The death of Pontiac

A brand-new G8 Pontiac; comparable with anything from BMW.

Media outlets are decrying GM’s giving up on Pontiac.
Funny, they didn’t make a similar fuss when Chrysler gave up on Plymouth, or General Motors on Oldsmobile.
A while ago Chrysler scuttled the Plymouth brand, thereby walking away from one of the most iconic brands ever.
Plymouth was an attempt by Chrysler (in 1928) to market a competitor to GM’s hugely successful Chevrolet, and also Ford; both low-priced entrants into car ownership.
Plymouth went on to market some of the greatest cars ever; e.g. the hugely successful RoadRunner musclecars, and the Barracuda.

The ugliest Pontiac of all time, a ‘59 Wide-Track.

My wife’s father only bought Plymouths, including a hugely finned ‘57 they drove to the Pacific, and it rusted out in no time at all.
My wife learned to drive in that intimidating boat.
I remember a placid white ‘63 Valiant four-door I called “the refrigerator,” and another Valiant we took to a family reunion in Potter County (“God’s Country”), PA.
It was July of 1969. “Houston; Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”
Here we were out in the desolate outback of northwestern Pennsylvania, and mankind is on the moon for the first time.
Her parents got a Volaré after that.

The prettiest Pontiac of all time, a ‘60 Bonneville convertible.

Chevrolet and Ford moved to cars that were more than basic transportation.
For example, Chevrolet debuted its fabulous Small-Block V8 in the 1955 model-year, an idea that suddenly made V8 ownership a worthy goal to entry-level buyers.
And the Small-Block was a great motor that made more expensive offerings look turgid.
What Detroit was no longer doing was entry-level basic transportation, as signified by the Volkswagen Beetle and various tiny Japanese imports.
And the imports were doing a better job of reliability and function — a better job at what Detroit had supplied at first.
The Beetle was bullet-proof; and now Honda has that reputation. I remember when Honda was a joke.

Toward rationalization at last, a ‘61 Catalina.

Oldsmobile was once a rung in the General Motors marketing ladder: Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, Cadillac; basic transportation to ultra glitz.
Used to be Cadillac didn’t advertise — didn’t need to. Now they do. Mercedes and BMW and Lexus are the premier megabuck cars; Cadillac more a gussied up Chevrolet.
Used to be the other way around. Chevrolet more-or-less a stripped Cadillac.
The ‘57 Chevy almost looks like a Caddy.
And Olds was halfway between Chevrolet and Cadillac. —Basic transportation gussied up.

The greatest marketing ploy ever, a ‘64 Pontiac G-T-O.

My father had a few Oldsmobiles, after our family moved to Delaware and Stapleford’s Chevrolet and Oldsmobile.
My father never bought new, just trades Stapleford thought he might be interested in — and this included Oldsmobiles; e.g. “The Cremepuff” (a white Delmont 88), “The Tank” (a heavy full-size ‘64 with the gigantic 394 cubic-inch V8 engine, and “The Gutless Cutlass,” a car that seized its motor during a vacation outing when the radiator holed, and leaked all the coolant.
My father fixed that leak with “schmutzee” (“schmutt-zeee”), a plasticized goop that solidified.
Stapleford’s was near where my father worked.
Later my paternal grandmother, who was living with my parents at that time — after I was grown and out — bought them the only brand-new car they ever had, the infamous “puke-green Omega,” called that because it was yellowish green.
The Omega was Oldsmobile’s rebadging of the Chevrolet Nova, with slight body modifications — mainly the bumpers and grill.
It was the pattern GM was falling into; every brand offering basic transportation to super-glitz — except Cadillac.
Eventually General Motors was offering pretty much the same cars across all its brands, so that Chevrolet and Olds were much alike.
Remove the bumpers from an Olds Alero and ya can make a Chevrolet out of it.

Pontiac’s pony-car, a ‘70 Firebird Trans-Am; and great-looking too.

