Remember Pontiac? You know, the brand that “builds excitement.” And for all the advertising dollars GM spent over the years, trying to convince buyers that a Pontiac offered something that none of its other brands could, it turns out that quite a few former Pontiac owners have made the switch to Chevrolet and GMC. According to RL Polk
Looking at full-year 2010 data: the Pontiac brand saw 57,641 customers return to market and General Motors was able to recapture 53.3% of them. Historically through 2008, 60% of Pontiac owners have remained loyal to General Motors. In 2010, the loyalty rate fell to 47%, which represents a 13 percentage point decrease in overall General Motors loyalty. With the discontinuation of Pontiac: 33.5% defected to Chevrolet, 11.7% defected to GMC, 6.7% defected to Buick, and 1.5% defected to Cadillac.
Defections to other domestic corporations made up nearly 16% of owners. The Ford brand ranked 2nd in the conquest of Pontiac owners at 10.5%. Chrysler Corporation saw the Dodge brand ranked 9th, capturing 3.2%. Jeep and Chrysler combined were able to conquest 1.7%.
Defections to import makes were nearly 31%. Among the foreign automakers, Toyota was able to conquest 7.7% of Pontiac owners, while Honda was just behind capturing 7.5%.
Best and Brightest, I have to say this confuses me. How did over ten percent of GM’s “driving excitement” brand end up at the its truck brand (GMC)? How did over 14 percent of buyers replace the brand that brought us the GTO and G8 for the mainstream, thrill-free anonymity of Honda and Toyota? How on earth did Dodge, the remaining brand that most resembles Pontiac, only manage about 3%? You may have to let me down gently on this, B&B, but are automotive brands not as important as people make them out to be? Say it ain’t so!
What would be far more facinating to me would be to know what models they bought of those brands.
And what model Pontiac they last owned.
Most Pontiacs were not particularly exciting. In fact, most are clones of other boring GM cars.
As for Hondas not being exciting, I suspect my ’99 Accord 5-speed could outrun, and I’m sure it could outhandle the Corvettes of my youth.
Only explanation I can think of is that Pontic was grouped together with GMC and Buick brands at dealerships toward the end of Pontiac’s existence. Only logical that the dealers already had access to customer lists along with GM offering incentives to retain the Pontiac customer. I would guess that many Pontiac owners/lessees were coming out of G6″s and stacked their incentives to buy/lease a new Acadia or Terrain. For a sedan, many G6 owners would gravitate toward Malibu.
Yeah 10,570 of those customers went to Buick/GMC. Not really what most of us likely think of as Pontiac’s demographic but certainly given that most of Pontiac’s dealers were carrying those three model lines… if you really liked the dealer you’d likely at least come back and give them a shot at keeping your business.
How did over 14 percent of buyers replace the brand that brought us the GTO and G8 for the mainstream, thrill-free anonymity of Honda and Toyota?
I don’t see a problem for a Pontiac Vibe buyer to go to Toyota and buy a Matrix. Not every Pontiac sold was a G8. and some people move from car to truck or vice versa, no surprise here.
what thrill did Pontiac coffer anyway, except the thrill of being stranded in the middle of the night and having to dump a lot of money in repairs? Pontiac may have been a thrill brand many decades ago, but that wasn’t the case for a long time (you remember, they went bankrupt not because of too exciting cars)
I drove many Pontiacs for many years, and never once broke down. However I do remember a freezing weekend -35. My 76 Parisienne fired up without a block heater. We coudn’t get a Rabbit to start,even with a boost.
60% was GM’s usual retention rate of Pontiac customers, and that includes the years when they had Saturn, Saab, Oldsmobile, Buick, Cadillac, GMC, and Chevrolet to cast a broad net over buyer demographics. This is how you go from the verge of anit-trust action to being a burden on the taxpayers. I’m sure people who had a Grand Prix, or a G6, or a G8 V6, or a G5, or a Torrent would take issue with anyone calling their new Toyotas and Hondas less than thrilling!
The GMC buyers probably ended up in Acadias. Maybe they traded in their Montana vans for one.
Pontiac’s branding was a cruel joke for a long time. In the end, “Pontiac is Car” was their tag line. Wretch worthy for sure. I hope whoever came up with and approved that tag line got shown the door.
The GTO and G8 were complete flops, so those vehicles say just about nothing about former Pontiac’s former demographic. The final Pontiacs were mostly an answer to the question: “What would Avis buy?”
You may have to let me down gently on this, B&B, but are automotive brands not as important as people make them out to be? Say it ain’t so!
Thou dost use thine tongue and thine cheek.
Pontiac didn’t build excitement – they built Chevy clones. GTO and G8 were imports of decent cars and both didn’t do very well, otherwise the rest of it was all crap.
