Pontiac: Start Making Sense

[PontiacBixler]

Here is a serious issue...
Take a look at this link everybody:
http://www.newzjunky.com/record/vehicles_dec2006.htm

Our local independent news website will put up public info and pretty much every month they list the new vehicle registration numbers for that past month.

P/B/GMC total a whopping 8 total...not even one Buick was sold....

Honda on the other hand tallied in at 39.

This made me sick last night.

I also want to note that Jefferson County in New York State is not filled with yuppies who drive imports, the predominate color on the necks of the majority is a rosey-red tone with a blue collar below it.

[CBECK]

Originally Posted by GMFreak8

Hopefully, shortly Pontiac will get the same treatment that Cadillac, and Saturn have gotten. GM needs to give Chevy and Buick the treatment first though. Buick shouldn't be too hard to fix. Update the Lacrosse, the Lucerne, and give them a RWD Velite like vehicle, and Buick will have an excellent lineup. Chevy needs more work, but not nearly as much as Pontiac. Pontiac's whole lineup needs to be replaced sans the Solstice.

Buick needs Grand National!! I'm tellin' you it would be a hit. The people who bought that car in the 80's have memories and money!

[ponchoman49]

5 years later and they STILL don't get it. Stupid letter named cars. A performance G6 coupe with the exact same drivetrain as the current lower rung GTP model and no manual tranny with the 3.6, a rebadged Cobalt that doesn't even have the turbo engine of that model, no full sized Bonneville sedan, a Grand Prix that has recieved no changes since 2004, the asanine Vibe. About the only thing GM has done right for Pontiac is the Solstice and elimination of the minivan.

[Clocker]

Unless Pontiac gets some real performance vehicles, I see no reason for the brand.

I think the problem for GM is that they sell a fair amount of G6s so it makes it hard to just get rid of Pontiac.

[jnak00]

Nice writeup.

My sincere hope is that GM doesn't want to pour a bunch of money in the current G6 becasue it's going RWD in a couple years.

Will happen? It's GM. Who knows.

[Ming]

Originally Posted by jnak00

Nice writeup.

My sincere hope is that GM doesn't want to pour a bunch of money in the current G6 becasue it's going RWD in a couple years.

Will happen? It's GM. Who knows.

After 5 years of hearing the "stopgap" arguments, I stopped believing.

[cfch3399]

I'm not not a fan of giving every make a performance line: V-series, SS, red line, ultra, aero, GXP. All of that has taken sales from Pontiac. Of course that was after Pontiac was stripped of most performance cars.
I think the offerings in the Grand Prix are the only ones that makes sense: base V6, supercharged GT, V8 GXP. I assume there's some history to the "GXP" moniker, but frankly by going alphanumeric it looks silly: G6 GXP, G8 GXP, geeez! How about just base and GT, where GT is either turbo charged or supercharged. I think Pontiac should be GM's supercharged/turbocharged division. Chevy can get the "Sport" appearance package, but if you're going to turbocharge the Ecotec, let Pontiac have it. That said, and since the 3.6 is looking to become GM's only V6 or one of two, as opposed to a dozen, why not turbocharge that sucker. Or supercharge the 3.6 HO. Then a G6 GT would actually perform.

[LeSabre]

Originally Posted by Ultimate1

all i know is that its been a few years since gm claimed it would turn pontiac into gm's BMW and Buick into gm's Lexus....... so far it hasnt even gotten close for either brand.

Just the thought of Pontiac being GM's "BMW" or Buick being GM's Lexus, makes me sick!

Both Buick & Pontiac should be focusing on to be what each once was in their respective hey-days to be competitive in todays market. Not trying to be like a foriegn brand yet still top them at the same time.

[eaton53]

The Torrent should not exist. At all.

Axe the G5. It's no performance and wrong wheel drive has no place in Pontiac's lineup.

The G6 should be high performance AWD. There's your differentiation between Pontiac and Chevy/Saturn. Leave the front drivers to them.

There should be sedan, coupe and wagon/hatch versions of the Kappas.

North American built versions of the big Holdens fill out the lineup.

