SSbaby

I could say they did it when they killed cool designs like the original F3 Firebird and Fiero because they produced vehicles with style and emotion. The ribbed side cladding that was introduced across the whole range certainly cheapened the whole brand instantaneously. The Aztek, what were they thinking?

The Oprah stunt was fascinating. I have never heard of car companies giving multiple cars away unless they were el cheapos.

I know Oprah has a large audience and I can see what GM tried to do... The cynic in me says Oprah is designed to dumb down audiences across the planet. I don't know if one could link the notion of a 'dumb' audience with the G6 but to give 200 of them away was a tactical marketing error. To give them away on a show like Oprah was a double whammy, IMO.

ehaase

I would agree that the Aztek, 2004 Grand Prix, and the 2005 G6 killed Pontiac. The 2004 Grand Prix was unattractive compared to its predecessor, and the W platform was dated by then. The G6 had awkward styling and an unnecessary name change. Of course, I think Pontiac's decline started when John DeLorean left to become Chevrolet's general manager.

WERM

The worst thing about the Oprah deal was that most of the world thought that Oprah herself gave the cars away, when they actually came from GM.

Z284ever

And then Oprah made GM pay sales taxes when some of the winners complained about it.

Dumb.

Mikes25thAnnTA

Losing the Firebird, gaining a GTO to keep the "excitement division" exciting, and allowing dealerships put 5 digit mark-ups on it.

Bringing out another exciting car like the Solstice, but allowing Saturn to have a version that most people think looks more exciting.

As already stated, bringing the S/C 3800 to Chevy, taking away the incentive to buy an exciting Pontiac over it's Chevy brother.

blackrat

Just had to quote this because I had a friend who thought the early 2000s Grand Ams were as fast as Trans Ams just because of the way they looked. When he found out they only made 200hp it shattered his world view.

I never would have guessed it was a common thing.

MustangEater82

Well with the "g6 name" I'll admit it was a poor decision, but I don't blame GM on it. Everyone said be like the import cars, american cars suck, etc....

So Pontiac started to slowly begin the trend of imports..

BMW 323,330,5 series, etc...
Mazda 3, Mazda 6
Lexus IS300

From what I was lead to believe Pontiac was aiming to be a Mazda/BMW mix...
Mazda6- Pontiac G6
BMW M3-GTO, G8
Mazda 3 -G5, G3?


G6 interior Defenitely needed a makeover... Its supposed to be a car that appeals to a "younger crowd" yet one example, almost every GM vehicle in 2k7 had an AUX input on the stereo, but the G6 didn't. Might argue it should have been one of the first models to have it.

I think the car needed a bigger ad campaign. All we remember of it is the Oprah thing. My car is debadged, and I get asked all the time what it is...

I was at the Rolex 24 last night where the G6 GXPR race car was and while I was taking pics of it, people kept asking what kind of car was it.

The car line was started and finished and most people, even car enthusiusts can't even Identify it.

Hadn't seen Pontiac commercials in forever, how long ago was the "wider is better" thing.


There was definitley a market for a Not so boring "family cars" Something that seemed a little young. They just didn't get the right marketing for it.

Z28x

Aztek was bad, but it wasn't the reason people stopped buying Grand Prixs and Grand Ams.

They were trying to be a mix of BMW and Mazda but little did they know it took more than just names with numbers in them.

MustangEater82

I dunno...

GTO, G8?


G6 is very similar to Mazda 6(I was looking for a mazda 6 and cross shopped to the G6 in my searching)


I admit they needed a little more "flare" but I feel they were on there way. I do not think they were trying to be the same as those, but possible a lower cost version of it that competes.

Doesn't mean it beats it and is a better car... but then it doesn't also have to cost as much either.

ckt101

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I didn't think that the g6 was a mistake. I thought it was something that they got right. I loved its clean styling. I couldn't stand seeing those grand ams with all that crappy cladding, it looked so stupid. The only reason the grand ams sold better was because they were sold dirt cheap.

SSbaby

I agree with you. The G6 was a nice design that was probably bettered by the Saturn Aura. Both nice cars in terms of looks.

HAZ-Matt

Pontiac is somewhat of a sore subject with me as they were by far my favorite GM division, even considering my great love of the Corvette. I have had two different Firebirds, and both of my sisters have Pontiacs (Aztek and G6).

