic Cadillacs are.
And unfortunately for Pontiac, they only have two good cars.
I might have said this in the past, but why not pare things down and have a GM dealership?
Because you’d have dealerships suing for billions of dollars, and GM would lose the suit.
Had they simply taken the money squandered on the failed Fiat deal alone (or for that matter, the purchase of Saab) and used it instead to pare down the dealer network, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
But now, they don’t have the money to enact such a plan. The only way for them to deal with this now would be to starve the less desirable brands, in order to save the money that would be needed to buy out the dealers.
They should have put the weaker brands onto a plan based upon rental cars and long product cycles, leaving the creme de la creme exclusively for Chevy and Cadillac. That wouldn’t have been nice, but it would have been cheap and legal.
It costs too much money to make separate platforms for every division.
Let’s face it, Pontiac isn’t profitable. Yes, I’ll shed a tear in memory of my father’s Trans Am, but seeing GM survive should be one of our country’s priorities right now.
I’ve said this many times: If GMC exists, Pontiac exists, and vice versa. You either kill them both (and Buick, although basically nobody will notice there, due to their pathetically low sales), or you keep all three. GM has been trying to make as many dealers sell all three brands as possible.
In any case, killing them would be a problem. They share so many models with Chevy (at least under the skin) that killing Pontiac/Buick/GMC would make a bunch of borderline plants unviable. Plus, the dealer bribes would be much larger than those were when they killed off Oldsmobile.
I would recommend killing Saturn, Saab (at least in North America, although Saab’s sales in Europe stink as well), and Hummer long before thinking of killing the Pontiac/Buick/GMC trio. If GM really does kill PBG, GM probably will go out of business completely (Chapter 7, not 11) soon afterwards.
I agree that Pontiac is long past its heyday and can be laid to rest.
I think Pontiac oughta just be a car, not a brand. Take the new G8 and call it The Pontiac and be done with it.
I’ll miss the Monaro, er I mean GTO. Oh wait, they never sold that here in Canada, so I wouldn’t be able to miss it. The G8 is worth lamenting, but they didn’t really do a great job on that one either. I wanted a transplanted bonkers Holden with some rust proofing, not an Americanized and softened up car made to appeal to Altima/Camry/Accord buyers.
No, I will not cry for Pontiac. GM failed Pontiac, and I think it is over for the brand.
-The G8 is in a price realm that can no longer be supported by the Pontiac brand image; this is a product Buick next to the Buick Lambda could sell at the right price.
-The Vibe is a Saturn by Pontiac, and would be a big help to the house of Saturn if GM could find a way to get it on the right car lot.
-The current Grand Prix was a stop-gap vehicle for something that… um… never materialized.
-The G6 should have had the same suspension set up as the Aura… but G6 instead was given poor handling… and now has sprouted some strange exterior glue-on parts.. painful to watch
-G5, G3? how about G2, G0, G 0.1 too? Why not… it will not matter in the end.
Oh and Solstice… it sells at $10,000 below cost at Pontiac. I think this is a great argument for a Saab front clip, and a Saab luxury high quality interior and $42K price. It would clearly fit Saab’s brand image… a little Alfa Romeo sport machine for Saab to sell in warm weather markets? Could it hurt to add some needed lust and envy to Saab?
Sorry Pontiac.
I read somewhere that Pontiac in its heyday was considered the “pirate” brand of GM: the one that made wild, outlaw cars. There is absolutely no way that Pontiac can reclaim that mantle, due both to GM culture and the current car market.
At least Buick is still pretty close to its essential brand identity: “doctors’ cars”. But Pontiac? I say kill it.
I am sorry, but there is no way that I buy that GM loses any money, much less $10,000 on the sale of a Solstice. Factor in the costs of the raw materials, plus the cost of the hourly wages and maybe even the equipment depreciation during the production of each vehicle and you have the cost, which should be far below the cost of sale. Advertising, initial capital investment, and engineering costs should not enter the equation at all, as advertising goes on year round on all models and the others are one time costs that will be offset over time.
friedclams: I never considered Buick as a ‘doctor’s car’. Doctors in my mind are driving Mercedes, BMWs, Audis, Volvos, Cadillacs, and Lincolns.
Pontiac could get the outlaw image back… no brand is ever so damaged that it can’t come back. However, GM needs to fund it adequetly for this to happen.
The badge engineered clones which essentially create competition between different GM dealers need to go. Shared platforms are OK, but make sure that each vehicle sits far enough in its niche that it beats everything else in it, and that it won’t be cross-shopped against another vehicle under the GM umbrella.
