Pontiac brand will be missed
The end has finally come for the Pontiac Motor Division after 84 years filled with major strife and occasional success. General Motors (GM) closed down the division officially on October 31, 2010, once all its contracts with dealers expired. The Pontiac brand is one of several brands that GM has severed ties with throughout GM’s history. GM ended the Oakland brand in the early 1900s, shortly after it purchased the merged companies of Oakland Motors and Pontiac Spring and Wagon Works. GM had decided then to concentrate on its Pontiac Chief of Sixes model after it became popular. GM also closed down the Oldsmobile brand in 2004, and it Aztek model in 2005. It plans to officially close off the Saturn brand by 2011.
The Pontiac Motor Division was originally created in 1926, and located in Pontiac, Oakland County, Michigan. The Pontiac brand was named for the city it was manufactured in, and the city in turn was named after the 18th century Ottawa Chief Pontiac. Just as Chief Pontiac may have faded away into the distant past, the Pontiac brand may also fade away. However, it is just as likely that the Pontiac cars will be remembered with fond memories, just as Chief Pontiac is still remembered 190 years later.
Although not all of the Pontiac models will be remembered or even missed, there are a few that will be remembered and missed. The Firebird Trans Am has already become immortalized due to the “Smokey and the Bandit” movie starring Burt Reynolds and Sally Fields. The GTO, which stands for the Italian phrase “Gran Turismo Omolgato,” is one of the most loved muscle cars of the 1960s and 1970s. Its name means “ready to race” and that is exactly what most of the GTO owners did with their cars. Ronny and the Daytonas made the GTO even more popular by singing a song named “My Little GTO.”
Yet the GTO was merely a modified Tempest. The same John DeLorean that designed the DMC-12 gull-winged sports car used in the “Back to the Future” movie trilogy helped to design the GTO. Mr. DeLorean, as the GTO’s chief engineer, violated a GM policy which limited the maximum size of the car’s engine. The Pontiac division had put 5,000 GTOs on the market before GM’s corporate office found out about the policy violation. Due to its’ success, GM changed its engine size limitations.
Causes of Pontiac’s demise
However, over the past few decades, consumers have started preferring the more fuel-efficient compact vehicles to the muscle cars. GM and especially the Pontiac Motor Division lost the leading edge in selling products to the American market. As a result, GM reorganized the company in 1984 and started combining Pontiac’s manufacturing, engineering, and design operations with other GM brands. They started putting the less powerful guts of other GM makes into Pontiac skins.
Most consumers simply were not impressed with the rebadging of the GM/Pontiac products. Pontiac’s fans were disappointed that the Pontiac models were starting to look and act just like any other GM make and model. For the most part, GM/Pontiac kept producing cars that just didn’t appeal to the American consumers. This meant bad business for Pontiac, as it was originally geared towards selling specifically to Americans. By the time Pontiac started making cars like the G8 and Solstice, which did appeal to American consumers; it was just too late to save the brand.
Pontiac’s sales had dropped down to less than a third of its 1968 sales by 2008. Between all the inconsistencies in corporate strategy, the unstable economy, and changes in consumers’ preferences, GM itself had to declare bankruptcy in 2009. As part of the bankruptcy agreement, GM had to close down the Pontiac Motor Division once the dealer contracts expired.
Good time to purchase a new Pontiac
However, now may be a good time to snap up the remaining unsold new Pontiacs that are still at the dealers’ lots. Due to the brand’s current status with GM, every Pontiac model is now considered to be a used model, even if it’s never been off the dealer’s lot. This means you can get a fairly new vehicle at close to half the price it would have cost you just a few months ago. Another good point is that the dealers will continue to service Pontiac models and will still honor any warranties.
Who knows, eventually someone may decide to re-introduce some of the more popular Pontiac models back onto the market sometime in the future. That’s exactly what happened with DeLorean’s DMC-12 model. A Texan named Steve Wynn decided to take over the brand and has now started producing new modified DMC-12s. Maybe, just maybe, powerful muscle cars like the GTO will come back into style. However, don’t hold your breath while you wait for that to happen. The environmental restrictions keep getting tougher, not more lax.
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