Facing its worst financial outlook in more than a decade, General Motors outlined a new product development and sales strategy Thursday, saying that from now on Chevrolet and Cadillac would be the company’s only brands to offer a full lineup of vehicles. Sorry. My bad. That’s a quote lifted from a May 2005 New York Times story about GM. It’s only taken The General, what? Four years to almost make it so? Oh, and $20+ billion worth of American taxpayer’s money. Anyway, today’s report of Pontiac’s incipient demise hails from Automotive News [AN, sub], which confirms Edmunds’ Inside Line‘s, uh, inside line. Bloomberg’s in too. GM says no. Well, shudduppayourface. “Contrary to media speculation, General Motors has not announced any changes to its long-term viability plan or to the future status of any of its brands. GM is continuing to review its restructuring plan to go further and faster and best ensure its future success. Additional information will be released as any decisions are finalized.”
In fact, Pontiac’s death isn’t interesting in and of itself. The real story here is the timing and its implications. AN says “the announcement will be made as part of an updated viability report to the US auto task force.” So it’s what? A sacrificial lamb? Don’t fire us! We really are trying. Or maybe it’s justification for some new move from the Presidential Task Force on Automobiles, ahead of Chrysler’s April 30 drop-deadline. Whatever happens, it looks like ex-Car Czar Bob Lutz’s 2005 pronouncement that Pontiac was a “damaged brand” (immediately spun and rescinded) was strangely prescient. OK, not so strange. And not so prescient. But correct. Next up: Buick?
I haven’t driven a Ford lately, but if GM kills Pontiac, I’m going to look into it.
Wouldn’t it just be easier to slash everything from Pontiac excepy the G8, all GXP variants, and perhaps a new Firebird? It’d be better than killing the entire brand. As far as Buick goes, this 26 year old loves them. Then again this 26 year old doesn’t buy into vehicular stereotypes. I find it ironic that it’s considered taboo to typecast Honda or Prius owners as “greenies”, liberals, or homosexuals (all untrue stereotypes), but it’s fair game to perpetuate all Buick owners as geriatric. Granted, just about every stereotype is steeped in a tiny bit of truth, but perhaps we posters and auto journalists share more of the blame than we know. I don’t believe there’s a Buick post anywhere (save perhaps a Grand National forum or two) that doesn’t have some mention of age. A lot of young and old people alike look to these posts for guidance when deciding on a vehicle. An unfair amount of opinion is placed on a vehicle’s brand perception, whereas some objectivity and focus on a vehicle’s merits would serve the customer much better. This issue isn’t limited to just Buick.
Well if CNN is reporting on it(http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/24/autos/pontiac_obit/index.htm?postversion=2009042414), looks like this wild ass rumor is quickly becoming “well, d’uh!” facts.
Do people stereotype Honda and Toyota owners as liberals and homosexuals? The Camry and Accord are the most mainstream cars in the country.
Sacrificial lamb it is. Stupid move, IMO. This will reduce revenue much more than it reduces costs. How much does Pontiac cost, since it no longer has standalone dealers?
Facing its worst financial outlook in more than a decade…
This could be the understatement of the decade. 1991 – 1992 probably were GM’s worst times before this in recent memory, but there was no use of either “B” word back then.
More like worst financial outlook since Billy Durant was ousted (either time).
I just hope they make the G8 into the next Impala. But I have to admit I still don’t understand why they’re killing Pontiac when it outsells Buick almost 2 to 1.
Yes, there are people that view Honda and Toyota owners as liberals and homosexuals, unfairly I might add, but on that same note there’s people who stereotype F-150 (the #1 selling vehicle in the country) owners as rednecks and right wingers.
We’ll see on Monday or sometime next week whether the “According to a source at General Motors” comment all the Auto sites are repeating really does mean Pontiac’s end has come.
If this does come to pass, perhaps the G8 will morph into a surviving GM brand’s product.
No problems with the G8, just fax Holden with a rough sketch of the new bumper, badges and bonnet line and we can (badge) engineer any Chevy, Cadillac, Buick you can think of (including Daewoo, what an irony) or even ship the new parts out of the plastics plant, direct to the relevant dealerships to change their ex-Pontiacs to what ever they want.
But isn’t that what they have always done?
Oh dear, when will this madness stop? From my European view pretty much all of the decisions made at GM don’t make any sense at all.
They are giving Opel away pretty much for free. And with it their developement center for all front wheel platforms and 4 cylinder engines (and also a part of the Volt development is/has been done there, the driving force behind the Voltec technology is Volker Weber).
So who is going to engineer these platforms in the future? Daewoo? *lol*
They are closing down Pontiac. It seems to be one of the brands that don’t suffer from weak products, but more from a lack of support inside GM. The same with Saturn. My impression is that they wanted the rebadged Opels to fail and did in essences everything to succeed with it.
Chevrolet seems to be one of the brands allowed to live. But to be true, the brand is a travesty right now. In Europe it is totally done, as they only sell the substandard Daewoos and the HRR under that brand. So it competes with Kia, Skoda, Seat, Hyundai and has the really worst products of all of them. They are only selling the cars because of the low pricing.
