The Last Pontiac Ever Built?
 

Came across this story as I scanned the news feed this morning:
https://www.thedrive.com/news/the-la...nfortunate-end

Interesting read.

"a white 2010 Pontiac G6 with a 2.4-liter 4-cylinder and spec'd for fleet use."

Talk about going out with a whimper...

Yes, I remember very well following the story 13 years ago about the last piece of garbage going down the assembly line. How demoralizing for the dedicated line workers building that junk and to realize they would all be unemployed the next day. Ruining and killing off Pontiac didn't happen overnight. It took years of bad decisions by many, many people from the very top down to finish the brand off. A perfect example for every business and marketing class in college of how to do EVERYTHING wrong. Still bitter after all these years. Ha!

Yeah you think they would have sent something cool down the line like a G8 at least. Sure someone would have waited to have that be the last car.
Probably some bean counter at CHEVY sticking it to the Pontiac guys one last time.
I won’t own a Chevy after all the times the screwed US Pontiac owners holding stuff back so we didn’t compete w the camaro POS or the corvette . Honestly pathetic.
I own a Tesla though because it’s just like a Pontiac IMO it’s the underdog. May not thinks o these days because it’s doing well but it was BROKE at one time and it’s beat all odds even some A hole working for them and stealing their designs. (Fisker) it’s an interesting story. I think Pontiac guys would like it And I’m no greenie these cars aren’t exactly carbon neutral they use more carbon to build than a gas car and take 20 years of use to be greener . But they are awesome cars I think any Pontiac guy would like them.

That POS is the physical embodiment of everything that killed Pontiac.

That said, Pontiacs failure isn't Chevrolet's fault. They're just another brand that falls under the parent company.

“Great idea, let’s get rid of names like Bonneville, Grand Prix, GTO and Firebird and replace them with G5, G6 and G8”

Hello? They’re still calling them Bronco, Mustang, Corvette, Camaro, Charger, and Challenger after 50+ years…

I remember reading an opinion piece Pontiac Enthusiast about 20 years ago, around the time they rolled out the Aztek, and it was reported some people in the crowd literally boo’ed then president Lynn Myers. The guy writing the opinion complained how doing this to Ms. Myers was in poor taste but it was too little too late.

The last Pontiac built was 1981.

I only have one thing to say about it:

https://i.ibb.co/MkY6297/pontiacnailbyost.jpg

I was going to post the story - saved me the typing.
Should the very last Pontiac - even if it is "post-1981" - be saved?
For the record, the 2nd to last one (supposedly in Indiana) has a VIN of:
1G2ZA5EB3A4166961
The very last one:
1G2ZA5EB5A4166962
Both built Wednesday, 11/25/2009.

I remember...I was so bitter @ GM for killing pontiac to save buick I bought a dodge...

It was the first and last dodge I will ever own - was always in the shop on warranty

Then I went crawling back to GM...sigh

VP execs like Martin J Caserio did not help Pontiac engines at all and when the "Other" engines were installed,
it was different, but not going to say that some of the LS type engines in Pontiacs weren't good automobiles.

Tom V.

Our fondness for a particular "transportation appliance" (brand loyalty) unfortunately doesn't drive the sales numbers - you have to appeal to the common folk who just want the most for their money generally. When you screw up that part of the equation, you're done. The manager of a brand has to be passionate and convincing to keep it going when its on the ropes. If its in trouble and you don't do something impressive - just more of the same boring garbage, there is no saving it.

Chevy stifled Pontiac on every major project there was ever.
They worked very hard to keep Pontiac in line to not canabalize camaros and vettes that’s a pretty well known thing

Funny the racing ban came out after 63 anything spectacular happen in 63 that may have embarrassed the corvette , rubbed it face in the fact that Pontiac could destroy everyone and anyone????


Uh let me see
Maybe this?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aQbIwjBXQKA

IIRC there were orders for Montana's that were not filled till 2011.
Also there were 2009 Solstices made AFTER a bunch of 2010 models were produced....
What Killed Pontiac? Really?
The Securities and Exchange Commission did.
Remember Enron? Many had bets they could Not back up.
Back then you could buy futures with credit. Default credit stock swaps were happening. Many traded GM stock to pay these debts as some had put "puts" on GM stock anyway. This drove the stock to a dollar, which is illogical because the real estate was worth much more. This is the root cause, add in some hatred for carbon( again) and you have GM Corporation becoming GM Company, minus Saturn, Pontiac.
Greed started this and the govt finished it off.

When GM dumped Pontiac, I dumped GM. Haven't and never will purchase another GM vehicle

I never understood Cadillac becoming the performance vehicle? Good grief.

The "Oldsmobile guy", had a "live preview" of what was coming for Pontiac. It was the same slow train wreck arriving just a little bit earlier that killed them off in 2004. The same type of mind set, (morons), that destroyed Oldsmobile, went right to work on Pontiac after killing off GM's second best division, (In My Opinion). What does GM have left? Chevy cheap crap. Buick for the over 90 crowd and Cadillac for people earning over $500,000.00 a year. Quite a portfolio.