Here’s what I still don’t understand: Oldsmobile had arguably the most attractive car lineup of any GM division at the time they were killed. Buick was a much more obvious candidate. I can only think someone just couldn’t get past the “Old” in the name.
No practicing doctor I know (I live in the year 2008) would be caught dead in a Buick. They drive strictly Germans or Lexus.
I agree with the name problem with Oldsmobile. Wasn’t the slogan at the time of the brands demise ‘Not your father’s Oldsmobile?’, pretty much begging the public to think of it as an acceptable choice for younger buyers.
Then again Newsmobile/Newdsmobile are problematic, the former developing mental pictures of box trucks tossing stacks of morning papers, and the latter a pornographic version of the bookmobile…
The G8 huh?
I’m not sure who the G8 is built for. Yes, it’s a rear drive V8 sport sedan….but…
It has a nice enough interior, but, it’s not really luxurious, so it isn’t for a luxury car buyer.
In real life it is far bigger than it looks in pictures. After driving one, I realized that, due to its size, I would tire of it quickly. It really is a bit too big to be sporty.
So what’s left is a big sedan with a V8 engine – the market for those isn’t really hot with gas approaching $4.00/gallon.
At the end of the day, the G8 is a big sedan, that is fairly competent, but not all that sporty.
Buyers of those types of vehicles are probably buying Malibus.
It’s an interesting car, but I’m not sure who will buy one.
-ted
NullaModo,
Here is my source:
http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080902/FREE/809029955
Solstice sells $10,000 below cost, and that is why the Solstice program is being canceled.
-Mc
one less company to fight off the Japanese invasion
MC – I don’t doubt that it has been reported that GM is losing $10,000 per car, I just can’t fathom how it is possible. Regardless of how expensive hydroforming is, with economies of scale and the amount of steel that GM buys up the only way you end up with a $10,000 loss per car is if GM is doing some very creative accounting and somehow rolling in the cost of the factory or the equipment they already bought to build the car into the price of each car itself.
Regardless of how expensive hydroforming is, with economies of scale and the amount of steel that GM buys up the only way you end up with a $10,000 loss per car is if GM is doing some very creative accounting and somehow rolling in the cost of the factory or the equipment they already bought to build the car into the price of each car itself.
This is probably true. I’d expect that they are citing this number so that they can justify taking the largest tax write off possible when it comes time to claim it. If they are going to do it anyway, they may as well deduct as much as possible.
I agree that it would be the rare doctor today that drives a Buick. What I meant was Buick is still about plush luxurious cars that aren’t as ostentatious as a Cadillac… would doctors used to drive in olden times. As the Toyota Avalon indicates, I still think this concept has potential in today’s market… even though doctors themselves are driving Euro cars & Lexi.
Pontiac is not “about” anything anymore. It is, sadly, “car”. NulloModo, I hate to say it but even if GM marketed Pontiac as an “outlaw” car that would have little resonance in today’s car market. People are more concerned with buying car-appliances instead of stripped down wild rides.
GM should have retained the Olds brand for its historical link to GM. Olds was a big GM brand 1948 – 1955 with the Rocket 88. Pontiac was, my opinion, a different name and thats about all.
Zerofoo-
That’s exactly the problem. The G8 is an ill-defined model in North America. In Aussie land you get your modern-day muscle car (be it two doors, four doors, or an el-camino style pickup) and go off to slither around corners and suck fuel with reckless abandon all to a burbling V8 soundtrack. The cars are big, brutish and wonderfully vulgar. Even the Brits get the fun ones in the Vauxhall VXR/Monaro lineup – look up the Top Gear reviews on youtube and see how much fun they have with them. What do we get? The dumbed-down, detuned versions that are de-sportified so that some mouth-breather doesn’t sue GM for spinal damage due to the firm suspension setup. On top of that a good chunk of the horsepower (and all of the V8 noise) seems to evaporate whenever something is federalized.
Sigh.
Jonny: They’re already dead. Whatever you chose would be an automotive cadaver.
Oldsmobile had no reason to live? It was the only division with a nearly entire lineup of DOHC engines, V6 Alero being the only pushrod, and it’s cars were easily the best quality version of each platform respectively. Alero was better quality than the Grand Am. Intrigue blew the Grand Prix and Impala out of the water in terms of refinement. Aurora was widely thought to have one of the best interiors GM produced, coupled with a solid platform and the venerable Northstar.
But the single biggest reason Oldsmobile had to live is the customers. Those former Olds customers left GM and never came back.
I don’t give a damn about Pontiac, but I can’t wait to read that G8 review.