Pontiac tries pizzazz
GM confident revived GTOs won't repeat loss of buyers' zeal seen in Ford's T-birds

By Ed Garsten / The Detroit News

DETROIT -- Lynn Meyers wasn't shaken by last week's news that Ford Motor Co. will retire the recently revived Thunderbird by mid-decade -- but she certainly took notice.

Just months before General Motors Corp. performs its Lazarus act on the Pontiac GTO -- another so-called "heritage" brand, this one from the muscle car era -- the Pontiac-GMC marketing chief professed confidence this revival won't repeat the initial euphoria over the T-bird that quickly turned to consumer apathy.

While only 18,000 GTOs will be built, its revival is part of ambitious plans to put some pizzazz and muscle back into Pontiac -- GM's performance division.

"Pontiac is going through a rebirth, a total rebuilding of the brand," GM North America Chairman Bob Lutz told members of the Detroit Adcraft Club last month.

"We've got a lot of work to do," Meyers said. "We have to rebuild our credential as a performance division."

The need to do so has become more acute. Pontiac sales have dropped 9.5 percent this year. In 2002, sales were off 3 percent.

Moreover, the proliferation and popularity of SUVs and crossover vehicles has hurt Pontiac's sales, which are dependent on passenger cars.

Competitors such as Toyota Motor Co., Nissan Motor Co., BMW AG and even South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Co. are all raising the horsepower in their products.

"The next few launches are going to be critical for Pontiac," said Mike Wall, an analyst with CSM Worldwide, an industry consultant based in Northville.

The first of Pontiac's new product introductions occurred last month with the redesigned Grand Prix. The new version relieves the venerable Grand Prix of its longtime plastic cladding and imbues it with a GTP performance option that features a 240-horsepower supercharged V6 engine.

"The Grand Prix is a good example of where we're headed in passenger cars," Lutz said.

The car is being supported with an aggressive advertising campaign bearing the tag line "Fuel for the Soul."

In one television commercial, a woman wearing sunglasses puts the car through high speed paces on a lonely stretch of desert. At the end of the spot, as she exits the car, she extends her walking stick -- suggesting she is blind. The idea: convey how anyone can feel the spirit of great driving.

In another ad, two boys are sitting in the back seat of the new Grand Prix playing handheld computer games while dad mimics the motions using the optional steering wheel-mounted shifting paddles. When the car comes to a stop, dad looks at the boys and deadpans, "I win."

The goal with that commercial is to highlight Pontiac's desire to become an aspiration brand and that the driving experience is "thrilling."

Pontiac will launch the Bonneville GXP with an 8-cylinder engine later this year -- at the same time the GTO debuts.

The trick to avoiding the Thunderbird's fate, Meyers says, is to honor the GTO'S heritage, but not dwell on it.

"In terms of performance, it's a better GTO," Meyers said. "It's a contemporary GTO, very much a sports coupe for the 21st century."

Still, some Pontiac dealers hoped for a more "radical" design for the car, which is based on the Monaro -- engineered and built by GM's Australian affiliate Holden Motors. And enthusiast clubs have pummeled the new GTO simply because it doesn't resemble the original.

But Meyers says the company is working hard to blunt criticism, in part, by inviting leaders of GTO clubs to get behind the wheel and test the car's 400 horsepower engine. ( )

"It's important for them to experience the car so they can feel the performance," said Meyers.

Pontiac is also looking to bolster its performance portfolio with the Bonneville GXP, but some analysts believe it's an easy way to mark time for a fading brand.

"It's just a measure to keep the brand going for awhile. It's been hammered in the marketplace," Wall said.

An all-new Grand Am will be introduced next year, completing Pontiac's four-prong passenger car attack.

"The products are right on target," said Gregory Jackson, owner of Prestige Buick-Pontiac-GMC in Ypsilanti. "The key for us is to get people in the vehicle. If we can get them in the vehicle, they'll buy because the handling is phenomenal."

GM's new overnight test drive program is aimed at accomplishing that, but Meyers said Pontiac faces an ongoing challenge to lure so-called "conquest" buyers who wouldn't otherwise consider a GM product.

"We have a lot of doubters out there," she said.

Pontiac and GMC, its light truck unit, are beginning to make some headway. The company says 35 percent of customers who bought the Pontiac Vibe were non-GM customers, while 45 percent of GMC Envoy and 44 percent of GMC Yukon buyers previously owned different brand vehicles.

While GMC sales are down 15 percent this year, last month saw record sales for the Envoy.

