Everyone here is ignoring one crucial point -- the Aztec. The psychological implications of that car were huge, it exposed Pontiac's design themes to wide-scale public ridicule, way beyond the auto mags snickering at "ribbed for her pleasure". IMO the Aztec drove it home to a lot of people that Pontiac was an unfashionable make.

Also, just because sales were better in 2000 does not mean that Pontiac was in any way healthy. They were still in the midst of a long-term decline that continues to this day. Their entire model lineup was running fumes left over from the 1980s and nothing they sold was actually competitive with the fit-and-finish standards of the imports. And (as pointed out) they were already fleet central.

I think GM correctly figured out that traditional Pontiac buyers were "wising up" and the ribs and the cladding had already gone on way too long. However by the time they had that realization, they were too broke to perform a fullscale brand-makeover. They may have also been somewhat gun-shy after the reinvention of Oldsmobile fell on its face.

To make a strained analogy, Professional Wrestling had high television ratings all through the 1990s, but that doesn't mean it was the future of entertainment. It was still Hulk Hogan and a bunch of leftovers from the 80s.

The one thing I will agree with is that Pontiac as a whole was a huge missed opportunity. They have something like 2,500 dealers, high brand recognition and some remnant of their sporty/performance image. They should have had a plan in place back in the mid-1990s to turnaround the brand, but they sat on their duffs until it was too late.

As it is, there's simply no way they can operate as a niche 'performance' brand -- too many dealers, poor buyer demographics, bad reputation. They will probably survive, but only with a bunch of cheap Chevy Daewoo rebadges.

 

I don't think the Aztek has anything to do with Pontiac's current state. It was an ugly vehicle for sure...but no one is saying....man I am not gonna go in that Pontiac Dealer because they brought out that ugly Aztek 8 years ago. I think were sales were with the cladding vs. now shows what Pontiac's customers prefered. Also, aggressive styling does not have to mean a ton of cladding....again see Madza.

 

Pontiac has become to be known as boring, plain and simple. The cars look boring, (even the GTO was) there's no real muscle or sports car over there with any kind of power, and they re-named popular models and then watered down their looks. Of course this was going to happen. This was BL's nonsense of trying to move them upscale and making them America's BMW, LOL.

 

GTO wasn't boring, it was just too subdued. Neither is the G8 boring. The vast Pontiac lineup was. People don't fall for the rebadged Chevy crap anymore.

 

Kind of ironic when Bob Lutz called Pontiac a "damaged brand", since it was him who damaged it with poor brand management with the renaming and obviously not understanding the customer base. Why are they paying him $6 million a year?

 

Lutzs' BMW comments are just an acknowledgement to that fact that Pontiac needs to move in a direction, hard.


Remaining a rebadged Chevy will kill it. A performance division would have to reasonably tackle the best of the best at that game. Hence, BMW mentioned.


It's a near delusional thought but it was one that someone had to consider.

 

As I said years ago, no one is ever going to look at Pontiac as they do BMW, especially while Chevy is around, who almost everyone associates GM Performance with. BL said the bland GTO was gonna be their competitor to them, and that became a joke really fast. He copied their naming system, that didn't work. He watered down the looks trying to create an upscale image, that didn't work. In fact, it made things worse. What else is there left to do? People are gonna see Pontiac as what it is and has been, not as a niche or performance brand.