[CobaltSScrazy]

wow, some major complaints here, I guess people want a Chevy budget for Cadillac performance and features for the price of a cheap buick and a pontiac image. LMFAO ROLF, sheesh if any of you knew what was happening, these alledged complaints would all be for nil. We are getting G8 as the Commodore SS next year, around 50k of them. Solstice/Solstice GXP are very good cars, fine for at least 2-3 years before an MCE especially for a car of sales under 40k. G5 IS a stopgap and should get an MCE for 08 or a completely new product by 2010. G6 will either go to Epsilon 2 and get completely redone, i'm thinking 2010/2011 and get awd and a manual and all this other stuff you all want. Pontiac will also have a new GTO probably in the 2010 model year, so stop whining! Lutz has already said Pontiac is going to become a niche brand, it won't have amazing high volume sales anymore. Who cares as long as its long term profitable? Its in transition and if the pontiac market dries up, the BPG channel can swallow it and cut its losses or ideally, just make it a niche brand. Stop hating on saturn also, if it weren't for them a majority of GM's import conquests wouldn't happen. It deserved this type of product 15 years ago and never got it. Finally it can compete and has a dealer network, while small, is among the most effective in the world. Its brand image is in 'higher reguard' than Pontiac's image among people in the Gen Y and some Gen X'ers. Boomers who remember the SuperDutys, Ram Air III's and IV's I can appreciate your complaints, but thats not pontiac anymore, sadly. Lastly, BMW fighter hahahahahhahahaha. Pontiac will NEVER have the image of a BMW, it doesn't have the tech/R&D to do that, and it probably will never have an RWD/AWD lineup at every price point it offers a car or X-over. What a lost cause. (eyeroll)

CObaltSScrazy

[ragingfish]

Originally Posted by CobaltSScrazy

wow, some major complaints here, I guess people want a Chevy budget for Cadillac performance and features for the price of a cheap buick and a pontiac image. LMFAO ROLF, sheesh if any of you knew what was happening, these alledged complaints would all be for nil.

And you do? Nobody knows. That's the damn problem. Not even the wads up in MI know what is happening.

G5 IS a stopgap and should get an MCE for 08 or a completely new product by 2010.

Yup. 7 years after they killed the Sunfire. How many years between the Cavalier/Cobalt? NONE.

G6 will either go to Epsilon 2 and get completely redone, i'm thinking 2010/2011 and get awd and a manual and all this other stuff you all want.

Not likely.

Pontiac will also have a new GTO probably in the 2010 model year, so stop whining!

Again, 4 years after they killed the last generation.

Its in transition and if the pontiac market dries up, the BPG channel can swallow it and cut its losses or ideally, just make it a niche brand.

It's close minded naieve thinking like that which cost GM so many customers as it is. GM needs to cater to the market. They can't expect the market to "accept" what is thrown at them.

Its brand image is in 'higher reguard' than Pontiac's image among people in the Gen Y and some Gen X'ers.

Perhaps because Pontiac has been tossed into the sh***er for the last how many years? Can't expect people to have regard for a brand that the brand's own ownership doesn't give two craps about.

Lastly, BMW fighter hahahahahhahahaha. Pontiac will NEVER have the image of a BMW, it doesn't have the tech/R&D to do that, and it probably will never have an RWD/AWD lineup at every price point it offers a car or X-over. What a lost cause. (eyeroll)

You're right. Pontiac will never have the track record of unreliability, electrical nightmares, and days-in-the-shop that BMW and other german brands are becoming notorious for.

GM DOES have the resources to do whatever the hell they want to Pontiac. It's getting those execs with the sticks up their a**es to stop babying Chevy and finally do something. If ANY brand got half the resources Chevy did, we wouldn't be in this position today.

[VibenPontiac]

Originally Posted by ragingfish

GM DOES have the resources to do whatever the hell they want to Pontiac. It's getting those execs with the sticks up their a**es to stop babying Chevy and finally do something. If ANY brand got half the resources Chevy did, we wouldn't be in this position today.