Who would have thought that an SUV (Escalade) would save a dying company targeted at the older population and that (c)rappers were the main audience that contributed to its success?

Buick hasn't built a nice comfortable, soft riding luxo-barge in years plus they recently dumped their entire car line in 2020 and only sell SUV's. A good portion on their junk is made in China.

Not the people that designed it.

I know, because I was one.

I worked in program engineering for the Escalade, the Denali, and the H2.

The whole rapper and celebrity thing took us all totally by surprise.

K

When I was on the 2002 Escalade program the Cadillac marketing guy would come in every week with notable sales.

"Jennifer Lopez got one this week" or "Martha Stewart got one".

The multiples were my favorite. I don't remember who specifically but there were a couple celebs that got two at a time.

My all time favorite though, was some Shah or Shiek in the Middle East: He got two in each of the available five colors for a total of ten - one for each of his wives.

One week he reported "BB King got his; a black one". I asked if Eric Clapton was going to drive him around in it. Everybody else was like "Seymore - WTF are you talking about?"


K

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...1&d=1666201436

Thanks for that insight, I always love hearing from people "who were there" when things were being done. If you don't mind me asking, what was the "target market" for the 2002 Escalade? From the design team perspective?

Do you still get discounts on denali's...winter is coming lol

That's all assumptions. Every time Pontiac did something great, it was because they were better than everyone else. When Pontiac faltered, it was Chevrolets fault. It's easy to say Pontiac would've mopped the floor with every other brand if they only were able to build/do certain things. But those things didn't happen. I could say they would have falled flat on their faces, and it has the same merit. Nobody knows for sure.

Let's face it. The company we like did some things right, and other things awful. Towards the end they were really messing up. Building junk nobody wanted except for the G8 and Solstice.

G8 was built down under.

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...1&d=1666223915

I know a lot of people on this forum think Pontiac ended in 1981 but there were some cars being made that my wife and I really liked. She had a 1986 Pontiac 6000 STE, she really liked a lot. She had a 2008 Pontiac G6 V6 GT 4 door. She said after the Trailblazers we had in the 2002–2009-time frame, that was one of her favorite cars. I loved my 1986 Grand Prix and our 3 Fiero's. All of them would have been better with a real Pontiac V8 but they still had that "Pontiac" styling, handling and performance. I enjoyed driving them all. They definitely all had more style than their GM cousins.

^^^ That! I have owned 7 Pontiacs since 1981, including my DD 2010 G6. It's comfortable, gets decent fuel economy, and has been trouble free. It also makes me smile when I see that arrowhead on the steering wheel. The 2.4 Ecotec also makes 50 more HP than the '81 Grand Prix I had with the Pontiac V8

Nobody will, why?
When General Motors Corporation dumped Pontiac, they themselves Died too.
Today a different company exists..
General Motors "Company"

I was a fan of the H-body FWD Bonnevilles with 3800.. A 95 and a 99. I liked the way it looked, I liked the way it drove, I liked the seating position and overall comfort. I HATED fixing the damn things. Sometimes the same thing more than once. And a plastic intake manifold? Leaky fuel lines. Running the coolant for the heater thru a plastic elbow and then alternator bracket. Who thinks up this s**t? "lets build an almost good car, then make them hate it over time."

We also kept around an S-series 4wd of one kind or another. Had three of them. . Once I got a Pilot for the Mrs and I ended up with a cvic, I'm spending less of my life fixing my daily drivers, and more time on the fun cars. Loved the blazer too, but just... damn. The Jimmy was aptly named, I think it was the construction method.

I mostly agree with your post, especially the last few sentences. As Pontiac fans/enthusiasts sure we cheerlead for the brand. But to say Chevrolet had little to no bearing on the success or failure of our favorite brand is a little naive. From 1962-1969, Chevrolet was getting beat-up by Pontiac on a regular basis. Pontiac was the darling of the car magazines. Pontiac was winning prestigious awards like the Motor Trend Car of the Year for THE ENTIRE PONTIAC LINE. The 64 GTO smuggled into production while Chevrolet was serving bland on white bread, had to piss them off royally. When John Delorean put the extra final quality inspections in place at the end of the assembly line, that had to be infuriating for the garbage division, Chevrolet. Finally, upper management had no other choice than to "promote John Deleoran" to Chevrolet and put him in charge of the Vega. That's one way to slow Pontiac down. Pontiac was stealing sales and accolades right and left from Chevrolet and they didn't like it. Pontiac built superior cars to Chevrolet for decades with one hand tied behind their back. When the Division was stripped of all it's autonomy in the 1980's, then the entire corporation just built generic junk from that point forward with a few exceptions here and there. The Corvette, to Chevrolet's credit, was always allowed to operate as a completely separate brand for the most part. It was highly prized and protected as evidence of Chevrolet being able to kill off the Pontiac Banshee multiple times when production drew close.

A die hard Chevrolet fan probably has a different view of this history, but my comments are based on a 40+ year study of the Pontiac brand from every resource I could find and personal interviews and interaction with people who were there to live through it. I love the fact that Pontiac was a giant overachiever and constant underdog. A great heritage that deserved a proper burial. Last Pontiac: a 4-cyl G6 Rental car. Damn shame.

