All I am saying is how can you state (even if it is your opinion) that Pontiac has nothing appealing since that timeframe??
Lemme break it down over the years...
Midsizers: The 73-77 LeMans looked good, especially once they got the quad headlights; the unsuccessful Grand Am variant was one of my favorite US cars ever made. It blended Europe and America in its approach. Grand Prix's of that era were tacky and ugly. The '78 redesign went well. Again, Pontiac's unique use within GM of "Endura" meant the LeMans was spared the ugly-bumper syndrome typical of that era. The Grand Am was revived, but failed again because Americans like ugly cars, so the G/A didn't appeal to them. The GP got even uglier, boxy and decidedly UNsporty. The LeMans gave way in '82 to the Bonneville, which looked horrible. What was with that "Formal" roofline? Why do you give your "sporty" division more old-fashioned styling than even Chevrolet (the Malibu still looked handsome at this point). I never found any Grand Prix except the 69/70 models to be attractive at all.
The 6000 took over A-body duty in 82. It was a nicely-styled car, but nothing sporty about it. The 6000 STE tried, but it was just a nice take on a family car, and nowhere near what GM was trying to make it to be: a viable alternative to European sport sedans. Not a bad car, but nothing about it to make buy one.
Fullsizers: GM had always had exponentially better-looking fullsize cars than the rest of Detroit. Styling evolved a bit to meet bumper requirements, but the '77 downsized models were atrociously ugly. And it managed to be much less sporty in feel than even Chevrolet. Thank God the 79 fuel crisis and recession killed this beast. Only Pontiac revived it because dealers screamed for a full-size car. So we get the Canadian Parisienne, which was so tarted up that I can't believe GM foisted this thing on the market. It got worse in '85 when they grafted on the old Bonneville rear to the Caprice front clip. An utter nightmare. Fender Skirts? Those things were vulgar and horrible in '56 and exponentially more so in '86. Cars like this are the very reason the Japanese had it so easy over here.
Compacts: H-bodySunbird? This entire series of products from GM was a joke. The first Monzas looked really nice, but the rest were a joke. GM tried to push it as an "economy" car, but you needed the 231-cube V6 just to get decent performance. And it had the interior room of a mailbox. The J-body was better, and the J2000/2000/2000 Sunbird/Sunbird (four names in four model years? wtf was that all about?) were nice-looking little cars. But it was no sportier than a Cavalier. At least Pontiac
tried sporty by offering the Turbo 1.8 four, but it was a reliability nightmare. But put up against imports of the era, the Sunbird was still near the bottom of the pile. Its Sunfire replacement slid to blue-light-special status. Desirability factor=0.
Phoenix: No words needed.
Grand Prix: The Grand Prix was probably the best-executed of the
out-of-date-the-day-they-were-released W-body program, but why on Earth did GM launch them only as coupes, when the market wanted four-door midsize cars? The Grand Prix looked nice, but of course before you knew it, the spoilers, cladding, added headlights and such arrived to ruin its clean looks. The 97 redesigned looked nice in profile, and was a serious attempt to build a sporty alternative to boring midsize sedans. DING DING DING. We have a winner! Pontiac actually makes a true sporty-themed product. Until you drove one...
Bonneville: 87 Bonneville? Not bad. Was sportier than the other big GM sedans. But desirable? Only if you hated European cars. Probably Pontiac's best sedan effort since the 60s. The 91 restyling was questionable, but strangely appealing. Like kitsch furniture. But it grew stale and the '00 restyled was absolutely atrocious. How could GM actually go
backward in restyling their fullsizers? I could see some appeal in the earlier SSE and other sportier models though...
Fiero: looked great! If Ferris Bueller's sister was driving it. The clean styling gave way to mullet-headed ******* low-class vulgar add-ons, doodads, spoilers, and such. Probably the most egregiously ruined styling of any car in history. But being a low-slung two-seater doesn't make it sporty. The Fiero handled decently, but overall was about as sporty as the Chevy Citation it was based on. Fiero desirable? Only if the Toyota MR2 had never existed...
Grand Am: was never sporty. It was rental-lot fodder the day it was released. It galls me that Pontiac had the nerve to suggest the first-gen Grand Am would appeal to "Yuppies currently desiring the BMW 3 series". Yep. For real. They really thought that. That's where the current twin-kidney grille theme came from. If there were negative desirability points, the Grand Am would get it for no other reason that GM tried to call it a BMW alternative.
TransSport/Montana: desirable?
G6: looks like a sausage. There's not much sporty about. It's less desirable than an Aura.
G8: Okay, since the brand's inception, Pontiac gives us a truly
desirable sport sedan. But those "Johnny Lightning" hood nostrils are a deal-killer in my book. I suspect it'll only appeal to fans of Pontiac and domestic brands in general. FINALLY after 30 years of decline, GM's getting the idea right. Only now the name's dead and nobody cares.
Solstice: gee it only took till 2006 for Pontiac to realize it was supposed to be making sporty cars...
so all that's left is the
Firebird. This is appealing ONLY if you go for that sort of car, which I don't. With all due respect it's a tasteless, vulgar car almost invisible outside of working-class neighborhoods. The '70-'73 models were stunningly beautiful cars, and the Firebird was one of the few domestic cars to manage the bench-bumper era without scars. But by '77 it was a purely ******* mullet-mobile with T-tops, vulgar decals, and an image that didn't quite appeal to customers who might have been shopping for a traditional sports car. The Firebird isn't a sports car, it's an
image car. Desirable? To some maybe, but not to the majority.
It now falls into the compact crossover category, along withthe Suzuki SX-4 or the Compass/Caliber. It's a marketing thing and it would suit GMC better, in my opinion.
