RIP, Pontiac
We here at Car Lust concentrate more on the amusing and the anecdotal than on the pressing news of the day--after all, there are plenty of quality automotive news sites already filling that niche. But even we can't ignore the huge news that as part of GM's bid to remain viable, it will be axing Pontiac (along with Saab, Saturn, and Hummer) next year. This is obviously huge news; Pontiac is a major GM brand and has produced some legendary cars, but that didn't save it from following Oldsmobile, Plymouth, and AMC into the scrap heap.
The usual suspects have the news aspects handled (Autoblog, Jalopnik, The Truth About Cars, Wall Street Journal, Motor Trend, among others), so we will, as usual, take a slightly different path. Tonight we'll run Chuck Lynch's farewell to the marque, and during the rest of this week we will feature profiles of some of our favorite Pontiacs. Interspersed within this new content will be vintage, possibly soon-to-be-collectible Pontiac-related Car Lust posts of the past. We'll wrap it all up on Friday with a round-table discussing our experiences with Pontiac and how we feel about its demise.
While I'm a Saab devotee and a Saturn loather, we can discuss the implications of this news for those two brands later. This week at Car Lust will be all about Pontiac.
--Chris H.
Shawn on April 27, 2009 at 05:23 PM
Putting Pontiac on hold for a minute (since we haven't started yet really), I propose a Car Lust SOS (Save Our SAAB) program. Everyone here needs to count up their change jars tonight so we can place a collective bid for Saab that GM may ponder. I'm good for $93.50. Saab's revival will be on OUR terms, and will include such stipulations as returning the SPG name, as well as burning any and all remaining parts that were used to construct the Saab 9-7X.
Chuck on April 27, 2009 at 05:38 PM
Sounds like a good SAAB story to me!
Chris Hafner on April 27, 2009 at 07:16 PM
Shawn: "I propose a Car Lust SOS (Save Our SAAB) program. Everyone here needs to count up their change jars tonight so we can place a collective bid for Saab that GM may ponder. I'm good for $93.50. Saab's revival will be on OUR terms, and will include such stipulations as returning the SPG name, as well as burning any and all remaining parts that were used to construct the Saab 9-7X."
Shawn, I'm not sure whether to enthusiastically ask for a copy of your newsletter or to go paranoid and wonder how you got blueprints of my brain. But either way, this is was easily the comment of the year.
My fondest hope for Saab is that it gets purchased by a company that would treasure it and lovingly nurture it while the company returned to its appealingly quirky and utilitarian roots, as an arborist would do with an ailing sproutling.
Go forth, Saab. Recapture the magic of the Sonnett and the SPG. The 9-7X never happened, you hear me? It NEVER HAPPENED.
Rich on April 28, 2009 at 10:17 AM
I am wondering what is going to happen over at the Chrysler side of things. Who is going to end up with Jeep? And what are they going to do with it? Chrysler was never clear with their intents
JEM on April 28, 2009 at 10:36 AM
As a three-time Saab owner ('78 99EMS, '81 900 Turbo, '92 9000 Turbo) the writing's been on the wall for a decade.
GM starved both Saab and Saturn of product-development capital through the entire 1990s. Saturn got the worst of it, of course; by the time the L-series got 'Americanized' it was an old design and five years too late, though it at least wasn't as cheesy as the other Saturns. The Vue is decent mechanically if horribly cheap inside, the Aura suffers from the high-beltline-little-window look, the Astra's really nice but not enough to save a moribund brand.
Saab got stuck bringing a front-drive knife to a horsepower-war gunfight. The 9000 was a brilliant car in 1986 but not good enough to justify a dozen years in production; the competition, particularly Audi, got better faster. They needed AWD in 1997, not 2007; while an AWD Aero would have been nice the biggest missed opportunity has to be the 9-5 wagon crossover V70XC/Allroad competitor that never happened.
JEM on April 28, 2009 at 10:43 AM
...and let's not get into the badge-engineered Saabs.
The 9-2x was a nice enough car but not a Saab (and in the end when they were blowing them out it was just a way to get a beautifully-trimmed Subaru WRX for $4K less than the Scooby dealer wanted.)
The 9-7x must have seemed like a good idea to someone, and it's illustrative of the failure of the culture (or perhaps rampant drug use) within GM management that no one up the management chain would have shouted "STOP! WTF DO YOU THINK YOU DOING?" and frog-marched some people down to HR for their termination interviews.
Emd on April 28, 2009 at 12:35 PM
Is it ever possible for a start-up to 'buy' a brand name like Pontiac, Oldsmobile, or Plymouth, and produce new cars with those badges?
Chuck on April 28, 2009 at 12:35 PM
JEM: Forget the termination/exit interviews. Get them out the door ASAP!
Whitehall on April 28, 2009 at 01:03 PM
Gads, I should have gotten that G8 when I had the chance. If only GM had had that 0% finance rate when I was buying. (Got a VW CC instead.)
That Car Guy on April 28, 2009 at 01:58 PM
Emd: Ask the guys at Bugatti! ;)