Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Automotive > Brand-specific forums > Retired Brands
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 09-03-2014, 02:40 PM
 
Location: Miami Metro
1,015 posts, read 1,649,486 times
Reputation: 890

Advertisements

I saw this on another thread, and reintroduced question I often though when GM was going down the tubes last time; What exactly is the point of Pontiac?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 09-03-2014, 02:44 PM
 
Location: Birmingham
11,787 posts, read 17,704,519 times
Reputation: 10120
The purpose was to be GM's Excitement/Enthusiast division. However, that mission statement got muddled because BPG dealers wanted cheap cars to sell to help keep revenues up so you got rebadged garbage like the G3 and G5, the Torrent, and the much maligned Aztec.

Hardcore enthusiasts missed the brand and view it through rose colored glasses but for every cool car like the GTO and G8, you had three or four phoned in hack jobs like the ones mentioned above.

So it is history because the government said something had to go so they could receive the bailout.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-03-2014, 04:17 PM
 
Location: Funkotron, MA
1,203 posts, read 4,070,180 times
Reputation: 1821
Excitement = body-side cladding!

GM was a mess from the 80s to until just recently. There have been a couple of gems here and there, but otherwise? ugh.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-03-2014, 04:32 PM
 
Location: Prosper
6,255 posts, read 17,042,020 times
Reputation: 9501
Quote:
Originally Posted by raveabouttoast View Post
Excitement = body-side cladding!
Back in the day it was a little bit more than that... the Firebird Firehawk was more powerful than any Camaro you could buy, the SLP packages were only sold for Pontiacs in the beginning. Chevy always got the performance stuff last, probably because their halo car is the Corvette, not the Camaro.

I think GM made a big mistake by killing Pontiac, they really should have killed off Buick instead since they already had Cadillac as their luxury division. But as Tourian said, Pontiac had too many models that were just rebadges at the end, they'd lost their niche.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-03-2014, 06:33 PM
 
3,046 posts, read 4,107,986 times
Reputation: 2131
Quote:
Originally Posted by MckinneyOwnr View Post
Back in the day it was a little bit more than that... the Firebird Firehawk was more powerful than any Camaro you could buy, the SLP packages were only sold for Pontiacs in the beginning. Chevy always got the performance stuff last, probably because their halo car is the Corvette, not the Camaro.

I think GM made a big mistake by killing Pontiac, they really should have killed off Buick instead since they already had Cadillac as their luxury division. But as Tourian said, Pontiac had too many models that were just rebadges at the end, they'd lost their niche.

GM knows what there doing they are a billion dollar company. They have been in business a Long time.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-03-2014, 07:18 PM
 
Location: NY
9,131 posts, read 19,944,891 times
Reputation: 11706
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vannort54 View Post
GM knows what there doing they are a billion dollar company. They have been in business a Long time.
Thats why they were told by the government what to axe as they went bankrupt and marched towards the brink of insolvency?

Ok.

Truth be told, Pontiac was a redundant division with a couple nice performers. Nothing spectacular, and nothing that could not be sold under the Chevy brand.

Buick is a global brand which makes the company a lot of cash over in China, and was heading for a design language which would easily allow transition of future Saturn products based on European Opels into Buicks instead.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-03-2014, 07:28 PM
 
Location: On the Chesapeake
45,113 posts, read 60,214,676 times
Reputation: 60714
It was part of the GM marketing scheme for decades:
Chevy when you're young.
Olds when you had a bit more money.
Buick when you had even more money (that's why they were called "doctor's cars").
Cadillac when you'd really made it.

Pontiac to recapture your youth.

As a note, I knew older lawyers who would drive Olds or Buicks instead of Caddies. They said that a Caddie would remind that guy over there how much money the lawyer got for the guy's ex-wife. Not so much with an Olds or Buick.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-03-2014, 07:29 PM
 
Location: Riverside Ca
22,146 posts, read 33,381,488 times
Reputation: 35433
Unfortunately Pontiacs claim to fame in the end was the Firebird ( later the GTO G6/8) but they really didn't have anything great that stood out. And by the time they did have something they were already on the chopping block. And pretty much all the Pontiacs had scoops, intakes, diverters, body cladding convoluted bubble dashes. In the later years they seemed to dump a lot of that stuff and cleaned up the designs. The only vehicle that remotely was even on the radar for me was the Trans Am. and that was only because I thought it looked better than the camaro. The GTO looked too much like a Grand Prix to me. Fast car with absolutely nothing setting it apart on the road. Pontiacs were just a basic GM chassi that was more "sporty" but IMO had a cartoonish Speed Racer look to the whole line up.

A long time ago I thought the last rendition of the Fiero had a cool look. Too bad they killed it. Now THAT could of been a contender. Mid engine RWD fiberglass. If they let that car evolve it would of made it


Quote:
Originally Posted by Vannort54 View Post
GM knows what there doing they are a billion dollar company. They have been in business a Long time.
Lol. GM was so bloated and top heavy they were failing anyway. UAW was eating them alive in bennies. Just because they are a big boy on the block doesn't mean they can't fail. They were dying a few years back. I think it was 008 where they discounted everything with employee pricing. My BIL bought a chevy crew cab diesel for 32k. That truck stickered at 44 something. They also took a huge bail out. And they dumped a lot of other car companies they held interest in.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-04-2014, 07:06 AM
 
838 posts, read 1,350,150 times
Reputation: 1688
Quote:
Originally Posted by Electrician4you View Post
Unfortunately Pontiacs claim to fame in the end was the Firebird ( later the GTO G6/8) but they really didn't have anything great that stood out. And by the time they did have something they were already on the chopping block. And pretty much all the Pontiacs had scoops, intakes, diverters, body cladding convoluted bubble dashes. In the later years they seemed to dump a lot of that stuff and cleaned up the designs. The only vehicle that remotely was even on the radar for me was the Trans Am. and that was only because I thought it looked better than the camaro. The GTO looked too much like a Grand Prix to me. Fast car with absolutely nothing setting it apart on the road. Pontiacs were just a basic GM chassi that was more "sporty" but IMO had a cartoonish Speed Racer look to the whole line up.

A long time ago I thought the last rendition of the Fiero had a cool look. Too bad they killed it. Now THAT could of been a contender. Mid engine RWD fiberglass. If they let that car evolve it would of made it




Lol. GM was so bloated and top heavy they were failing anyway. UAW was eating them alive in bennies. Just because they are a big boy on the block doesn't mean they can't fail. They were dying a few years back. I think it was 008 where they discounted everything with employee pricing. My BIL bought a chevy crew cab diesel for 32k. That truck stickered at 44 something. They also took a huge bail out. And they dumped a lot of other car companies they held interest in.
That's why I bought one. A car that doesn't scream look at me and has an LS2 under the hood.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-04-2014, 07:20 AM
 
Location: Prosper
6,255 posts, read 17,042,020 times
Reputation: 9501
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vannort54 View Post
GM knows what there doing they are a billion dollar company. They have been in business a Long time.
"And the award for Most Lunacy Filled Post goes to...."

Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:

Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Automotive > Brand-specific forums > Retired Brands

All times are GMT -6. The time now is 06:26 AM.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top