Comments on: Question of the Day: Will You Cry For Pontiac?

By: Scott Johnson

Scott Johnson — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 01:49:45 +0000

I don’t give a damn about Pontiac, but I can’t wait to read that G8 review.

By: Oldsmoboi

Oldsmoboi — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 11:31:37 +0000

Oldsmobile had no reason to live? It was the only division with a nearly entire lineup of DOHC engines, V6 Alero being the only pushrod, and it’s cars were easily the best quality version of each platform respectively. Alero was better quality than the Grand Am. Intrigue blew the Grand Prix and Impala out of the water in terms of refinement. Aurora was widely thought to have one of the best interiors GM produced, coupled with a solid platform and the venerable Northstar.

But the single biggest reason Oldsmobile had to live is the customers. Those former Olds customers left GM and never came back.

By: nudave

nudave — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 10:07:40 +0000

Jonny: They’re already dead. Whatever you chose would be an automotive cadaver.

By: JEC

JEC — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 06:12:06 +0000

Zerofoo-

That’s exactly the problem. The G8 is an ill-defined model in North America. In Aussie land you get your modern-day muscle car (be it two doors, four doors, or an el-camino style pickup) and go off to slither around corners and suck fuel with reckless abandon all to a burbling V8 soundtrack. The cars are big, brutish and wonderfully vulgar. Even the Brits get the fun ones in the Vauxhall VXR/Monaro lineup – look up the Top Gear reviews on youtube and see how much fun they have with them. What do we get? The dumbed-down, detuned versions that are de-sportified so that some mouth-breather doesn’t sue GM for spinal damage due to the firm suspension setup. On top of that a good chunk of the horsepower (and all of the V8 noise) seems to evaporate whenever something is federalized.

Sigh.

By: RogerB34

RogerB34 — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 02:48:38 +0000

GM should have retained the Olds brand for its historical link to GM. Olds was a big GM brand 1948 – 1955 with the Rocket 88. Pontiac was, my opinion, a different name and thats about all.

By: friedclams

friedclams — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 23:40:47 +0000

I agree that it would be the rare doctor today that drives a Buick. What I meant was Buick is still about plush luxurious cars that aren’t as ostentatious as a Cadillac… would doctors used to drive in olden times. As the Toyota Avalon indicates, I still think this concept has potential in today’s market… even though doctors themselves are driving Euro cars & Lexi.

Pontiac is not “about” anything anymore. It is, sadly, “car”. NulloModo, I hate to say it but even if GM marketed Pontiac as an “outlaw” car that would have little resonance in today’s car market. People are more concerned with buying car-appliances instead of stripped down wild rides.

By: Pch101

Pch101 — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 16:36:12 +0000

Regardless of how expensive hydroforming is, with economies of scale and the amount of steel that GM buys up the only way you end up with a $10,000 loss per car is if GM is doing some very creative accounting and somehow rolling in the cost of the factory or the equipment they already bought to build the car into the price of each car itself.

This is probably true. I’d expect that they are citing this number so that they can justify taking the largest tax write off possible when it comes time to claim it. If they are going to do it anyway, they may as well deduct as much as possible.

By: NulloModo

NulloModo — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 12:23:03 +0000

MC – I don’t doubt that it has been reported that GM is losing $10,000 per car, I just can’t fathom how it is possible. Regardless of how expensive hydroforming is, with economies of scale and the amount of steel that GM buys up the only way you end up with a $10,000 loss per car is if GM is doing some very creative accounting and somehow rolling in the cost of the factory or the equipment they already bought to build the car into the price of each car itself.

By: capeplates

capeplates — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 09:59:56 +0000

one less company to fight off the Japanese invasion

By: Mc

Mc — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 06:52:34 +0000

NullaModo,

Here is my source:

http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080902/FREE/809029955

Solstice sells $10,000 below cost, and that is why the Solstice program is being canceled.

-Mc

By: zerofoo

zerofoo — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 01:44:43 +0000

The G8 huh?

