[71 T/A]

High Performance Pontiac is forwarding all Bring Back Pontiac e-mails to GM and get this, Michigan senators.

Like that is going to make a difference to a putz at GM or a lame senator reading, or should I say, deleting them. I was going to write something, but what's the point? If a nice new car gets designed, it'll go to Chevy and they'll get all the credit - like they were thinking of doing with the G8 until they changed their minds.

It's nearly a year since Pontiac was canned and now you don't even hear about any offers for them anymore. So a bunch of e-mails is going to help? I guess it looks good in a Pontiac magazine, but come on.

[Cobrabill]

Another reason why that midget running the mag is a joke.

[tripower]

A few things would have to happen to bring Pontiac back:

1. Obama cronies running GM go away
2. GM's logic of moving Pontiac sales to Buick and Chevy fails (Pontiac sold more units that Buick, GMC, Saturn or Caddy)
3. Demand for performance cars comes back....i.e. gas prices remain stable.

I few e-mails and letters is not going to much of anything.

[Cobrabill]

[QUOTE=tripower;3930485]
2. (Pontiac sold more units that Buick, GMC, Saturn or Caddy)
[QUOTE]

This is false.Buick outsold them all except Chevy

[Stuart]

Was this in the magazine? I must have missed it.

[71 T/A]

You're wrong. Sales at May 09 (a few days after Pontiac's demise)
Chevrolet - 127,510
GMC - 23,926
Pontiac -13,329
Buick - 9,160
Saturn -8,046
Cadillac -8,027

[242177P]

Originally Posted by Cobrabill

This is false.Buick outsold them all except Chevy

Are you referring to the Buick/Daewoo sales figures?

[Stuckinda60s]

Before Pontiac was a lame duck, it outsold Buick by greater numbers than those. GM seemed to be pretty desperate to boost Buick sales, they were trying real hard to change their image while not really investing anything in Pontiac, domestically.

[tripower]

I'm referring to US sales, where Pontiac usally doubled Buick in sales. Here is a snapshot of sales before Pontiacs death in 09.

[Cobrabill]

I'm talking about TOTAL sales.Buick wins.

[tripower]

Originally Posted by Cobrabill

I'm talking about TOTAL sales.Buick wins.

Ummm Pontiac is not sold in China

[Cobrabill]

Originally Posted by tripower

Ummm Pontiac is not sold in China

You can't be this stupid.

[69goatboy]

Originally Posted by tripower

A few things would have to happen to bring Pontiac back:

1. Obama cronies running GM go away
2. GM's logic of moving Pontiac sales to Buick and Chevy fails (Pontiac sold more units that Buick, GMC, Saturn or Caddy)
3. Demand for performance cars comes back....i.e. gas prices remain stable.

I few e-mails and letters is not going to much of anything.

One more thing would have to happen before Pontiac would come back:

1. Monkeys would have to fly out of my butt.

Celebrate over what it once was, but realize that Pontiac is now, and forever more, pushing up daisies.

Get over it people.

[W72-Bandit]

On a related note, I was at the local GMC dealer last Saturday with my daughter. She bought a new Terrain and they said GM was offering a $750 rebate if you owned a '99 or newer Pontiac in the household.

[Brian Baker]

Crowbar, I think what the guy is saying is, without the zipperheads in Asia buying Buicks, nobody really gives a rats ass about them, which is reflected in their sales figures...just like the zipperheads didn't give a rats ass about Pontiacs (assuming they even knew/know about Pontiac).

[Stuart]

I'll ask again...was this printed in the magazine?

[71 T/A]

Stuart,
The call for e-mails was printed in the magazine, but no sales stats. It was posted everywhere last year when Pontiac's closing was announced that they sold more than Buick and Caddy.

[Cobrabill]

Originally Posted by Brian Baker

Crowbar, I think what the guy is saying is, without the zipperheads in Asia buying Buicks, nobody really gives a rats ass about them, which is reflected in their sales figures...just like the zipperheads didn't give a rats ass about Pontiacs (assuming they even knew/know about Pontiac).

I know what he's saying.But to suggest that GM looks at ANYTHING but OVER-ALL sales figures is dulusional.

[71 T/A]

Originally Posted by Cobrabill

I know what he's saying.But to suggest that GM looks at ANYTHING but OVER-ALL sales figures is dulusional.

When the Pontiac closing announcement was made, GM cited Pontiac's lack of profitability and how they were making very little per unit sold. It was said by an automotive analyst that most Pontiac buyers were shopping for price as their #1 consideration.

This differs from the good old days when people wanted a fun, cool car to drive and price wasn't the #1 consideration.

[Stuckinda60s]

One way in which the bean-counters were short-sighted is how Pontiac buyers would react if they did away with Pontiac. Would Pontiac buyers switch to Chevy, Buick or Cadillac? Some obviously would, but realistically Pontiac buyers would probably be much less likely to switch to one of those lines than their buyers would be apt to switch to Pontiac if the shoe was on the other foot.

When my wife and I were looking for a new car in'92, I wanted a Bonneville with the handling package. She wanted to test-drive a Buick and I wouldn't even consider it. We bought the Bonneville and she absolutely loved it, especially after her mom bought a Le Sabre and she drove it a lot. To this day, she wouldn't even consider a Buick.

We bought the first of the new '92 body-style Bonnevilles sold by the dealer, but they had to make a deal to get it from another dealer because they didn't have one with the handling package. I had driven one and liked the difference. The owner told me months later that they only ordered them with the handling package after they drove mine in from the other dealer. He also told me that they were impressed with how well the Bonnevilles outsold the Buicks. All the Buicks! Significantly, this dealer had originally been a Buick dealer. They took on the Pontiac and GMC lines in the late early '80s.

We live in the hills where the roads are pretty twisty, I'm sure that accounted for a lot of the Pontiac sales.

My point is that killing Pontiac probably had a major negative impact on GM's overall sales. If they had killed Buick, at least in the US, There would have been less of an impact, particularly when you consider that they would lose a lot less sales if all of the Buick buyers went away than did with Pontiac's demise.