Where have you been - GM has been fighting the competition with one arm tied behind its back for the last 20 years. I'm not saying Chevy hasn't got more money than its needed (I truely can't argue that one way or the other) but GM does not have the resources to redevelop all its brands within a reasonable time frame. It had to address its priorities first and those were the pillar brands - Chevy and Cadillac. Then and only then can Pontiac, Buick, and Saab (its three most needy brands) be addressed. I would agree the execution on redeveloping these brands has thus far been haphazard (some hits some misses) but resources and cash, not management egos is the most obvious reason for this. Before you mention Saturn - that's another thread entirely

[Geotpf]

At this point, Pontiac is in the same position that Mercury is-it exists because it exists. More specifically, it exists because it's dealers exist. Pontiac can't be all sports cars, because sports cars don't sell in volume, and Pontiac has too many dealers to not be a volume player. Plus, the Corvette will always be a Chevy, so Pontiac is the sporty division without GM's best sports car. The only thing Pontiac can really be at this point is a warmed over clone of Chevy with sporty pretenses (IE, exactly what it is now). Basically, it allows PBG dealers to sell Chevys as well without the Chevy dealers being pissed off. Obviously, most sporty/sports cars that aren't based on other models (IE, a SS version of an existing Chevy) will be sold as Pontiacs, and obviously, the "look" to all Pontiacs will be sporty, even if the cars themselves aren't. They don't really need a minivan, because you could badge that as a GMC, or maybe even a Buick, if you want to give a PBG dealer one (although GM is getting out of the minivan business completely, so that point is moot). However, Pontiac must have pedestrian models like the G5 and G6 because a PBG dealer needs to be able to sell such models.

Frankly, there's no justification of almost the whole PBG network at this point. Other than Buick (which is selling in smaller and smaller numbers), everything is pretty much duplicated by Chevy. However, if you eliminate it, those Pontiac and GMC buyers won't neccessarily go buy Chevys (see what happened after Oldsmobile was eliminated for proof), plus it would cost GM tens of billions in dealer payouts to shut it down. However, GM can't afford to just give Pontiac a bunch of expensive sports cars, since they will cost too much to sell in volume. So, status quo ahoy!

[Geotpf]

Originally Posted by ragingfish

GM DOES have the resources to do whatever the hell they want to Pontiac. It's getting those execs with the sticks up their a**es to stop babying Chevy and finally do something. If ANY brand got half the resources Chevy did, we wouldn't be in this position today.

Chevy sales for 2006 were 2,415,428. The sales for GM's 9 other brands (Buick, Cadillac, GMC, HUMMER, Isuzu (heavy duty trucks only are sold via GM's dealer network), Oldsmobile (discontinued but 96 vehicles from previous model years were still sold as new in 06), Pontiac, Saab, and Saturn) were 1,709,217. Pontiac was third (behind Chevy and GMC), with only 410,229 sales (about 17% as many sales as Chevy). Therefore, if one is budgeting marketing and engineering dollars, it makes sense to give Chevy much more than any other brand. I'm sure Pontiac gets more than 17% as much marketing and engineering dollars as Chevy does. One could therefore argue Pontiac gets too much resources, as opposed to not enough-especially since the per vehicle transaction price for Pontiac is no more than Chevy (IE, it makes sense to spend a little extra on Caddy since each vehicle costs more and generates more profit than Chevy-not true for Pontiac).

[Geotpf]

Originally Posted by PontiacBixler

Here is a serious issue...
Take a look at this link everybody:
http://www.newzjunky.com/record/vehicles_dec2006.htm

Our local independent news website will put up public info and pretty much every month they list the new vehicle registration numbers for that past month.

P/B/GMC total a whopping 8 total...not even one Buick was sold....

Honda on the other hand tallied in at 39.

This made me sick last night.

I also want to note that Jefferson County in New York State is not filled with yuppies who drive imports, the predominate color on the necks of the majority is a rosey-red tone with a blue collar below it.

That's a very weird list.

First of all, what the heck is a GMC car? Maybe they are calling SUVs cars, but they aren't-they should be listed as trucks. If trucks on this list means only pickups, that means Honda sold three Ridgelines, which seems quite high considering they only sold 36 other vehicles.

Secondly, Saturn sold 19 vehicles-or more than double than all of PBG combined.

Third, no foreign luxury make (that is, Lexus or Acura or Infiniti or Mercedes or BMW or Porsche) is even listed. I mean, they still list Plymouth, geez, and several other makes (including Buick as you stated) have zero registrations.