This is just horrible news, if it turns out to be true. As others have said, the writing was on the wall - niche brand, yeah. It is a sad, sad time to be a GM fan.

I guess of all the remaining brands(?) Pontiac was the one to go, it has no presence outside of North America. Chevy better up their game a few notches, I'm on my third Pontiac and there hasn't been a Chevy that really turned my crank in at least a decade - outside of Camaro or Corvette although I can't say I'd ever buy a vette if push came to shove.

If there is a silver lining here, I suppose that anyone looking for a G8 bargain in the future won't have to wait too, too long, this news will absolutely destroy whatever residuals were possible given the current situation.

 

As mentioned in another thread, G8's sales were just starting to get some traction ... but this ought to put an end to that. And as much as I think the Vibe is a pretty good car, it never really fit with the Pontiac brand IMO.

I wonder what this will do to the resale value of Pontiacs. Good thing I'm planning to keep mine for a while (at least at this point in time).

 

Hopefully it will make the already desireable Pontiacs even MORE desireable.

 

Scaled back to a "niche-brand" is how I read it. Which is what has been expected for months.

 

completely dead not niche Pontiac will cease to exist

 

Oh the rumors. The rumors, the rumors, the rumors. Everybody wants to have "the" scoop.

I'll start one of my own. GM's going to cut Cadillac from the European market.

 

I don't know about you guys but I'm going to pick up a sweet G3 before prices sky-rocket.

 

IM happy with my GP GXP!!!

Long live Pontiac...

 

The article says that Pontiacs Niche status is unchanged.

 

I would be Happy if Pontiac was niche, but its not gonna happen now.

In its restructuring plan rejected by President Obama's autos task force last month, GM proposed shrinking Pontiac into a niche brand with one or two offerings. But the task force wants GM to cut deeper and faster, necessitating the decision to eliminate Pontiac, which leaves the automaker with four core brands: Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC.

http://www.detnews.com/article/20090...04240444?imw=Y

 

The status won't really change. Every model will continue their production run until sales dictate otherwise, and then they will not be replaced. That's how they handled Oldsmobile.

The government probably wants to make sure that Pontiac stays dead to prevent Rick Wagoner Junior from screwing kidney grilles onto Cruizes and Malibus.

 

If that's the case, there were some incredible fire-sale deals on Oldsmobiles near the end. At the time they were leases too, so you didn't have to worry about the back end.

 

Kind of sad, really. Of all the GM divisions, Pontiac was the easiest to get "right", but they just couldn't muster the discipline to stop whoring it out and giving it mediocre products that don't fit with the brand, because "some dealers wanted it".

Aztek
G3
G5
G6 (How do you maintain a performance image when your car can't even outperform "non-performance" competitors from companies like Toyota and Honda?)
Montana/Transport
...and so on.

 

IT may become official that Pontiac is completely done. But for right now offcially their niche status is unchanged. The journalist you quoted and yourself think that the big O called this week and said "hey close Pontiac on Monday"

 

Because he did!

The closing of Pontiac is done because the Obama Administration said it had to be done. Simple as that.