I’m not sure who the G8 is built for. Yes, it’s a rear drive V8 sport sedan….but…

It has a nice enough interior, but, it’s not really luxurious, so it isn’t for a luxury car buyer.

In real life it is far bigger than it looks in pictures. After driving one, I realized that, due to its size, I would tire of it quickly. It really is a bit too big to be sporty.

So what’s left is a big sedan with a V8 engine – the market for those isn’t really hot with gas approaching $4.00/gallon.

At the end of the day, the G8 is a big sedan, that is fairly competent, but not all that sporty.

Buyers of those types of vehicles are probably buying Malibus.

It’s an interesting car, but I’m not sure who will buy one.

-ted

By: NulloModo

NulloModo — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 01:20:11 +0000

I agree with the name problem with Oldsmobile. Wasn’t the slogan at the time of the brands demise ‘Not your father’s Oldsmobile?’, pretty much begging the public to think of it as an acceptable choice for younger buyers.

Then again Newsmobile/Newdsmobile are problematic, the former developing mental pictures of box trucks tossing stacks of morning papers, and the latter a pornographic version of the bookmobile…

By: faster_than_rabbit

faster_than_rabbit — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 01:10:03 +0000

Here’s what I still don’t understand: Oldsmobile had arguably the most attractive car lineup of any GM division at the time they were killed. Buick was a much more obvious candidate. I can only think someone just couldn’t get past the “Old” in the name.

No practicing doctor I know (I live in the year 2008) would be caught dead in a Buick. They drive strictly Germans or Lexus.

By: NulloModo

NulloModo — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 00:40:37 +0000

I am sorry, but there is no way that I buy that GM loses any money, much less $10,000 on the sale of a Solstice. Factor in the costs of the raw materials, plus the cost of the hourly wages and maybe even the equipment depreciation during the production of each vehicle and you have the cost, which should be far below the cost of sale. Advertising, initial capital investment, and engineering costs should not enter the equation at all, as advertising goes on year round on all models and the others are one time costs that will be offset over time.

friedclams: I never considered Buick as a ‘doctor’s car’. Doctors in my mind are driving Mercedes, BMWs, Audis, Volvos, Cadillacs, and Lincolns.

Pontiac could get the outlaw image back… no brand is ever so damaged that it can’t come back. However, GM needs to fund it adequetly for this to happen.

The badge engineered clones which essentially create competition between different GM dealers need to go. Shared platforms are OK, but make sure that each vehicle sits far enough in its niche that it beats everything else in it, and that it won’t be cross-shopped against another vehicle under the GM umbrella.

By: friedclams

friedclams — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 00:28:57 +0000

I read somewhere that Pontiac in its heyday was considered the “pirate” brand of GM: the one that made wild, outlaw cars. There is absolutely no way that Pontiac can reclaim that mantle, due both to GM culture and the current car market.

At least Buick is still pretty close to its essential brand identity: “doctors’ cars”. But Pontiac? I say kill it.

By: Mc

Mc — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 23:58:45 +0000

No, I will not cry for Pontiac. GM failed Pontiac, and I think it is over for the brand.

-The G8 is in a price realm that can no longer be supported by the Pontiac brand image; this is a product Buick next to the Buick Lambda could sell at the right price.
-The Vibe is a Saturn by Pontiac, and would be a big help to the house of Saturn if GM could find a way to get it on the right car lot.
-The current Grand Prix was a stop-gap vehicle for something that… um… never materialized.
-The G6 should have had the same suspension set up as the Aura… but G6 instead was given poor handling… and now has sprouted some strange exterior glue-on parts.. painful to watch
-G5, G3? how about G2, G0, G 0.1 too? Why not… it will not matter in the end.

Oh and Solstice… it sells at $10,000 below cost at Pontiac. I think this is a great argument for a Saab front clip, and a Saab luxury high quality interior and $42K price. It would clearly fit Saab’s brand image… a little Alfa Romeo sport machine for Saab to sell in warm weather markets? Could it hurt to add some needed lust and envy to Saab?

Sorry Pontiac.

