What Should GM Do With Pontiac?

[cadsrbest]

The Saturn experiment is over, it failed. I sold Saturn vehicles, and I was a New Car Salesmanager at a Saturn store. The idea was great, but things change. Saturn has never offered a superior vehicle in my opinion, they are no longer unique, and who wants to pay full price on a new car? The European Opel here on our side of the pond is an outstanding idea, give it to Pontiac, intact, with its firm ride, quality sporty Euro heritage, and styling.

[Bravada]

They've always been somthing of a niche brand of limited appeal, and it is nearly impossible to turn a profit being a niche brand at the current Saab price point.

Saab is at least breaking even now. It is much easier to turn a profit on a brand like Saab than mass-market manufacturing. Imagine only selling optioned-out Auras, at a few $Ks more. The only thing is that GM have been doing it wrong for so long. And that's the proof of GM's deep ineptness to do ANYTHING right.

gm should only make one car until it can get that car to be #1 then have a 2nd car and so on.

That's actually a good idea.

[texassierradude]

Originally Posted by Caleb02

gm should only make one car until it can get that car to be #1 then have a 2nd car and so on. back to basics. they should have a stripper car with no radio, no power anything, just a real basic car, no extras....

Hey Caleb, you should check out the G8 GXP thread, where they are whining about no nav available....

[texassierradude]

Originally Posted by cadsrbest

The Saturn experiment is over, it failed. I sold Saturn vehicles, and I was a New Car Salesmanager at a Saturn store. The idea was great, but things change. Saturn has never offered a superior vehicle in my opinion, they are no longer unique, and who wants to pay full price on a new car? The European Opel here on our side of the pond is an outstanding idea, give it to Pontiac, intact, with its firm ride, quality sporty Euro heritage, and styling.

Wasn't this tried with Buick/Opel back in the 70's? Actually, that may not be a bad idea, bring back the Buick/Opel sales channel. Times have changed, this may be one way to bring all those domestic-hating yuppies back into a Buick showroom.

[Kennyboy]

Pontiac should only get one or two cars, such as the G8 or some small rear-wheel car. Since the merger or Buick-Pontiac-GMC into one showroom, there's no need for a complete lineup.

[GMusa]

Originally Posted by mgescuro

I put "Other."

Why??

Because I believe if GM has the balls to actually maintain Pontiac as a mainstream performance brand with RWD sports vehicles, then Pontiac deserves to live with that focus and niche in mind.

However, if GM has the idea that Pontiac must soldier on as rebadged Chevrolets, then there's nothing special left at Pontiac, and might as well be shuttered with its R&D funds going to Chevy or Cadillac or any of the other remaining divisions.

I agree. Pontiac needs to be a niche brand focusing on performance vehicles.

[Caleb02]

Originally Posted by texassierradude

Hey Caleb, you should check out the G8 GXP thread, where they are whining about no nav available....

well who needs a indash nav when most cell phones have it anyway.

[zinner]

Originally Posted by Caleb02

well who needs a indash nav when most cell phones have it anyway.

In Dash nav with a 8 inch screen > cell phone 1.3" screen.

['Vette Dude]

Originally Posted by ksr

Stop wasting money on Saab. Those resources should go to Pontiac. Saab was a money loser long before GM got involved and likely never will be profitable. They've always been somthing of a niche brand of limited appeal, and it is nearly impossible to turn a profit being a niche brand at the current Saab price point. With R&D costs these days, to be a profitable niche brand, you have to be selling vehicles of a much higher cost.

You are right, Sabb's are ugly and they only have a .1% market share in the world. GM should sell it to someone like Chrysler who needs a luxury brand.

[kenman923]

I think that Saturn needs to go. I am sorry, but Saturn is no longer a unique brand. There are no more plastic body panels and you still can't haggle on the car. Give Pontiac the Opel and Holden products. Can you imagine a Pontiac Astra?

[doh]

Originally Posted by cadsrbest

The Saturn experiment is over, it failed. I sold Saturn vehicles, and I was a New Car Salesmanager at a Saturn store. The idea was great, but things change. Saturn has never offered a superior vehicle in my opinion, they are no longer unique, and who wants to pay full price on a new car? The European Opel here on our side of the pond is an outstanding idea, give it to Pontiac, intact, with its firm ride, quality sporty Euro heritage, and styling.

