Feelin' a little sad: Pontiac.

[CamaroSkooter]

One word: Aztek

[TastyBake]

I listen to autoline detroit where they interview division managers. He're what I know:

Bob Lutz said pontiac sold more than buick but buick had more of a fixed, stable market and momentum in China was high. He wanted Pontiac to be a high performance brand but the board said no.


- The division head of Buick said there are no plans to bring back the Grand National at the moment but they talked about it. Their focus is improving what they have now.


I understand. Remove R&D from Pontiac and focus on making what you have better. Nastalgia is nice but good cars sell. Not rebadge engineering.

[glc55]

In college I had a 1968 Firebird HO 326 engine yellow I do miss that car. Greg

[awfarley]

Originally Posted by CamaroSkooter

One word: Aztek

Everytime I see one of those I throw up a little in my mouth and have to swallow it

[Kdogg]

Originally Posted by big papa

So do I:

Love that color,would look good on a camaro!

[fbodfather]

I don't think anyone within GM wanted to see the Pontiac Division go away.

Everytime I watch this commercial, I get a bit choked up:




The reality of all of this? The world Changed.

Let's take a walk back to 1969 --

"The Big three" were "Chevy/Ford/Plymouth" --

While there are still some that call "GM/Ford/Chrysler" the 'big three' -- most now call them "The Detroit three" -- corporations now, rather than Divisions back then.

In 1969, there was no Nissan - it was Datsun. Foreign brands consisted primarily of VW/Toyota/Datsun -- Mercedes - and a small company called BMW that most in the middle of the nation had never seen. Honda was still offering motorcycles -- no cars - in the U.S. No Subaru other than perhaps in California - no Mazda (yet) So - Alfred Sloan's GM business model of people entering the market in a chevy - and then progressing 'up' thru the various GM Divisions until they 'arrived' and bought a Cadillac -- made sense up until the early to mid sixties when suddenly the market fragmented -- into 'compact' cars - 'intermediate' cars - 'pony' cars - 'sports' cars -- and since then the fragmentation continues........

Meaning that it's no mystery why Plymouth, Mercury, Eagle, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Saturn have gone away - the reality is that anyone building cars in the world were going to bring them to the world's largest automobile market (...and the U.S. was until 2008 when China surpassed the U.S. Market in terms of volume)

So - now people have about 400 nameplates to choose from when they go to buy a car or truck.

Bring back Pontiac? I'd love to see it - but unless Japan and Korea and the European union either stop building cars - or Americans (and Canadians) decide they're going to choose cars built by GM/Ford/Chrysler instead of Toyota/Honda/Nissan/BMW etc -- I don't see it happening.

Someone said "well.....make a Firebird from a Camaro" -- the investment to do so properly would cost 10s of millions of dollars --
......to sell how many "plus" cars? One has to ask: if the firebird is not offered -- what do they buy? Camaro or Mustang? -- the data that exists suggests Camaro - -so the 'plus' sales would not begin to cover the development costs.

Something else to consider - if we were to have offered a Firebird three years ago - the funds to do ZL1 and 1LE would not be available - after all, there is only so much Development money - and it has to be spread across Divisions and platforms and segments.

Yes - I'd love to see Pontiac come back - but virtually no chance of that happening. :(

[ECCamaro]

Originally Posted by Lumix

Yes indeed...I miss Pontiac quite a lot.
I might easily have bought a firebird instead of camaro if it had been available.

Your Solstii are Beautiful!!!!

[ECCamaro]

Originally Posted by tonyko1

As far as a complete independent division goes, probably a real long-shot. It would have to be sold at other GM divisions dealers, perhaps at a Chevy dealership. Then it would have to be serviced there as well.

I too sure miss the Pontiac brand, it was the "we build excitement" brand. However, as many things GM, it kind of got lost, instead of building excitement, it starting building the Aztec and Montana minivan........

The excitement had left a long time ago. Then they tried to get it back with the G8, but to me it just did not have enough "Wow Factor". The Solstices did have a "Wow Factor". They were great looking! They did not try to look like anything else on the road! They were unique, like the Prowler. The only thing that GM did wrong was that the initial models did not have air conditioning. GM relaized its mistake and put airconditioning in later models. I think those cars sold well.

[ECCamaro]

Originally Posted by CamaroSkooter

One word: Aztek

My brother's ex-wife worked for GM and she said that even before GM released the Astek they knew it was a mistake. She could not tell me why they still proceeded.

[dorfmac]

Funny this came up today because I've seen 3 late model trans ams today and was telling my girlfriend how badass they look.

I really think that it's still one of the best looking cars of the past decade even with all the newer cars that have come out.

[Bhobbs]

There is no platform for a GTO to be built. It was built on the same platform as the Chevelle and, well, there is no Chevelle/GTO/Cutlass.

[big papa]

Some of these cars are still produced by Holden in Australia. G8 is a
Commodore, and check out the cool G8 wagon or GTO El Camino the Ute.

www.holden.com.au/vehicles

[Lumix]

Originally Posted by ECCamaro

Your Solstii are Beautiful!!!!

Thank you sir,
Believe it or not, I actually really enjoyed this one too.
Look at that young punk driving!
Oh to go back, and know then what I know now...

[Run4two]

Originally Posted by big papa

Some of these cars are still produced by Holden in Australia. G8 is a
Commodore, and check out the cool G8 wagon or GTO El Camino the Ute.

www.holden.com.au/vehicles

I never would have guessed! It looks like the V8 Commodore comes with the LS2 engine?