Goes to show how little use brand marketing has when they saved all that money from not having to design and produce variant cars and yet still kept most of those customers.
I’m sure all those Torrent owners are equally ‘excited’ in their Terrains now.
I find it funny that the GTO and G8 were rebranded as Chevys in the Middle East (Lumina/Omega), in left hand drive no less. How big were the barriers (business case, crash tests, emissions) to having them here when they’d already figured out all the other minutiae?
Looks like few or no Pontiac owners defected to BMW. That utterly shocks me.
:|
because BMW also builds excrement?
Because Pontiac started building fake BMWs in 1985 and BMW started building fake Pontiacs in 2002.
Because people coming out of a Pontiac for a new car in 2010 likely bought in 2006 if not earlier. Before the G8. Before the Solstice GXP.
A time when 95% of Pontiac driving excitement amounted to rental grade Saturns with nostrils and red gauges.
Don’t confuse that with the Pontiac that died in 2009. The one that was only 85% rebadged garbage.
Oh phew, I was wondering when the hating would begin. As an actual Pontiac owner, I would most likely buy Chevy or Dodge. Both offer cars and SUVs (as my wife would like one next time around). I’ve often thought that the Pontiac and Chevy demographics were similar, and it would make sense that Pontiac buyers would migrate (sideways in some people’s opinions) there. I’ve imagined that the folks on the higher end of the Pontiac demo would migrate to Buicks and GMCs or other more expensive brands. For all the supposed superiority of Toyondassan, Ford has gotten more attention than them. Predicting what people will do is a flawed science at best.
Anyone still buying US brand cars in the past 25 years has to REALLY want to buy AMERICAN! cars. It isn’t any surprise that they didn’t start buying Japanese cars just because Pontiac’s advertising budget was folded into Chevy’s. Hondas and Toyotas were providing better ownership experiences than Pontiacs when they bought their previous five cars too.
I still think that brands are important. The trouble is that Pontiac as a brand was so diluted, that the brand became meaningless much like the Mercury brand. Many of these Pontiac owners (most of them G6) surely received large incentives to stay with GM. My sister leases a G6 that is due in in May, and she has received all sorts of incentives (rebates, no credit check) to find another GM brand which she plans to do. Oddly enough, she is considering a GMC Terrain.
I would guess that many G8 owners did go to Dodge. Unfortunately, I do not think that were many G8 owners though. Not that it was not a good vehicle, it was just not out long enough.
Local (former Pontiac) Buick & GMC dealer has a certified used G8 with the V6 and automatic, with 29,000 miles, CPO model and they want… $26,000 for it! I know it’s tax time (when prices go up) and the G8 is one of the last collectible Pontiacs but dang that’s too rich for my blood.
But I would agree in a heartbeat that the Dodge Charger is likely the closest equivelent.
$26,000 is a lot of money. Surprises me that they are that high. That tells me that the vehicle had a good future and was the right direction for Pontiac but it was too late.
However you count it, axing Pontiac cost GM the approximately 29,000 sales that didn’t stay with GM.
Balanced against the costs saved by no longer advertising and supporting the brand, that’s probably not a bad tradeoff in the end.
I’d be very curious to see a model breakdown of what GM vehicles those ex-Poncho owners purchased. With blinders on to every other competitive model, I guess a Malibu would be a notable step up from a Grand Am or G6 (I say that as a former GA owner.)
I don’t know. If you consider GM’s historical 60% customer retention rate, plenty of those 29,000 would have left GM anyway.
Maybe former Pontiac owners have just evolved from their Pontiac-hot rod days into something more sedate and up-to-date. Going from Pontiac to Chevy or from Buick to Chevy doesn’t make any sense to me, but then again, I never owned Pontiac. And in today’s automotive climate I would never own GM (again). The fact that most former Pontiac owners overwhelmingly bought GM identifies them as GM-fans, to me. But if I were a Pontiac fan (I’m not), it would seem to me that Cadillac or Buick would have the better replacement than any of the Chevy offerings. But, hey, different strokes for different folks.
I think “brands” are the professional jargon of marketeers. The word may/may not apply on showroom floors with actual buyers. I’ve noticed that young pu truck owners often have a sporty, powerful sports sedan for a car. Take all the snow plow jockeys that have been buzzing around my neighborhood this winter. The common denominsator of a Pontiac muscle car and a pu truck might have been, for that particular driver, when he stepped on the gas, it gave a nice bark and punched him in the back.