Later this year, the Envoy XUV will go on sale featuring a reconfigurable midgate now on the Chevrolet Avalanche and Cadillac Escalade EXT, along with a retractable rear roof for loading tall items. It will also come equipped with a rubber load bed with drain holes to make it easy to hose off.

Pontiac and GMC have long shared showroom space, but in February Buick was added as a third marketing "channel."

In February, former Chevrolet chief Kurt Ritter was appointed to a new position as general manager of Buick and Pontiac-GMC. Meyers retained her spot as Pontiac-GMC general manager, reporting to Ritter.

While many dealers are "dualed" as Pontiac-GMC or Buick-GMC sales points, Meyers says the goal is to eventually put all three brands under one roof.

"It's like an auto mall," Meyers said. "If we give more people more choices in one location, they're likely to get more shoppers."

Dealers welcome the strategy.

"It works pretty well together," Jackson said. "Each brand stands for something different."

With Asian, European and Detroit rivals adding power to their passenger car offerings, Pontiac faces a formidable challenge to reclaim its place as a prominent performance brand.

But unlike the power of its model lineup, Pontiac will get there slowly.

"It could take a couple of years," she said. "It's not going to be a miracle overnight."

 

Hmmm...
was that a generalization, typo, or Freudian Slip!

 

The GTO engine is suppost to get a new cam. 340hp might be a little underrated

 

PLEASE LET IT BE TRUE !!! and let it be the base model get those 400 ponies...

damn, now im anxious.

 

I saw that too...I hope it isn't just a dumb marketing manager talking about something she is uninformed.

 

I find it more than ironic that they are trying to pump muscle into a brand that until this year had a car in its lineup that was the very embodiment of muscle. Its as if the Firebird/Trans Am never existed at all.

And the sales being down 9.5 percent. I know the Firebird represented only about 25,000 units per year at the end..wonder how much that contributes to the 9.5%

 

I believe if the GTO is to be a success, they will have to do something with that body. Part of what makes a muscle car a muscle car is the look. People should instantly be intimidated by the look of one. I cant see myself looking at this thing and being intimidated. Now put some functional hood scoops dual exhaust on it and its on.

Long live the great one, for better or worse.

 

What about Chevrolet?! How can they call Pontiac GM's Performance Division?! What is B.L. doing/thinking?! So many people spell performance C-H-E-V-R-O-L-E-T (you know, the name of the racecar driver it was named after?!) it has the best performance history in GM, and they just concentrate on Pontiac like all of a sudden it is the most important or the most popular. I think there are alot of revisionists inside GM right now.

 

I think Pontiac is considered the performance division because the majority of Chevys sales are trucks. Plus when things got rough in the 70s, pontiac said to hell with standards, and put out bigger engines. Just a few reasons.

 

I am sure they will sell everyone they make with people wanting more. It is a great car to begin with even before you add the GTO name.

 

is it 240hp or 260? i thought it was 260...

 

Oh I agree. But I dont think that it will last for more than a few years unless something is done. Plus I think true muscle car fans will pass it up for other options that are a little more impressive.

 

Disagree. This isn't "revisionist" at all. Chevy has a great performance history I agree, but in the past 20 years how many Chevys have been real performers? Camaro and Corvette. Even then, Chevy has been GM's volume brand. Volume means lower priced, more everyday cars.

Think about it for a sec. Pontiac had Firebird. The Firebird got the turbo motor in '89 but Camaro did not. Pontiac also got Fiero, invented the muscle car concept with GTO and had supercharged W-bodies long before Chevy got one, which was also long before Bob Lutz ever came aboard.

 

I don't think Pontiac needs to worry... the new GTO and new T-Bird are apples to oranges.

The first is a decently appointed highway cruiser / muscle machine, albeit somewhat disguised. As someone said - throw on some functional hood scoops (please no fake crap) and a more noticable exahust.... I'm sure SLP will be willing to oblige.

The latter is a torpid, poorly executed retro (i.e. there is good retro - just the t-bird ain't it) slug that relies on some ad. man's notion of cool to sell it. Sorry Ford, but the new T-bird is not cool... just because Frank Sinatra once drove one in some movie. Pfft.

 

Get rid of the horrible rear end of the GTO for the new 06, or even spruce it up for 05. I mean the whole back of that car looks like a minivan, I'm sorry to be the messenger. One of those "Caution: baby on board" window trinkets would fit right in, when you look at the car from the back. Not a single aggressive line anywhere. The rest of it is fine.

regardless, I'm 100% behind the GTO and I know it will succeed, even with its tame Monaro visual cues.

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