teal98

I don't think any of the Pontiac products from the 80s, 90s, or 00s, were anything special, except for the '89 Turbo Trans Am and the G8.

Some of the FWD products were decent cars, but I would have been able to get the same thing at Chevy, Buick, Olds, or Saturn, depending on the car in question.

2000 Grand Am? I'll take an Alero.
1998 Bonneville? Have a look at the Aurora.
2006 G6? Check out the Malibu.
2002 Firebird? The Camaro is the same car for less, except for no power antenna.

Charlie makes a point for the Grand Prix GXP with the LS3 being superior to the Impala SS, but really that car cried out for RWD. I probably would have gone with the Impala anyway, because it had a much more accommodating interior (as long as I'm looking at a car like that...).

Outside of a few rabid modern Pontiac enthusiasts (those would not be the people for whom Pontiac died in 1979), there was little constituency for today's Pontiac.

So GM had to kill it.

Z284ever

For sure, the smallblock Chevy was superior to the 301. But you know, there used to be a fierce rivalry between the Camaro and Firebird. It made the Camaro vs Mustang thing look like child's play. In many ways, I think it fueled sales for both greatly.

The '82 Z/28 was supposed to get a fuel injected, "Crossram" motor, with over 190 hp (big stuff back then) and a 4 speed stick. The Trans Am was supposed to get a turbo 301 over 210 hp. It looked as if the delicious family feud would continue into the new decade - leaving alot less oxygen in the room for competitors like the Mustang.

Instead, Crossram lost it's cool name due to some Chrysler trademarkery, only got 165 horses (maybe not even all of them healthy), and ---W.T.F.----no stick. Trans Am lost it's motor altogether, and shared this one generically with Camaro. And so, the sales fueling sibling rivalry was over....

It was the end of an era.

teal98

And all the Firebird TPI 3rd gens were down 5-10hp on the Camaros.

I never knew about the "should have beens" for the '82 F-bodies. The world would have been different -- that's for sure. Crossfire would have been a fine name if the product hadn't sucked so much

HuJass

Like I said before, the very few bright spots in Pontiac's line-up after 1979 were just the last gasps of a dying body.

HuJass

And I can only dream what a turbo 301 would have been like if Pontiac was able to develop it the same way Buick was able to develop it's turbo 231.

MustangEater82

I am biased since I own a G6, but I always hated crappy plastic cladding on Pontiacs. All they way back to fixing it on a 89 Grand am, to seeing it on a 94 GTP we had in the family and on all the grand ams. I remember looking at grand ams very briefly and said pass and woudl have much rather had an Olds Alero. I hated the plastic cladding of pontiac forever, I might be in the rarity that I prefer 4th gen camaros over Trans ams.

Z284ever

Pointier nose = more restrictive intake.

teal98

I completely agree. I rented a G6 a couple of years ago and found it to have a pleasant cockpit. The '97-'03 GP that some on this board like so much did not appeal to me at all. I considered the '04 to be an improvement, but still not enough.

I'll miss Pontiac like I miss Oldsmobile, but it had been just a shell since 1979.

The real killer is that most seem to agree that the G8 would have sold better as a Chevrolet. Which means that selling it as a Pontiac just meant that GM made less / lost more money on it. Which is why Pontiac no longer exists. It was no longer incremental volume, but rather, decremental volume.

Shed a tear. Move on.

teal98

It's not enough just to be a divisional engine. It has to be decent. The Pontiac 301 wasn't. The Quad 4 had issues.

As you say, it would have been a waste of resources developing multiple engine families for the same purpose. Just as it's a waste of resources developing multiple vehicles for the same market segment.

GM's new strategy is better. Chevy goes after volume brands like Toyota, Ford, Honda. Buick goes after premium brands like Acura, Lexus, Volvo, Audi, Lincoln. Cadillac goes after luxury brands BMW, Jag, MB.

There's still some overlap, but a lot less than there used to be.

Oddball

I was a child of the 80's, learning about girls at the same time Michael Knight was saving the down-trodden. To me, the only difference between GM "brands" were the trim and options. You sat in ANY "GM" car and you knew you were in a "GM" car. Chevy = "every man", Pontiac = "Performance", Caddy = "Old rich people", etc... They had the same engines, mechanicals, and awful interiors. I never lived in a world where the divisions were really different in terms of engineering, just marketing. THAT is what is killing GM brands -- they became just different marketing divisions.

When I graduated college in the 90's and bought my first new off the lot car, I got a Pontiac Grand-Am. Even though it was a rebadged Chevy-something it did have a different feel to it.

saturn was a great concept as they had their own "parts bin" but eventually too "cost cutting" brought them into the shared engineering and platforms.

I'm sure it hurts to lose a brand and identity, but in the age of savingcosts through shared platforms and engineering GM did have too many brands.

Adam4356

i think Pontiac was mortally wounded with the G6,Aztek,Sunfire deals.

Sunfire dies , Aztek just plain existed and the G6 replaces the Grand Am.

Those events tore the floor out from under Pontiac. Now you have a solid line up of mediocre or just plain non-competitive product. Dealers have nothing to sell, public doesn't want any of it.....

Once Pontiac was no longer positioned to compete it was over. Add to that a brand without identity and soul and the public walked away.

Z28x

I was always disappointed they never made the Grand Am SC/T, 262HP Supercharged 3.4L



http://motortrend.automotive.com/369...orsepower.html

Z284ever

Ah, the Crossfire. It was a technically interesting system. And exotic to look at too. It even came with a lightweight fiberglass hood (20 pounds lighter than steel), and functional airflaps.

Now-a-days, I find it to be a fascinating bit of early '80's GM engineering. The only fuel injection throttle bodies GM had at it's disposal back then, were the TB's from the 2.5L Iron Duke. Soooo, you take two of them, put them on a 1st gen Z/28 inspired, Crossram intake, and make these throttle bodies work synchronously through a series of linkages and sensors - and voila! There were some major flaws in it's execution and basic design though - ones which I won't bore you with here, (unless you want me too ).

Back then I hated the CFI with a passion. It couldn't beat the Mustang GT of the day. And it's worst sin? Not available with a stick! I'm pretty sure that I swore to myself that I'd never buy one.

Well....... whaddyaknow? 25 years later, while looking for something different to drive down to Indy '08, with my Camaro club, I found and bought one.
I am now learning/learned the "voodoo" involved with getting these systems to run great and purr like a kitten. My original plan was to sell it after the Indy trip, but now I figure I'll be keeping it.

Had Pontiac made a turbo 301 Trans Am in 1982, I expect I'd be fiddling with one of those too....

JeremyNYR

I think it really did come down to marketing (or lack thereof) that killed Pontiac. they weren't positioned as being something more than the Chevy version. No action speaks louder to this than Pontiacs becoming the rental fleet leader of GM. Chevy = common/every man = Rental Car. How did they ever come up with the equation Pontiac = Excitement = Rental Car????

I think what our enthusiast blinders aren't allowing us to see is that, at some point, General Motors as a company decided that Pontiac /= Excitement any more. Problem is, they forgot to tell us what it was supposed to equal now and they left us really freakin' confused

teal98

Please bore me some more. The Crossfire was so short-lived, and they made so much of it. I'd be fascinated to hear what went wrong.