I bought a 2006 GTO 6 speed manual on Dec 30 2006 – and I am probably going to be in the market for another car this summer. I am probably going to end up with in a Ford Fusion (AWD in a car cannot be had in a Chevy). I am keeping the GTO since the Mrs is unlikely to let me get anything like this ever again (married in 2009). If Pontiac G8 were still around, I would have been thinking about it, but alas that is not the case. I know I know AWD vs RWD, but car buying is not always a rational decision.
udham,
Funny because the Fusion also interests me and I’d have to keep the GTO if I got one.
the Mrs is unlikely to let me get anything like this ever again (married in 2009)
Can any of us actually imagine a woman saying “I like xyz, but my husband would never let me get anything like it”? She’d get laughed out of the sisterhood. Women decide what they will buy and they decide what their husbands will buy. The extent to which we live in a misandrist matriarchy never fails to amaze me (just to prove it, the spell checker doesn’t recognize “misandrist” but misogynist doesn’t get a red line).
Women will tell their husbands what to wear and get upset if he insists on wearing his favorite ratty shirt on weekends, but if we dare suggest that their choice of clothing accentuates their broadness of beam we are heinous. When we tell our male friends that their clothes make them look foolish, they listen and wear something else or just ignore us. If we tell our wives or significant others that they’re wearing clown clothes, we can expect to get acquainted with Rosey Palm and her five sisters.
Ask a woman what her husband wastes his money on, and she’ll have a laundry list of cars, tools, electronics etc. Ask her what she wastes her money on, and she’ll insist that all her purchases are rational decisions. A new DAC for your stereo? A huge waste of money. Another pair of shoes for her? They were a great deal on sale.
If a divorce agreement gives him all the tools, the machines that she uses will be considered “appliances”.
Methinks Ronnie has some personal experience he needs to work through.
blau,
Issues? I don’t have issues. I have a lifetime subscription.
I hear this from many of my friend and co-workers and I just chuckle to myself. Marry the right woman and you won’t hear this. My wife actually asks for a “spirited” drive on occasion. If I need a strut compressor tool, she’s on board, provided I get a good value for it. Let her make the first round of choices for her car, and unless she selects something problematic or ridiculously expensive, go with it. Then she has zero leverage against your choice.
+1 Golden2Husky. A woman that would let me make chocies like that on my own was my criteria for getting married again after my first (bad) marriage. My fiance wouldn’t tell me what to buy any more than I would tell her what to buy. (Of course seperate accounts helps that. She’ll definately ask my advice because of my car knowledge but it’s her decision.)
I betcha none of them bought an Oldsmobile
+1, but :(
This is why GM should ditch GMC. It would be a huge boon to Silverado (and Tahoe and Suburban and Traverse and Enclave, etc) if GM could keep 50% of its GMC customers while focusing on one truck brand to challenge Ford. Sure, Buick GMC dealers would be giving up truck sales, but that could be countered with a Theta Buick in addition to the new lines coming. Ideally, Buick and Cadillac dealers should be combined.
You don’t get the purpose of GMC.
Take the pickups for example. GM can develop two trucks for the cost of one. Yet, they charge MORE for the GMC. It’s nothing but pure profit.
Lets say that Ford develops the F-150 for $10 dollars (I’m probably not too far off actually). Now, for the sake of argument, let’s say it costs GM $11.00 to develop the Silverado and Sierra.
Ford and Chevy charge $6.00 for the F-150/Silverado. GMC charges $8.00 for the Sierra. Ford has to sell MANY more F-150s to match the combined monies of the Silverado/Sierra. It only cost GM$11.00 to develop the twins, but they made $14.00. Major profit.
Huh? GMC comes in two varieties: exactly the same as the Chevy, down to the price, and nicer than the Chevy, for a correspondingly higher price. The one competes with Chevy, and the other competes with Buick.
Do the subtle brand distinctions between a Chevy and GMC matter? Probably to some people, but for every old-iron GMC man (Do they even exist?), there’s a lot more upper-middle-class soccer moms who would happily buy a Buick Suburban…or a Lexus.
I never get this view. GMC adds extra profit per unit sold of a comparable Chevy, so you want them eliminated as a brand to simplify the product list instead of take the profit.
A whole lot of homeowner associations have a rule: No commercial or work vehicles parked in the driveway. Those have to be garaged.
A Chevy truck is a work truck to most non-car-people’s first order approximation, as is a Ford or a Ram. A Cadillac, a GMC, and the departed Lincoln Mark LT — those were luxury cars that could be parked in the driveway.
So, if you live in a condo complex or a tract suburb, and you have pretentious neighbors who want to give you a hard time, and you want a truck, the GMC fills that niche exactly. Since the FCC had to give special regulations for DirecTV antennas to overrule homeowners association rules, and the Congress passed that law overruling flying the flag — you will always be on the profitable side assuming the stupidest possible homeowner association rules, and so that’s one thing that has kept GMC in sales.