In other news:

https://www.thedrive.com/news/the-la...&ICID=ref_fark

buy it back and put a poncho in it...lol

Pontiac did quite well in their NASCAR days. No more racing. Chevrolet didn't have an answer for the GTO until 1965, when they rolled out 201 specially built Chevelles. Corvette got it's 3x2 after corporate killed Tripower. No big block Camaros (they had the "big" 350) until the Firebird 400. While Pontiac was selling SD455s, Chevy dropped the Z28 - didn't bring it back until 77. 3rd gen Firehawk. 89 Turbo TransAm. Pontiac's work with SLP on 4th gens didn't go unnoticed, Chevy pulled a mE ToO and revived it's Camaro SS. GTO and G8, Chevy actually poached the Holden deal.

Five decades of being forced to respond. :pound:

Normal rich people (like small business owners).

They usually have a story board posted in the Studio which shows the colors available, content, and demographics of the expected customers: how much they make, what kind of clothes they wear, what kind of watch they have, other vehicles they own, if they smoke cigars vs pipes, etc.

I've shared this before in terms of the marketing magic applied to color names (you know, "Hugger orange" on a Chevy is the same as "Carousel Red" on a Pontiac).

I was talking to somebody about that in the context of GM trucks and made up the following example:

"Black" = Chevy
"Tuxedo Black" = GMC
"Black Diamond" = Cadillac

Of course I was being totally facetious.

Nonetheless, some time after that I was over in the Cadillac studio. They were doing some new sedan and had a storyboard up with the usual information.

Sure enough - one of the signature colors they had created was named "Black Diamond".

:rolleyes:

I still buy GM, hrysler is still rusty garbage, and the Ford trucks with that 18 wheeler swoopy door is ugly as hell, and it’s there forever like Ford does. I have a Nissan, (Infiniti), love that car. Only GM vehicles, no, but still buy em. Get over it, Pontiac is gone.

The Camaro and Firebird debuted the same year. I had a 67 factory 396 4 Speed. I would hardly say Chevy was forced to respond to the 400 Firebird.

Got a build date?

Camaros went on sale September 29, 1966.
Firebirds went on sale February 23, 1967.

Five whole months. Five. It's no coincidence the 396 finally appeared when it did.

Every GTO I had was faster than my Chevelle with a 396. It was a turd but I fell into the hype from all of my friends about how superior a big block Chevy was to a Pontiac. To me, it always seemed that Pontiac was a step ahead of Chevrolet. The cars looked cooler, handled better and felt more powerful.

On a Pontiac forum, The Pontiacs are always superior. No argument from me. I will say senior year in HS, I had my 70 TA and a good friend had a 70 Z28. We street raced those cars almost every day for a year. TA was a 4-speed, Z28 was an auto trans. Who ever got the jump and some traction would win the race. They were virtually identical as drag racers. Of course I much preferred my Pontiac, but the Z28 was no slouch. It would shift in drive from gear to gear between 6800-7000 RPM. Lots of RPM, not much torque, and a cheap interior. All the things Chevy was famous for.

Anybody going to go to Mexico to look for 1G2ZA5EB5A4166962?
I've seen worse cars revived.

no, it needed to die...

I bought a 2007 G6 GT sedan brand new. I owned it for 10 years. Only had two issues in that time. The drivers side window motor burned up, and a leaky water pump. It was a great car and did us well.

Chevrolet had a terrible plant and workforce in California, and tge product flat out sucked on quality, as the 70s moved along. Later, Toyota/ GM used that plant. In 2008, plans were laid to move G8 production to Oshawa, Ontario for 2009 production. Guess the upper government saviour types nixt that plan, told GM to scrap the brand. Seriously though, I had been at the car show years earlier, when 04 GTO debuted. Pontiac got a broom closet space behind GM, back in the far corner. CEOs had no love for the brand. All politics and good ol' boy decisions. GM was living for credit profit, considering the car as a tool to produce finance profit. That is the crime of capitalism.

You are referring to Fremont, or Van Nuys? Or both? Was under assumption that "traditional" F car production was at both Norwood, and Van Nuys. Meaning '67-'81. Fremont was near the SF metro area, saw a video on it's construction in the early sixties? That area was all farmland then. GM had some kind of "partnership" with Toyota in the eighties, believe the '84-'88 Chev Nova err Corolla was built there. Believe tesla became a recent owner of the original Fremont plant.

GM/Toyota built the Vibe at that plant, and it was called Nummi, it was the former Fremont plant. They also formerly made Corolla, and Hi Lux trucks at the plant. Tesla currently produces cars at the plant.

When GM owned it the line would have to be shut down sometimes since the workers sabotaged the cars, and wouldn't show up for work because of the prevalent drug use by workers. The union made the plant rehire the same former workers from GM Fremont. It closed the same year Pontiac was killed, 2010. Toyota said they had learned a lot about navigating the EPA/etc from GM, and it helped them opening 2 new plants later on.

The Vibe was also one of the last Pontiacs built, lasting until 2010.