The first one I rode in was the 1982 Trans Am S/E that my grandmother owned. There was the 1976 Firebird Formula that came into the shop for some bodywork and a tune…that was a torquey smoke-maker, a riot of a car to wheel around. There was the 1979 Catalina two-door that got turned into a demolition derby racer, the 1988 Firebird painted primer yellow, the red G-body Bonneville, Dad’s 1977 Grand Prix that I tried to repave half of Jackson County, Illinois with, and the two late-model GTOs that I test-drove so hard that I wound up known by name at one dealership. Pontiac is more than a car brand…in many ways, it is the brand that pushed for the cars that we hold dear and was the brand that helped keep the dream alive during some dark years. Think about it: Tri-Power 421s, Catalina 2+2, GTO, Trans-Am, Can-Am, Grand Prix, Phoenix. Executive names that are held in the highest regard in musclecar lore: Pete Estes, John DeLorean, “Bunkie” Knudsen, and Bob Lutz. Songs like “Little GTO” and “Jet Black Pontiac”, movies like “Smokey and the Bandit” and “The Seven-Ups”, racing scenes from NASCAR, SCCA’s Trans Am series, and all the way down to that feeling you got when you first saw a full-on Screamin’ Chicken hood bird for the first time…Pontiac was ingrained into not only gearhead culture, but culture, period.
So what the hell happened? How did a brand that basically laid the backbeat for the Musclecar Era go from such a high to such a low? Was it the internal struggle between making performance and making carbon-copies of whatever Chevrolet was doing? Was it the Tupperware body cladding era and the loss of the Pontiac V8? Were the 1990s that bad for the company, or did the Aztek bury the Arrowhead once and for all? The Roman from Regular Car Reviews takes a look back at Pontiac, from it’s origins with Oakland to the moment that GM took aim and pulled the trigger in the name of saving the rest of the company…or, at least, that’s how they would like you to look at things.
I generally HATE effin’ slide shows, but this was pretty good. Management by committee usually sucks, especially when the committee is composed of bean counters. Bob Lutz can eat a bag of dicks. What he said was just to save face with the outraged automotive faithful after he crawled out from under the Fed desk and wiped his chin off. Buick??? C’mon, decontent a few Caddy models and call it a day! GMC??? (disclaimer… I drive a ’10 Sierra P/U) A Chevy with different badges. Shoulda tried SELLIN’ it instead of sayin’ “Yes sir… Yes sir…” over and over while reaching for that check. Yeah, I know… “Go home, ol’ man…” Damn, I wish I’d kept my Ponchos.