@Z71_Silvy
How can you POSSIBLY think GM gets two trucks for the price of one?? There are any number of differeces in the two trucks, they have to spend money to differentiate them. So they are spending money to make them DIFFERENT, that they could spend on making one truck BETTER. And then there is all the management involved, and the marketing, and all the other VERY expensive overhead. I simply cannot imagine that any tiny amount of extra margin they get from the GMC version is more than the cost to support the GMC brand. They keep doing it because all the Buick dealers who also sell GMC trucks would be in a world of hurt. They could kill GMC tomorrow and 95% of GMC owners would just buy the Chevy version next time, if they were going to buy another GMC anyway.
Alternatively, they could just stop selling Chevy trucks and make all the trucks GMC’s, but then the Chevy dealers would be the ones with pitchforks and flaming sticks.
But ultimately, this business model of trying to sell nearly identical things from different brands is a major reason why GM went bankrupt and needed saving in the first place.
GM doesn’t need to focus on one truck brand to challenge Ford. GM is already beating Ford. Silverado/Sierra sales, taken together, usually tops the F-150. All you hear in the press is that F-150 is the top seller, but that’s only true if you pretend that a Sierra is actually a different model. Technically it is a different model and different make, but in reality it’s not.
I’ve always wondered what % of GMC buyers will ditch GM if the brand is discontinued.
I disagree completely. GMC is/was a way for non Chevy dealers to sell trucks. A good idea, and sometimes, the Chevy version is just really ugly (Like the last generation’s front end) and it’s an easy choice to go to the GMC dealer and buy the better looking truck for exactly the same price as the Chevy. In the current generation, they are about equally ugly. The Dodge is the best looking light duty truck out right now, and the F150 is okay too.
Many Pontiac owners did experience excitement psychologically from the brand’s image in the same way beer drinkers and cigarette smokers believe they enjoy unique brand traits that double-blind studies show are not there.
But brand holography aside, anybody could feel the real difference between most non-halo Pontiac models and the imports.
And if you want a reliable, affordable largish sedan with strong V6 power, you buy a Toyota Camry SE V6 because the Bonneville SSEi failed in the marketplace along with the Pontiac brand.
As a Pontiac owner I’m undecided. The new Charger interests me as does the Mustang GT. I was planning to buy a G8 but when Pontiac got cut I looked at the Camaro but was turned off by the interior. I’m unhappy with GM’s sweetheart tax deal on top of it’s bail-out but not enough to keep me from spending money on the right car,( a Chevy G8). Gas prices are also a factor so for now I’ll keep what I have and see how things shake out. I would like to do business again with my local dealer because I was very happy with the sales and service dept. but I have zero interest in a Buick.
I wanted a G8 but didn’t get one because the GT didn’t have a manual transmission (which I think was a mistake on GM’s part).
Chrysler’s legacy of sludging engines and failed transmissions is probably what kept Dodge from picking up more sales from former Pontiac owners. That and tradition. A GM car is different from a Chrysler as from a Ford.
Good point. It’s too bad that Chrysler has that legacy hanging over their heads because I am a current LX owner and I’ve found both the 5.7L V8 and the Daimler-sourced NAG1 transmission to be outstanding. I’m surprised Chrysler hasn’t kept pushing the V8s and the transmission as part of their marketing campaign.
They went to GMC to get their fix of being overcharged for a rebadged Chevy, and they can’t go to Oldsmobile, Buick is for old people, and Cadillacs are for posers, pimps and members of the NBA and NFL.
LIKE!
I own a 2006 GTO, bought brand new, and other than the Corvette (which is out of my price range), GM makes NOTHING that interests me. If I could get one for MSRP, I’d consider trading the GTO for a new Boss 302 Mustang, but I’d probably have better luck winning the Powerball jackpot.
So…I will keep my GTO and hopefully next summer it will come back from Lingenfelter with 600 hp and a new, complete Pedders suspension installed by myself and some good friends.
IMHO, all you guys driving a GTO or a G8 are NOT typical Pontiac buyers, at least not by the numbers. Good as they are, those cars didnt really sell well, and the G8 wasnt even around long enough to be counted in the numbers they are using anyway.
Those typical buyers were rolling the G6 and Grand Prix, maybe a Bonneville. The Torrent and the Vibe were hardly typical Pontiacs, I firmly believe the only people who bought them were the ones who realized they could get a Toyota Matrix and Chevy Equinox for less money at the Pontiac store. The rest were just bargain priced car, sold for ultimate low cost. So is it any wonder they closed the brand??
