GM to drop Pontiac

[Hylton]

Originally Posted by jrhaus76

how would you be able to pick it out from all the gold accords?

5 minutes before you see one of those!

[Lovestanda]

Does this make the Camaro more stable in the market place or less??

[Hylton]

Originally Posted by Lovestanda

Does this make the Camaro more stable in the market place or less??

It will make all GM products that remain, much more stable. Also, the less products they offer, the more focus they can apply to existing models.

[FenwickHockey65]

Originally Posted by UCF w00t

Don't care how well GMC sells. Those sales will go over to Chevy if GMC ceased to exist. It's not like someone would say "Well since I can't get my Sierra, I'll have to get a Tundra" or something. They'll just pick up a Silverado.

We tried that with Oldsmobile.

Fail.

[Hylton]

Originally Posted by FenwickHockey65

We tried that with Oldsmobile.

Fail.

How do you know that Pontiac, Chevrolet or Buick did not gain by Oldsmobiles demise?

[FenwickHockey65]

Originally Posted by Hylton

How do you know that Pontiac, Chevrolet or Buick did not gain by Oldsmobiles demise?

GM assumed that Oldsmobile owners would do just that...instead, market research showed a substantial amount went to other automakers.

[Tomash]

Saturn -- dropped (rebadging Opels never really worked in the US -- different taste)
Ponitac -- dropped
Saab -- for sale
Opel -- for sale

At least Chevrolet brand will be left after all these cuts. And I do hope Opel won't get sold, as it's probably GM's best spot in Europe. What are your next bets? Realize there's no place for sentiment here (Pontiac was once a powerful brand...), so what other brands will be dropped due to being in the red (as a whole, not talking about single cars)?

BTW, no news like that from Chrysler. I guess they have decided to die anyway...

[AZCamaroFan]

Now GM wants to convert their government debt to stock. In other words the government own stock in the company. This is getting worse. Not better.

[storm79]

i'm not going 2 lie im very disappointed in the dropping of pontiac...i think that in the last few years is when they f'd up pontiac....with the g3, the g5, n im prolly going 2 get flamed for this one the g8. But the reason i say g8 is that it's not selling good i mean my dealer has gotten one in and its prolly been there for about 9 months no ones bought it. The g5 was stupid to make they...as was the G3. They should of kept the G6, Vibe, and then i personally think they should of kept the Grand Prix because i see so many of them around it's crazy. but thats just my 2 cents...

sad to see such an iconic car brand being let go...after all i do own one

[OUR72GTO]

Ya.......my dealer here only gas had 1 G8 in 8 months and it has not sold , even Red with $8500 off sticker.

[Hylton]

Originally Posted by OUR72GTO

Ya.......my dealer here only gas had 1 G8 in 8 months and it has not sold , even Red with $8500 off sticker.

They are selling really well here in Ottawa.

[storm79]

idk i think they made a massive mistake by takin out the grand prix cuz it was an affordable/fun to drive sedan.

[Paintcode40]

I found this story at autoweek website and wanted to share it with my GM friends.

I realize there’s little room for sentimentality in today’s cutthroat world of the automotive business, especially in a recession. And I realize that the executives at General Motors are bailing water as fast as they can as their 100-plus-year-old ship is sinking. I commend them for grabbing pails and working to keep the ship afloat.

The company has been shedding or trying to shed brands for months. Hummer, Saturn, Saab, Opel and Pontiac all have been rumored to be shuttered as Oldsmobile was a few years ago. But GM CEO Fritz Henderson’s death sentence handed down to Pontiac on Monday morning still hit pretty hard. Hearing the news was much like hearing of the death of a long-sick loved one--it still hits hard, even though the outcome has been known for some time.

Pontiac hasn’t been the Excitement Division, as it was known for a while, for some time. The dreadful Aztek--while certainly not responsible for the nameplate’s ultimate demise--clearly is symbolic of the malaise in which the brand found itself today, after the heady days when it was building GTOs, Grand Prix and Firebirds, back in the 1960s and ’70s.

I grew up in a Pontiac family. My dad owned a bunch of different cars in his more than eight decades of life, but Pontiacs were in the driveway when I was growing up. I loved looking at those Pontiac-blue engines, and my earliest automotive memories are filled with Pontiacs and the road trips we took in them.

A maroon-colored 1960 Star Chief may have been my dad’s favorite car, and it became even more his favorite in every story he told following its demise at the hands of my older sister. She was not hurt in the crash, but the car suffered frame damage and could not be repaired. The wreck sat in our yard for weeks, not so much as a monument to my sister’s driving but because my dad tried everything he could to salvage his favorite car. Only when he was convinced that it made no financial sense to pursue a repair was the mangled heap hauled off to the junkyard.

The Star Chief gave way to a ’65 Catalina that was our ride for my first trip to Florida, a trip I’d make two more times in the blue two-door. The Catalina was the first car we owned that had seatbelts, and I remember being at the dealership when my dad asked for them to be installed.

The ’65 Catalina gave way to a ’68 Catalina that was our ride for an epic four-week cross-country tour of America. Six years later, it became my first car. The two-door, in olive green with a black vinyl roof, was my car during high school, and it’s not hyperbole to say that I grew up in it. It’s the car in which I took my driver’s test and the first car I drove in a drag race. There were lots of firsts in that car.

By the time I got the Catalina, my dad had moved on to Chrysler products--they were bigger than Pontiacs, and he always liked bigger cars.

But others around me kept the Pontiac flame burning.

An uncle had a ’65 Grand Prix that I thought was one of the coolest, most badass cars of all time. I bugged him for a ride every chance I could. The rumbling dual exhaust and the ability to smoke the tires from a stop made rides in the Grand Prix memorable.

A ’68 Firebird was a high-school friend’s first car that became one of the fastest quarter-mile cars in my hometown. In a rural southern Michigan town in the early 1970s that was home to numerous Dodge Challengers and Chargers, that was quite an honor.

But my friend made it fast, getting a junkyard 389-cubic-inch engine and rebuilding it with performance parts, all while being encouraged by his parents. Watching--and occasionally helping--him rebuild that engine was like taking Auto Mechanics 101. It was a seminal time in my love and appreciation for the automobile.

With GM’s announcement of the rebirth of the Chevrolet Camaro a few years ago, I, along with many Pontiac fans, kept waiting for the announcement of the new Firebird. Pontiac had brought back a GTO, a rebadged Holden from Australia, and, while a decent car, it really didn’t fit with the heritage of the original GTO.

Now we know that there never will be another Firebird, or Catalina, or Grand Prix.

I hope GM’s ditching of Pontiac, among the myriad measures that the company is enacting to stay viable, helps save the company as it moves forward with just Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC.

In reality, Pontiac has been dead for years. I wasn’t ready to admit it, and until today, no one who really mattered was willing to say so, either.

[lsxBrian]

now we lose the second best Gm car ever.The Pontiac G8.I wished it could go over to chevrolet and become the Chevelle but from what I hear its not happening.