AUTO INDUSTRY INSIDERS ARE SAYING TODAY that on Monday morning General Motors will announce the retirement of the Pontiac car brand from the GM stable.
1967 Pontiac Firebird
They recently said during their latest retrenchment that they will focus on their four “core” brands, Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac. The huge automaker has killed off or sold their Saab, Saturn and Hummer lines. For a while they were planning on continuing to offer a Pontiac performance car as a niche brand, but that plan has been scrapped. CNN Money is reporting:
One strategy floated for Pontiac was to sell only, or mostly, rear-wheel-drive cars. That would set it apart from other GM divisions, and most cars sold in America. Rear-wheel-drive is associated with performance brands like BMW.
Unfortunately, the re-introduction of the Pontiac GTO name on a performance coupe imported from Australia didn’t result in big sales. So far, the Pontiac G8, a rear-wheel-drive four-door sedan also imported from GM’s Australian Holden division, hasn’t been a sales success either, despite good reviews.
Pontiac’s most popular products remain the G6, a decent but unexciting midsize car available as a sedan, coupe or convertible, and the Vibe, a small wagon shared with Toyota, which sells it as the Matrix.
Those pressures resulted in GM quietly introducing the Pontiac G3, which had been sold in Canada only. Once again, Pontiac was selling a rebadged Chevrolet product, this time the Korean-built Aveo subcompact car.
WRQE-TV Ch. 13 in Albuquerque has this video report:
The Wall Street Journal has more on this development along with a brief history of the 82-yr.-old company HERE.
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