The GTO and G8 were the only good vehicles they had. People who wanted that kind of car bought it when it was available. The typical GTO buyer moved on to either a Camaro or Mustang… maybe a Challenger, or a Charger if he had kids since he got the GTO and needed 4 doors. Or they moved up to a 350Z or some other sports car. Even if you count the G8 buyers as “Pontiac fans”, GM has nothing to replace that car. If they had rebadged it as a Chevy, I think the same people would be buying it. So whats left?? Charger obviously, maybe some premium brands… Caddy CTS… nothing else.
I don’t think GM made any money importing Holdens. The GTO was discount fodder when gas was cheap, and may well have been a loss leader to get Pontiac some press even at MSRP. The G8 was a victim of poor timing, attempting to fill a niche sated by years of 300Cs, Magnums and Chargers. Throw in 2008 gas prices, and they were taking up space until they became collectible failures. The weak dollar wasn’t going to make it a profit center at any volume. When the Koreans are building their volume products in the US, what does that say about the viability of an Australian car that sells for close to $40K USD at home, prior to being shipped around the world to compete with cars that sell for about $30K?
‘cept that the GTO when first introduced was anything but “discount fodder.” Magazine reviews were good, with the possible exception of Consumer Reports. I went to test drive one when they were first introduced, showed up in an enthusiast ride, clean cut and all, looking nice and conservative, and was told there are no test drives, and prices start with a 5K ADM. The dealer got a polite “FU” and I left. A few months later, all that disappeared. It was a good car that was killed by bland styling, poor dealer practice, and a heritage that the new model could not possibly overcome. GM turned this into a train wreck, but it didn’t have to be that way. Had the car been styled appropriately, had the profit-whores at the dealer level not treated cash-wielding customers like walking ATMs the car would have had a chance. The G8 would have fared much better had Pontiac survived. GM again blew it by not simply making the G8 into a Chevy. All the money was already spent. They could have had at least some return on their investment. Now, considering I just had my first $4.00 fill up, it’s too late.
are automotive brands not as important as people make them out to be?
Corvette buyers excepted, most General Motors’ customers consider brands unimportant. “The deal” matters, along with availability of toe-tag credit and financing…
Toyota and Lexus are brand distinct. As are Nissan and Infinity. Or BMW and Mini. Or Honda and Acura.
Ok – maybe not Honda and Acura…
Says who? I know armies of people who will only buy GM (or Ford, or Honda).
I’m rapidly becoming one of those people, actually.
Pontiac was/is a redneck’s version of a sports car-most were laughable at best. The best version ever, (and their last) the G8, was borrowed heavily from Australia.
Here’s an amusing article about Pontiac…
http://blogs.insideline.com/straightline/2009/02/pontiac-and-the-trailer-trash.html
I don’t really agree with his demographic judgements. In the southeast, it has been decades since a white person visited a Pontiac dealership, let alone bought a car there. The most common vehicles in trailer parks are probably Ford Rangers and Explorers, although Saturn and Nissan sedans figure large too. I don’t think many of them are bought new.
Turbo Solstice … /thread
The real thing with Pontiac: What has become the new chick car?
Pontiac and Mercury filled a void: They took a base-model car and made it look different, and, to some buyers (apparently a large number, because they had the gender imbalance swinging female for a long time) made them look more feminine or girly.
The final generation Pontiac Grand Am with its massive plastic cladding was the quintessential entry-level chick car, at least in the rust belt, for a very long time. It was the counterpart to the Ranger – both cheap, both aging designs, both lacking in new features, both weak compared to the competition, both neglected by their makers, but they sold.
Pontiac lost the plot when it didn’t make the G6 girly enough.
What car got it? What is the blue collar, service job, heterosexual female car today?
(Heterosexual as a joke about Subaru.)
“Are automotive brands not as important as people make them out to be?”
Actually, it should be the other way around, automotive brands are what their makers make them out to be, i.e. the brand that sold Sunfires is perfectly in line with the brand that sold Cavaliers.
Speaking for myself, I could care less abour brand. I buy the car that best fits my needs and desires, I really could not care less what the label on it is. This time around I wanted a manual-transmission, RWD, station wagon. I had two choices, BMW 328iT, or Cadillac CTS-V. The Caddy was well out of my price range, so it was just a matter of picking what color to order the BMW in.
If Yugo came out with a car that fit my needs, I would certainly consider it.
Did you just compare a 328 to a CTS-V? That’s like saying, “I had a hard time deciding between a Camry or a 911.”
When I was shopping and considered the CTS-V, my BMW comparison was the M3. Of course, that was several years ago when the M3 was still two cylinders down, which also meant it lost that argument handily. I ended up with an E55, for what it’s worth. And I wish I had bought the CTS-V.