By: JEC

JEC — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 21:28:43 +0000

I’ll miss the Monaro, er I mean GTO. Oh wait, they never sold that here in Canada, so I wouldn’t be able to miss it. The G8 is worth lamenting, but they didn’t really do a great job on that one either. I wanted a transplanted bonkers Holden with some rust proofing, not an Americanized and softened up car made to appeal to Altima/Camry/Accord buyers.

By: Brandon D. Valentine

Brandon D. Valentine — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 21:24:20 +0000

I think Pontiac oughta just be a car, not a brand. Take the new G8 and call it The Pontiac and be done with it.

By: cgd

cgd — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 21:24:07 +0000

I agree that Pontiac is long past its heyday and can be laid to rest.

By: Geotpf

Geotpf — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 20:41:19 +0000

I’ve said this many times: If GMC exists, Pontiac exists, and vice versa. You either kill them both (and Buick, although basically nobody will notice there, due to their pathetically low sales), or you keep all three. GM has been trying to make as many dealers sell all three brands as possible.

In any case, killing them would be a problem. They share so many models with Chevy (at least under the skin) that killing Pontiac/Buick/GMC would make a bunch of borderline plants unviable. Plus, the dealer bribes would be much larger than those were when they killed off Oldsmobile.

I would recommend killing Saturn, Saab (at least in North America, although Saab’s sales in Europe stink as well), and Hummer long before thinking of killing the Pontiac/Buick/GMC trio. If GM really does kill PBG, GM probably will go out of business completely (Chapter 7, not 11) soon afterwards.

By: dolometh

dolometh — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 20:31:19 +0000

Let’s face it, Pontiac isn’t profitable. Yes, I’ll shed a tear in memory of my father’s Trans Am, but seeing GM survive should be one of our country’s priorities right now.

By: davey49

davey49 — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 20:17:30 +0000

It costs too much money to make separate platforms for every division.

By: Pch101

Pch101 — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 19:03:05 +0000

I might have said this in the past, but why not pare things down and have a GM dealership?

Because you’d have dealerships suing for billions of dollars, and GM would lose the suit.

Had they simply taken the money squandered on the failed Fiat deal alone (or for that matter, the purchase of Saab) and used it instead to pare down the dealer network, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

But now, they don’t have the money to enact such a plan. The only way for them to deal with this now would be to starve the less desirable brands, in order to save the money that would be needed to buy out the dealers.

They should have put the weaker brands onto a plan based upon rental cars and long product cycles, leaving the creme de la creme exclusively for Chevy and Cadillac. That wouldn’t have been nice, but it would have been cheap and legal.

By: Michael Ayoub

Michael Ayoub — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 18:51:29 +0000

Yeah, but if they name the DTS the DeVille Touring Sedan, soccer moms and clueless politicians everywhere will start complaining about how Satanic Cadillacs are.

And unfortunately for Pontiac, they only have two good cars.

By: SAAB95JD

SAAB95JD — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 16:17:28 +0000

I might have said this in the past, but why not pare things down and have a GM dealership? Chevy, Pontiac, Saab, GMC, Cadillac. So, make these GM’s line up (using current names):

Chevy:
Aveo
Cobalt
Malibu
Impala
Corvette
Camaro
Sky (rebadged as a Chevy non-turbo only)
Equinox
Traverse

Pontiac:
G8
Solstice (turbo motor only)

Saab
9-4X
9-5

GMC:
Trucks
Suburban

Cadillac:
CTS
STS/DTS replacement

Also, I would re-name the G8, CTS and DTS back to names, except Saab. I think the alpha-numeric names are stupid with the rest of the line up being named. Keep Saab, but drop the 9-3 and use the new 9-5 as the only Saab. Keep the buyers that like the quirky/euro feel that the other cars cannot produce. Drop Chevy trucks, drop Buick, drop Saturn.

Also, make the cars less flexible in the options arena. Follow Honda’s model: Base (DX), mid-level (LX), and high-content (EX) so that the factories can be more efficient and they can focus more on quality.

I think these practices could save some cash, and deliver a much more consistent message from GM.