Cadillac is pretty much nonexistent outside the US. The only ones driving it in Europe are pimps, very much like with the Corvette. Also it seems they lost their position even in the US market and haven fallen behind Lexus, Mercedes, BMW and Audi.
To be true, even Chrysler has a higher perception than Chevrolet here.
All in all I think GM is really beyond saving. The only way for their brands is to go way down from here.
Chevrolet is in Europe two brands
1) Daewoo’s with a Chevrolet badge. In other words another KIA. Now not so good but in 15 years Toyota quality
2) GM American build cars. But can America build cars?
The G8 should continue… as the IMAPLA!!!
Think I’m nuts? I remember when the G8’s were just starting to roll off the line and they had a press conference at the factory. There are photos of the first G8’s with their line-mates… which were some Buick version for Asia and…
A CAPRICE version!!! Yep, bowties and all, but produced only for… the middle east! Bring that sucker here as the next Impala. All they would have to do is use the Caprice body pieces and bow-ties, and swap the Caprice badges for Impala badges.
RF, I’m sure you can find a photo of this somewhere if I can’t. I’ll search a while and see if I can find it.
R.I.P. Pontiac.
Whats up with GM killing off a brand right after they start to turn it around? First Oldsmobile, now Pontiac, probably Saturn next. Its like as soon as they give them good cars, they kill ’em.
I’d be less upset about this if they were killing Aztek/plastic cladding-era Pontiac. But they’re killing G8/Solstice-era Pontiac, which kind of sucks.
I find it ironic that it’s considered taboo to typecast Honda or Prius owners as “greenies”, liberals, or homosexuals (all untrue stereotypes), but it’s fair game to perpetuate all Buick owners as geriatric.
The average age of Buick car buyers in the United States is about 65. That’s just a fact.
The difference between stereotypes about Buick and those of the others is that the ones about Buick are actually correct. Statements that are false catch more flack for their inaccuracies than do statements that are true.
rodster205: “The G8 should continue… as the IMAPLA!!!”If Pontiac dies, this may be exactly what happens. IIRC, the original plan was for the Impala to switch to rear-drive in the next model changeover. When GM started going down the tubes (in a big way), that plan was quickly shelved.
Killing off Ponitac would free up the G8 platform to be available for a ‘quick and dirty’ way to revive a future rear-drive Impala.
Eliminating not only Pontiac but Buick, as well, is probably the only chance GM has of surviving. It would bring GM much more in line with the number of nameplates Toyota has, which should have great appeal to anyone wanting a successful GM business proposal for more government bail-out funds.
Pity the Pontiac. GM’s management is fully responsible for the death of this brand.The handwriting was on the wall years ago when Pontiac was still churning out good numbers by selling GrandAm’s that were nothing more than Chevys with plastic cladding on their sides.Then GM gave Pontiac the Astec,Ouch! Along comes the saviour Lutz , who gave Pontiac a bland, Mazda-esque GTO. Presto , a once proud nameplate reduced to flim-flam. Good bye ,Wide-Tracks of yester year. Thanks goes to Wagner,Lutz and the whole GM board and stockholders. While they’re at it why not kill Buick? I guess the Chinese are still buying Buicks, and it’s got to be the official car of the AARP.Nuff said?
I’m surprised that no one has suggested using the G8 platform for the basis of a revived Buick Roadmaster (if Buick isn’t going to the chopping block, anyway).
Pontiac died when the first Aztec came off the line. This is just the funeral arrangements.
Daewoos aren’t Kias. They’re crappier.
“Along comes the saviour Lutz , who gave Pontiac a bland, Mazda-esque GTO. Presto , a once proud nameplate reduced to flim-flam.”
Ever driven one of those GTOs? It’s pretty good; too bad dealers marked them up and then wondered why they didn’t sell. I wouldn’t consider Mazdas bland either; at least it was an improvement over the crappy styling that plagued the Pontiac from the mid-80s on into this century. Plastic cladding? The Sunfire? A dead flounder looks better. The Aztek was such a failure on some many levels, but the styling was the coup de gras. If you got past the outside and looked inside, it looked someone threw up every pattern and texture that was leftover.
And wide-track? The other word for that is H-Y-P-E.
The Solstice/Sky has just come out with an Opel badge in England.
There goes the G8….the first good car domino down. Next? Volt, anyone?
….why GM wasted their time making the G3 when they go ahead and kill the brand before it comes out…but I suppose that’s not a bad thing in the case of the G3….
Oddly enough, Pontiac’s fortunes started to fade dramatically as they stripped away that horrible 1990s trademark plastic body cladding. Maybe the customer base really liked that crap ?????
I was waiting for this as soon as I learned of the G3’s very existence.
“Pontiac is getting back to its economy-performance roots.” (three second pause) “Just kidding – here’s another cheap, shitty car you’ll regret ever having purchased!!“