No, I said the only two RWD, manual transmission, STATION WAGONS for sale in the US are the 328iT and the CTS-V. If you know of any more, do let me know. As I would not even consider the CTS-V due to other factors (price and gas mileage mostly), that meant my choice of new car was pretty easy.
Last time I checked, BMW does not offer the M3 STATION WAGON in the US, and like the CTS-V, it would be out of my price range. Not that I couldn’t afford it, I just wouldn’t spend that much money on a car, I have no use for that level of performance either. The $38K I am spending on the BMW is painful enough to contemplate. :-)
Of course what I REALLY want is a BMW 320D wagon, also with 6spd, but I am not holding my breath on that one.
Brands don’t matter and haven’t for a long time. Heresy I know. The only thing that all those add dollars do is make you AWARE of the brand but Word of Mouth is a far better leading indicator of what someone will buy. All your neighbours buy Hondas and have great experience with them, then that will make the short list.
That said, cars seem to be much more of an impulse buy than the cost would lead you to expect. Ask a woman what kind of car she would like and the response will more than likely be “blue”. Branding ain’t helping there. Dealership experience and finance details will play a large part as well. Feel that you got a good “deal” the last time you bought? You’ll go back to the same dealer especially if the same sales droid is there.
Ask Nullo Modo how many repeats he gets, and how many of those don’t have a clue what to buy until he points them in a direction.
With new stuff, I’d most likely go with an Alfa Romeo, Buick, or Acura.
Then again, the used car lots still have plenty of Bonnevilles and Firebirds for me to buy.
My take is that brands matter, but they matter more if they are strong. GM brand management has been a mess for over half a century. It’s brands have become weak and have little if any meaning.
GM’s biggest problem is that every dealer wanted something for every segment. GM could never say no to the dealers. GM really has had nothing but Chevy, Caddy and clones for 40 years or more. One might scare up a few exceptions, but they just prove the rule.
I suspect that it’s true that Pontiac appealed to women (I’d like to see detailed sales data). The “sporty” image was still important, even to the end, when it was just a cruel joke.
I do believe that model names have largely replaced manufacturer names as the “brand”.
Pontiac and excitement go hand in hand. Or maybe not. It’s funny how GM held tight to the branding of Pontiac but didn’t follow up with performance oriented machines.
Here’s a division known and loved for making performance vehicles and what does GM do??
It gives Pontiac the mighty GRAND AM. A friend of mine had one our senior year of high school. It was the antithesis of sporting/performance.
So to me its no surprise former Pontiac buyers went they did.
Pontiac was not a performance brand and hadn’t been for at least twenty years.
maybe those Pontiac people faced the realization they were driving Chevys all this time anyway.
I like an article that makes me puzzle over something, and I’m still puzzling.
Reviewing the stats that Ed provides in the article, only 1/3 of Pontiac buyers went to Chevy. It probably seems obvious they would, as they were (most of them) driving Chevies all along. But then, why did only 1/3 defect to Chevy?
Could it be that a substantial % of Pontiac buyers didn’t know they were driving Chevies? It’s hard for “car people” to comprehend, but remember not everyone shares our interest in cars or the auto industry. Certainly no one is going to Toyondassandyai for excitement, so one can’t help wonder if excitement was what Pontiac customers were really buying. Did the average Pontiac buyer have a different idea of what excitement was? Different from the average gear head, who uses the term as a synonym for high performance?
So here’s a question to kick around. Suppose Pontiac had decided to concentrate on excitement (the gear head definition – high performance) and say that decision had been made 20 years ago. What would have happened to sales? Given that Pontiac didn’t really sell high performance (with a couple exceptions) would that have narrowed the brand to the point that it no longer appealed to most Pontiac buyers?
One of the lessons I take from this is that if you have a several brands and you terminate some of them, you’re going to loose sales. Maybe a lot of sales.
Pontiac: ribbed, for her pleasure:
pontiac-grand-am.jpg
In rural areas and small towns of the Canadian praries, I’ve noticed the few who don’t buy pick-up trucks, will only purchase cars made by the Big 3. Pontiacs really are treated as special, reserving the brand as an exclusive sporting option?! Does anyone have an explanation why the rural/lesser populated areas of both the US and Canada are the strongest supporters of Chevrolets, Buicks and their ilk? People who use the patriotic reason of “buy American” and blindly supported decades of wretched engineering from the big 3 have no qualms in always going the cheapest route for everything else in their lives and buying made in China products at places like Walmarts and Dollar stores. I guess my point is, for years GM, Chrysler and Ford didn’t deserve the support from the masses that they got, but they were. We shipped most of our other manufacturing and jobs across the ocean to the 3rd-China (and 4th) worlds. We now support these companies/countries heartily and without question. Why? because of the greed of our business leaders and people generally wanting to save a few pennies at Walmarts rather than support locally made.
