VictorySpeedway

Edmunds Inside Line ^ | 04-23-2009 | Daniel Pund



DETROIT — According to a source at General Motors, the company will announce next Monday its new "faster, deeper" reorganization plan, which will likely include a death sentence for the Pontiac brand.

Inside Line called Tom Wilkinson, news relations PR man for General Motors, who said: "There's nothing I can share with you at this time. Keep your eyes on our media site. Officially, nothing has changed with Pontiac's niche-brand status, until you hear differently."

The one-time "Excitement" division and creator of legends such as the GTO and Firebird was relegated to "niche" or "specialty" brand status by General Motors in its first viability plan in December of last year.

The company toyed with competing proposals to either turn the brand into GM's version of Scion or to make Pontiac a very focused purveyor of performance cars based around the critically well-received G8. But ultimately, Pontiac was chosen as the easiest to kill since it was cut from GM's self-defined herd of four "core brands," Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC and Buick. Most Pontiac franchises have already been combined with Buick and GMC.

If true, Pontiac will join Saab, Saturn and Hummer as brands that will not survive GM's current troubles — at least not as a component of General Motors.


As the owner of a '57 Chieftain 2-dr. sedan, this is extremely troubling.

catdaddy137

even though i always considered myself a "ford person" , i always liked pontiacs , buicks , caddys , and gmcs. they allways were the "special" chevy products , the ones that the factory had spent more time on. my stepgrandfather was the grandfather that i spent the most time with. he loved and woudn't own anything but a buick. he had 1 of the 1st v8s , a 1953 and drove it every day until he died in early 80s. the fastest car i ever rode in was a 69 gto. i was just checking out a g6 coupe today , and thining how nice it looked.

Panel08

At least I got my 65 Goat lol

hyperv6

Got two Pontiacs in the garage.

I will be the first to admit Pontiac died a while back and GM just never admited it.

The only two cars they have are the Solstice and G8 that have any real performance.

Inframan

This is horrible... I love my Pontiacs. I currently own my fourth Grand Prix.

edwinalink

Pontiac is the "sexy" brand... what it needs is an investment....
kill saturn
kill buick(please!)

but dont take away the last brand GM has that says "hey, we want everyone to have a lil' flair"

they do that, they'll be ford... and as good as a ford is. it bores the hell out of me... and i will never own one.

3amigos

The problem is this - they have too many cars competing against each other.
Caddy - Only the CTS, possibly the DTS
Chevy - Trucks and economy cars
Buick - Rename the Lucerne the Electra, and the LaCrosse
GMC - HIgh end SUV's and Trucks
Pontiac - G8, improved Solstice

Get rid of every other brand. They never should have killed Olds or started Saturn.

HHR_SS_QC

Buick is the only american made car that consistently meet the JD power customer survey for customer satisfaction and, does that almost every year.

Kill Buick? GM won't do that, for sure.

hyperv6

Here is what the reasons are.

#1 GM has no money for investment and Pontiac is critically damages.

#2 All cars sold in the US market will have to be sold globally. Cadillac, Chevy and Buick already are and GMC will also be soon. Only two Pontiacs are sold else where as a Opel/Solstice and G8/Holden.

#3 Buick is being saved because it is sold in China. They have very good models there that can be build and sold here with no changes. Ig they fail they kill Buick too but there will be little to no investment so it would be little to no risk. If they fail they continue to sell in China. If they invest in Pontiac and they fail GM loses all the money and investment.

#4 GMC is being savesd as they are one of the most profitable divisions. THey sell very well and with minnor changes to a Chevy they make a greater profit.

Pontiac started to lose their identity back in 1979 and it lost more and more. Right now they really only have two true perfromance models.

I am a Pontiac fan but now drive a HHR SS as I wanted a peformance car with a 4 cylinder turbo. I could not get it at Pontiac witt more than two seats.

It is sad but GM has only so much money and need to invest into the lines that had some hope of showing a profit in the near future. Most of Pontiac G6 and G5 sales were low profit fleet sales. The G8 and Solstice are low volume. The Vibe is not even a GM car. They already have near a two year supply of G3 Pontiac's a car they should have never built as a Pontiac.

This is a time to think with you head not your heart. Pontiac in truth should have closed when Olds did and Saturn for all they did with is should have been never started.

GM lost so much market share they can no longer support so many lines or models. When they help a larger share the volume would cover them.

GM will file for Bankruptcy soon and will be split into to GM corperations form reports. THe key now is to save Chevy and Cadillac as they are the ones most in the public will consider and are the ones worth any great investment.

I love Pontiac too but I see no way out for Pontiac with no great investment. Add to that the poor odds that those investments would not pay off. The save move is to make a better Chevy and Cadillac and rebuild a low risk Buck. Besides all three divisions aleady sell in China and are expected to remain as the top sellers in China. GM is making all sort of money there.

edwinalink

I understand...

but i want a camaro based trans am SO BADLY!!!

Cant we just have one?