The old Molye (“mahl-YAAA”) Chevrolet in nearby Honeoye Falls became Chevrolet-Buick, and then Chevrolet-Buick-Oldsmobile.
At the Parts Department Chevrolet, Buick, Pontiac, and Oldsmobile parts were interchangeable — I’ll never forget the firestorm years ago when Oldsmobile dumped its small V8 motor, and started using the Chevrolet Small-Block.
Randall Pontiac in Canandaigua became Randall Pontiac-Olds-Cadillac.
And mighty Hoselton (“hahz-zull-TIN”) Chevrolet near Rochester set up first Nissan and then Toyota outlets out back. —Now they both outdraw the old Chevy dealership.
Ralph Pontiac became Ralph Pontiac-Honda, as did Dick Ide. (Our “Faithful-Hunda” was from Ide.) —Both now sell way more Hondas than Pontiacs.

Probably Pontiac’s greatest triumph, the mid-engine Fiero two-seat sportscar. The guys at Corvette went ballistic. This is an ‘86 GT.

The mighty Mezz noted that “musclecar enthusiasts would be heartbroken that Pontiac was gone.”
I don’t think “musclecar” is the right appellation.
“Musclecars” are the mid-size cars with full-size hot-rodded engines as marketed in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.
“Sportycar” is more like it.
Pontiac introduced the musclecar concept in the 1964 model-year with its G-T-O.
It was a sea change to Pontiac coming to its head.
Pontiac had been a “Grand-Pop’s car,” but then Bunky Knudson (“newd-SIN”) was made General Manager in 1957, and sought to remake Pontiac into a performance image.
He couldn’t do much for the ‘57, but by 1958 the motors were being hot-rodded.
By 1961 Pontiacs were dominating NASCAR in the hands of entrant Smokey Yunick and driver Fireball Roberts.

Smokey (left) and Fireball (right). —That’s a ‘59 Pontiac, back when “stockcars” were actually stock cars (although it had Smokey’s input).

John Z. De Lorean became Chief Engineer, and brought the G-T-O concept to fruition.
Pontiac has stuck to that sportycar reputation ever since.
Their cars look great; swoopy and well-styled, and comparable in performance to anything BMW offers.
There’s just one problem, and it’s enough to make me back away, no matter how good they are.
It’s their reputation for reliability, which is poor.
Their actual reliability may be fine, but their reputation isn’t.
I know too many Pontiac owners who had their cars fail on them.
This seems to be endemic to anything GM any more. Their engineering is band-aid and cheap.
As a life-long car enthusiast, I hope Pontiac gets sold and is perhaps restored to the former glory it attained in the early ‘60s.
Pontiacs were fabulous. Fireball was dominating NASCAR, and the ‘61 Pontiac, for example, was the best road-car money could buy.
I remember suggesting my father buy one, but I was laughed back to reality.
My father only bought used cars, and wasn’t about to buy no performance car.
Cars were just basic transportation — hardly what Pontiac was.
But I don’t expect Pontiac to survive.
Attractive and sporty as it may be, it’s essentially a GM car; GM chassis and GM engine.
Too much GM; a GM car maximized for performance.
Remove some of the body parts, e.g. bumpers, etc, and you get the basis of a Chevrolet.
If Pontiac became independent, perhaps they could build a great sportscar like the Fiero without prompting the defensive firestorm they got from the Corvette guys.
—The Corvette has become an overblown throwback.
What it should be is the Honda 2000, which the Pontiac Solstice imitates.

A brand-new Pontiac Solstice coupe two-seat sportscar.

My wife of 41+ years is “Linda.”

“Honeoye Falls” is the nearest town to where we live in western New York, a rural town about five miles away.

“The Faithful Hunda” is our 1989 Honda Civic All-Wheel-Drive station-wagon, by far the BEST car we’ve ever owned, now departed (replaced by our 2003 Honda CR-V). (Called a “Hunda” because that was how a fellow bus-driver at Transit [Regional-Transit-Service in Rochester, where I once worked] pronounced it.)

The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over three years ago. Best job I ever had.