Same reason old people buy Buicks and lawyers are reputed to fancy BMW’s. Your car is a statement about how you want to be perceived (or at least it is once you have the money to make a choice). This is why there are so many immaculate 4wd trucks with PITA bed covers and little placards in the tow hitch instead of a ball. They bought the truck because they want to convey that they are part of a cultural group that values doing stuff like building and outdoors stuff, not because they actually need a truck. These are the people who justify their F-250 by saying they need it when they move.
Basically peer pressure plays a big roll in what cars you buy, is basically what I’m getting at. If I showed up a Chevy Cruze to Christmas, I can tell you I’d probably get a fair number of comments about it (Toyota family). If a guy in rural Canada buys a 4Runner, he’ll get some heat for it. I’d like to psychoanalyze it, but honestly I’d probably sound like a bigoted city slicker so I’ll just chalk it up to good trucks, tradition and accessibility.
toxicroach;
I like your points, I agree peer pressure can be part of the car purchasing decision. I currently live in a small town and work at a power plant staffed by at least 50% farmers. Pick-up trucks are the rule, not the exception. The young-highly paid men at my plant buy American Muscle cars (Camaro SS, Challengers, Ford Mustang GT-500, etc) as one of their many toys. I do have an open mind and can appreciate these cars, but I would probably never buy one. Imagine my surprise last year when they found out I was buying the 2011 Audi TTS. Many of these hard-core truck/Big 3 automaker guys were genuinely interested. I was asked quite often “when is your car coming?” They seemed to respect the Audi brand, my VW GTI not as much.
People who use the patriotic reason of “buy American” and blindly supported decades of wretched engineering from the big 3 have no qualms in always going the cheapest route for everything else in their lives and buying made in China products at places like Walmarts and Dollar stores.
People are funny that way. You’ll find them speaking one way, yet acting in another. Kind of like finding working class people suddenly voting for a group of folks that don’t have their interests in mind, yet get them to think they do. It is hard though, not to end up with massive amounts of Chinese made products. So many common items sold under American brands are all imported. And the Chinese have stepped up, offering whatever quality the brand owner wants to pay for. So Made in China can be just as good as made anywhere else. Yet, at what cost? Buying a Audi because you want one is one thing-nothing wrong with that. But when the fundamental products that build your surroundings are all outsourced, what happens to those who used to provide that work? Oh, I forgot. They go back to school at age 50 to retrain at night while they work a minimum wage job and live on credit cards to feed their two kids. Yeah, got to love that new American Dream. We all love it when we can get a DVD play for $40 bucks…
G8 aside, Pontiac was really about reskins of mediocre Chevy’s. In light of the fact that the brands actual customers were mostly just interested in bland and cheap sedans, I’m not surprised that a third went to the source of the bland & cheap sedans (Chevy), plenty just bought whatever was on the dealers lot where they bought their last car, and the rest split among the rest of the car brands with a lean towards other domestics.
The 3% of Pontiac buyers that went to Cadillac and Mazda are probably the ones who cared about performance. I bet most of them are in CTS’s or Mazda 6’s right about now.
Last Pontiac I shopped for was a Grand Am…22 years ago. Even then I figured out they were just Chevys. Last Pontiac I drove was a rental G6. The fact that Avis was renting the G6 instead of the Malibu shows the state of Pontiac brand equity. However, the G6 was a reasonable basic transportation appliance. I could see most Pontiac owners buying Chevrolet. Ones boycotting Government Motors probably choose Ford instead. Fans of boy racer plastic might like the Toyota Camry SE, especially with sudden acceleration cash on the hood.
I have an ’06 Vibe with 60K miles on it. Runs great, gets great mileage, very practical. I plan on driving it until it disintegrates. Yeah, I know it’s a Toyota. But this was one vehicle that GM got right and they kicked it to the curb. Not only did they kick the vehicle to the curb, but also the Pontiac brand. Very disappointing.
If they sold a Matrix clone under the Chevy nameplate, I’d probably buy it. Otherwise, not interested in GM.
golden2husky:
I see a lot of hypocrisy in North America. I see how small town/rural people blindly buy only American or Canadian made vehicles, which to them means GM, Ford and Chrysler. Toyota and Honda have plants in Ontario, but some would NEVER buy them. The US has Toyota, Honda, Mercedes and BMW plants. These same people don’t question the origin of anything else they are going to buy, and their never ending quest for the “cheapest” unfortunately now means made in China or other 3rd world countries. China may make a product of equal quality, but ultimately this is meaningless. Clarks of England shoes are now made in China, Nike, North Face, etc, the list is infinite. Appallingly cheap labor in China hasn’t dropped prices much at our end- few seem to care. I make every effort to source most of the things I buy from Canada, USA or even Europe, but most can’t be bothered.