They really shouldn't have killed off the heritage names, regardless of how well they may or may not have designed the more recent ones. They were some of the most recognizable and best names in the American market. Cars from an excitement divisions need exciting names, not alphabet soup. Even though the car is great, "I drive a G8" sounds boring and or lame compared to "I drive a Grand Prix."

I agree that the Oprah decision was pretty poor. Would have made more sense to give them away to college seniors, especially as Pontiac was sponsoring all the NCAA football games at that time (it's Nissan now).

My sister has an Aztek. I really don't think that car hurt Pontiac. It is pretty useful, and I think it almost fit with the Pontiac image more than a Montana. The cladding they had the first year was pretty bad, but when they made it body colored and added the rear spoiler it improved the looks tremendously.

The GTO is an interesting case. I liked the new GTO, and it is clearly the best GTO ever made in most objective measures. Too bad we'll never know what sales would have done without the mark-ups and if they had been sent to the correct dealers (ie in the South and West, not the North). As has been pointed out, it did sell decently compared to cars in its class. The hood scoops should have probably been standard equipment the first year out though. It's a shame we can't see what they would do with Camaro's Zeta... you could certainly make a great GTO out of it.

The main problem was that they didn't have the will to differentiate the cars enough from Chevrolets. Maybe in part because they didn't have the money to do so, but I think mostly just because nobody had any sense of how to manage as many brands as GM had as it entered the 21st century with eroding market share. I think however with a little common sense that this would have been relatively easy to do. Blanding up the cars to make them "more sophisticated" just alienated their base. As said above, people wanted cars that looked fast even if they weren't necessarily. And how hard would it have been to make the suspension tuning more sporty than the Chevrolets? A spring with a little more rate doesn't cost more than one with less rate. I think guionM had a post about the last Bonneville a while back which said something to the effect of it handled much more like a boat then a car that should have come from the excitement division.

They also talked (lied) about reducing brand overlap and as was always the case in relation to this subject, Pontiac would be screwed. They weren't going to be able to pay for a Firebird, but they could take one of the most exciting new cars Pontiac got, Solstice, and give it to Saturn of all divisions. Or they create the G5 which is nothing more than a re-skinned Cobalt, except you couldn't get the supercharged motor at the Excitement division. You kill Grand Prix and Bonneville to sell uncompetitive Buicks in combined dealerships.

I guess we'll see how the Buick experiment goes. Although I would say I want GM to succeed, I don't think I would feel too bad if Buick went the way of the dodo in the US. Especially since they canned my favorite division for them. If I would have been King of GM we would still have Pontiac with probably a China-only Buick.

formula79

Also, the reason I selected G6 on Oprah was because the 2004 Grand Prix retyle was a disaster. In order for there to be a new Grand Prix, G6 had to be successful. When G6 failed, so did serious investment in Pontiac.

While Aztek was a public relations flap, it did not hurt the brand per say. It did not sell well..but the flip side is..it was in a new niche..so no volume was lost. The Rendevous actually sold quite well and made the program profitable.

When you look at what hurt the brand..you have to look at what GM sold a ton of say in 2000, and what had replaced it in 2008. GM sold over 600,000 Pontiac's in 2000, and by 2008 they were lucky to hit 300,000.

Every car Pontiac sold in 2000 was replaced by something that sold a lot less in 2008. Grand Am and Grand Prix, which were the heart of the brand. G8 could not match Firebird's old sales. Sunfire outsold G5+Vibe. Montana outsold Torrent. Bonneville was 65,000 units of volume not replaced. To put that into perspective, NO Pontiac car outside G6 sold 65,000 units in 2008.

Here is the chart I made a year ago-

teal98

Pontiac was coasting in 2000. At least in California, retail sales had already tanked on most of their models. Baby-boomers and the generations that followed are not particularly loyal to domestic cars. In 2000, Pontiac was being helped by loyalty of earlier generations to American cars (loyalty that was generally missing on the coasts for the WWII and depression generations).

The G6 or 2004 GP were better than the models they replaced, but not good enough. Pontiac lacked funds to do a better job.

HuJass

Pontiac was done the minute after the last Pontiac 400 rolled of the engine assembly line in 1978.