I agree, Saturn's came out as "A different Kind of Car" now they are just rebadges. Saturn lost it's way under the hands of GM's way of doing things.

Pontiac did this same thing with the first "Gas Crisis" The 60's "Golden Era" for GM, was when every division faught each other for #1. That was lost somewhere in the shuffle. Call it cost effiency, well it could have been done Way better.

The GTO way, meaning from over seas. The Feirro way,(the sports car that became a commuter) which would have been Saturns saving grace (plastic panels). Even Asuna, could have been done better by calling them an actual "Pontiac"

Everything in the 70's/80's that was good for Pontiac, Chevy (GM's Baby) had to have it in thier line up.

I sold PBG's in a 10,000 population town for 10 years through the 90's. I can say our biggest competition was the C/Olds dealer up the street. Now it is 1 store selling 55% of the previous combine total sales of the 2 dealerships. And there are 25 times more import sales into our area, without an import dealer within 250 miles.

Keep Pontiac, Make them different, Make them "Build Excitement" Keep Chevy Dealers out of the loop.

[fbg6coupe]

Originally Posted by cadsrbest

The Saturn experiment is over, it failed. I sold Saturn vehicles, and I was a New Car Salesmanager at a Saturn store. The idea was great, but things change. Saturn has never offered a superior vehicle in my opinion, they are no longer unique, and who wants to pay full price on a new car? The European Opel here on our side of the pond is an outstanding idea, give it to Pontiac, intact, with its firm ride, quality sporty Euro heritage, and styling.

I agree that Saturn should be discontinued, but I think the biggest flaw I experienced in the Aura is its firm ride. Too firm. After a five minute test drive, my back hurt for hours! Pontiacs are sportier and more comfortable, and they should stay that way. That said, they should pour the resources they waste on Saturn into Pontiac. What a shame that the G6 came first. Look at the improvements they've made by the time they got to the Malibu. Meanwhile, g6 remains unchanged for 6 years!

If GM insists on keeping Saturn, then return it to the cheapo cars it launched with. If they want to introduce cheap, tiny, econobox cars, give them to Saturn and cancel the G3 altogether. Let Saturn be exclusively small cars.

Pontiacs still have the best styling of all of Gm's brands, they just need to keep them competitive, constantly update them, and give them the performance and fuel economy they need to succeed!

[redfox]

Maybe Chevrolet buick Cadillac is all they need.

[rsbaker]

A kind of "out of the box" Idea would be to merge Pontiac and Saturn into one and Call the New Division in the United States.... "OPEL".

Pontiac is Sporty and Saturn is kind of Yuppy upwardly mobile high tech not American. It seems to me that GM could Save a lot of Development, R&D, and Advertising money if it Brings Opel back to the United States as its own Division. They have all the ready made product and it would seem to me that Opel USA could retain all of Saturn's Customers and still poach some import buyers from Honda, Toyota, VW, and Volvo, and perhaps even Audi. This could be successfull only if GM does not "Dumb Down Opels European designs. I hate to lose another Legacy brand like Pontiac after losing Oldsmobile but a long future does not seem to be in the cards for Pontiac. Opel could move into all existing BPGMC dealers and perhaps leave Opel in the best Performing Stand Alone Saturn Dealerships. In the End we would have:

Chevrolet
Opel
Buick/GMC
Cadillac/Saab/ Hummer

The result of this is that All of GM's divisions would be truley international Brands.

[hotrod747]

Originally Posted by 2b2

Other < linky (also explains the following)
&
it occurred to me recently that GM is actually making one extremely appropriate Pontiac...
(in addition to the nearly appropriate G8 (imho))
it's just that they only sell it with the Luxury-by-Buick Pkg...

...and call it the "Cadillac" CTS

I really think you nailed it! Really, why is Cadillac still playing the sub $40K range in light of Pontiac, Buick, and Saturn? Cts will make an awesome new Grand Prix!