Where is Pontiac's ashes in all this?

[TransAmJim]

I agree with most of what you say here in theory, and yes, I am quite jaded by all this....to the point that I almost bought a Challenger....but I couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger on that. Still think my Ram Air would take it.

Pontiac COULD have been fine. Go back to those great Trans Am "the muscle car lives" commercials, the numerous Bonnaville supercharged cars, the Grand Prix and the Grand Am is all they would have needed PONTIAC, WE BUILD EXCITEMENT......then came the "I wanna build SUV's like everyone else" crap, and (gasp) minivans......that's not pontiac. What the hell was that hideous Aztec supposed to be anyways? To say Pontiac died because people weren't buying them is a little skewed the way I'm looking at it. Pontiac died because of bad management, bad rebadge design on many cars, and for the most part the cars were just ugly....period. I'm sure John Delorean is turning over in his grave as I type this.

The right management/decider could turn Pontiac into a great as it once was...as it should be. GM doesn't want that because if somebody else does it right, what does that say about them?

[zete]

The sales just weren't there. Remember, the G6 was mostly fleet sales. The Grand Prix was also mostly fleet in its last years. The brand was seriously damaged and to bring people back into the fold is just very very hard. The only way to do it, as Lutz saw, was to bring out some great product and then give it time. However, Pontiac just didn't have the runway it needed.

Ultimately, it's about product. And GM didn't have the cash in 2007 or 2008 to give Pontiac enough product. This has actually been the problem for years and Pontiac suffered by just offering fairly boring vehicles. To do a proper Pontiac required a huge amount of cash, something GM didn't have especially as they focused on three brands that actually made GM money: Chevrolet, Cadillac, and Buick.

As to someone else doing right by Pontiac, perhaps. But under GM's debt loads, it wasn't going to happen. Then again, Penske tried to save Saturn and couldn't even find any automaker the world over willing to supply him with vehicles. That just tells you how hard it is to stand up a niche brand.

Ultimately, Pontiac's sales numbers plummeted. You don't have to agree with that, but that's just reality. And the fewer the sales, the less likely GM would pump more money into Pontiac. Remember, Lutz called Pontiac "damaged" in 2005! He was floating the performance angle since then. It didn't work. It was that seriously eroded.

Look at it this way. When I bought my G8 GT many of my friends thought I was nuts for buying a Pontiac. Until they saw it. Problem is, none of them would have set foot into a Pontiac dealership and the only way they were even remotely familiar with the car was after they saw mine. It was that bad! And of all the friends and work colleagues I know -- which is hundreds -- I'm the only owner of a Pontiac!

I'll provide one interesting observation. When I was showing the G8 to a friend we walked into the garage at work. He was walking with me and asked where the car was. I hit the remote and the lights flashed and he said: "That's it?!?!" I said, yeah, why? He said, "That's not a Pontiac. It's too good looking." He thought it was a BMW. Again, therein lies the problem. Perceptions are just too skewed. Pontiac was just too seriously damaged to make it. As unfortunate as that might be to so many fans.

[Idler Arm]

I drove through LaFontaine Pontiac today and they have literally hundreds of Pontiacs there, all kinds and colors. There were rows and rows of G6s, lots of Solstices, and quite a few G8s.

[TransAmJim]

I do agree that the sales weren't there.....but how do you sell a crappy car? While I don't know the fleet numbers of G6, me and the wife have noticed a lot of them around here, and these are not fleet cars. There are 4 on my street alone, all bought in the last 2 years. My stepson works at ShopRite and there's always a few in the parking lot. I know this because he's saving for a newer car now (he'll be 18 next week) and what does he want? Either a new G6 or an older Grand Prix. I'm telling you...they're everywhere, and young people like them.... Maybe us here in the BucksPA/MercerNJ all missed the announcement that Pontiacs are only for fleets.

G5, G3, Vibe and many of the other rebadges were/are crap. Whose idea were they? GM brass killed Pontiac. Not us. I'm telling you, it sucks.

Incidentally, Friday, my 2001 Pontiac with 120,000 miles ate up a shiny new red/black camaro ss in a 1/4 mile run. He asked what I did to the car because he should have beaten me easily. My reply, "well let's see......what did I put on it? Oh, 120,000 miles, synthetic oil and premium pump gas. You must not know how to drive that car."

Pontiac and it's loyalists got screwed. Period.

[Elvisuperman]

Originally Posted by FoMoCo Fan

I still think there's an automaker from China that would love to buy the Pontiac name and logo...

Isn't there a FORD you can go fix somewhere? Go away.

[84Cressida]

Pontiac won't be revived. The cost of designing, ramping up production, new marketing, etc. will all be cost prohibitive and would put GM in the **** hole they're in right now. GM most likely keeps the trademarks simply because they get any revenue for any use of the Pontiac logo and brand. Toys, games, memorbilia, etc., all that goes to GM.