I’m a VW/Audi owner by the way and I’ve seen how this forum feels about hose brands!
Litespeed, at least give people who aren’t you credit enough for being smart enough to decide what they buy. You can’t be around for all of us to ask what we should buy so just give it up. You aren’t any smarter or less of a hypocrite than anyone else. People will and should buy what they want within their price range. Just because it’s not what you would buy doesn’t mean it’s not a valid or smart choice.
MikeAR
I’m really not trying to tell people what to buy, I only want to understand Big3 loyalty. It’s a very touchy subject- a sore spot for many but surely not taboo?
In everything BUT cars, I support North America. I have owned Chevrolet and Mercury in the past but have felt underwhelmed by our choices here.
Litespeed –
I see it like this. Regardless of where the car was made, buying from a US based company helps keep that company afloat, and that company adds tax revenue to the US government to support infrastructure and programs for the people. By buying a Toyota made in the US you support the US workers who made that vehicle, but by buying a Ford/GM/Chrysler product, you support the US economy as a whole.
I think people make a big deal about where there cars come from because cars are a big purchase, and it’s fairly easy to see where they come from. A lot of people are trying to do the same for certain other products where they can – for example I will only buy shrimp caught in the Gulf, not the imported farmed ones from China or Thailand. For a lot of products however, there isn’t a viable US option. Try finding almost any quality piece of electronics that was built outside of Asia – it’s nearly impossible.
NulloModo
You make great points- I agree.
Try finding almost any quality piece of electronics that was built outside of Asia – it’s nearly impossible.
Actually, true high quality electronics are often designed and built in the USA. America can compete with anyone in the cost no object arena. It is in the mass market stuff where American manufacturers gave away the store. Have you looked at any of the electronic modules that fill the Fords you sell? Sad to say, I sure none are sourced in the US or Canada. That’s really sad.
golden2husky –
Perhaps I should have clarified with consumer electronics. I know we design and build a lot of high end industrial and lab equipment here, and no one else in the world even comes close when it comes to designing and building weapons systems and aeronautics. We also do pretty well with components, as most of Intel and AMD’s design work is done in the US, and some processors are even fabbed here (though Intel’s current Core series seems to have stemmed from the work of their Israeli design team).
When you take a look at your digital camera, phone, blu-ray player, TV, or just about any other entertainment device though, it’s built in Asia, regardless of where it was designed.
EDIT: Now that I think about it, I think I can recall certain very high end audio equipment that is still made in the UK or Germany, and there are likely some US shops doing some work in that area as well. I suppose if one looks hard enough there are probably some US companies at least designing some stuff locally. Once you get into anything with ICs though, a lot of the big time fabs are in Taiwan, and almost all memory is produced overseas. I suppose that’s part of the global economy we live in. Do you know of any consumer electronics outfits that still design and produce entirely in the US?
And here I thought the average Pontiac buyer, was the 3rd hand owner buying a 5(+) yr old ex-fleet Grandsomething @ a buy here pay here lot.
True, the average Pontiac buyer probably has a rental kiosk in every major US airport.
^ FTW!
I still have my Pontiac Fiero, but for a daily commuter, I have a MINI Cooper S now. The family car has been replaced with a BMW 5 series. The Fiero does Show n Shine and club drive duties now.
Both my father, who pretty well owned nothing but GM cars, mostly Pontiacs, has given up on GM and bought a Honda Accord.
Our family has 2 Pontiac orphans; a Vibe and a Torrent. They were purchased in 2007 by my daughter and my wife respectively. The Vibe was a replacement for an older Malibu that was totalled in an accident. My daughter bought it because it was cute. She loves the sunroof, XM radio, and it holds all her stuff. I liked it because it is mostly Toyota under the skin. The particular dealer had the VIbe in exactly the right color.
While we were finalizing the deal, my wife sat in a Torrent and was thrilled that the console was exactly the right size to hold her purse. I didn’t even dirve it before we wrote out the paperwork. Yes, sometimes car sales are that easy.
Our dealer also sells GMC and Buick, so when it comes time to trade in, I wouldn’t be surprised if the dealer at least has a shot at our business.
Well for a German cars enthusiast, I would say excity about Pontiac ended in 92 with the 3rd gen Firebird.
Mercedes Benz is lacking in the statistics
I hope GM will revive the brand and bring it back to old glory…