Pontiac was a brand of automobile that was produced from 1926 to 2010. Although Pontiac motor vehicles were first produced in 1907, the company was quickly merged into Oakland Motor Company, and began to produce motor vehicles branded Pontiac as a companion brand in 1926. Pontiac was sold in the United States, Canada, and Mexico by General Motors. Pontiac has been marketed as the performance division of General Motors for many years, specializing in mainstream performance vehicles. -Wikipedia
Henry Ford had the right idea-for a car to be useful it only needs one make, model, and color. But that great America myth the Free Market loves to hook up with that great Old World standby called Disposable Income. So not long after the car was invented, Marketers discovered that they were more than a means of getting from one place to another-they could be status symbols as well.
General Motors loved that whole idea of different ‘classes’ of cars. Pontiac made a few cool muscle cars, but muscle cars just aren’t what they used to be. I liked the look of the Trans Am and the GTO, and the Solstice was a pretty bitchin ride. Maybe GM will just slap a Cadillac logo on the Solstice and keep it around. GM is just another company that collected brands without really caring about them. Over the years GM has discontinued a lot of brands-most recently Geo (1989–1997), Oldsmobile (1897–2004), Saturn (1985–2010), Hummer (1998–2010), and Pontiac (1926–2010).
It took 84 years for GM to kill Pontiac, but like so many GM stories, the real criminal in the piece could be good old Roger Smith who poisoned GM in 1980s and helped to make Micheal Moore a star.
At Pontiac’s peak, the GTO, Trans Am and Catalina 2+2 were its most popular vehicles. Burt Reynolds and Sally Field costarred with a Firebird Trans Am in the 1977 movie Smokey and the Bandit. A friend of mine won a Trans Am when he was working at Six Flags Over Texas. He traded it in for some mega nerd car that got good mileage. Shudder. I’ve never forgiven him for that.
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My mother had a Pontiac station wagon. We loved that car. I also had a Delta88 for years and years, and now I drive an old Chevrolet Lumina, which I bought new in 1997, which has almost 200,000 miles on it. Before the Delta88, I owned a Mercury Capri with a 302 V8 engine (hee-hee, very zippy, I might add), and my first car ever was a Datsun. All of those lines have been discontinued. I wonder which line I should kill with my next purchase? Not really – you have a good point on GM.
My first car was a Country Squire station wagon with a 454 V8 engine and fake wood paneling. It was a bit zippy as well.