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What Happened to Pontiac? | WheelHouse - YouTube
Channel: Donut Media
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- One of my favorite movies ever
[1]
is Smokey and The Bandit,
[2]
starring Burt Reynolds, his mustache,
[4]
and the 1977 Pontiac Trans Am.
[7]
For decades, the film has been responsible
[9]
for putting the Trans Am somewhere
[12]
on everybody's dream car list.
[13]
It's fast, it's sleek,
[15]
and it's got a badass
fire chicken on the hood.
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Badass fire chicken on the hood.
[21]
The pairing of box office success
[23]
and a great car cemented Pontiac's place
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as an automotive icon in pop culture.
[27]
Pontiac's not around anymore,
[29]
and that really sucks.
[30]
Why'd we lose one of America's
most legendary auto brands?
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What happened to Pontiac?
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I'm Nolan Sykes, and this is Wheelhouse.
[36]
(hip hop music)
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Pontiac was around for a long, long time,
[40]
opening their doors in 1926.
[42]
General Motors introduced Pontiac
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to fill the gap between Chevy
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and the more expensive Oakland brand.
[48]
Imagine GM as an apartment building.
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Chevy's in the entryway, and
Cadillac's in the penthouse,
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with Oakland, Oldsmobile, and Buick
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filling in the floors in between.
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GM formed Pontiac and three other brands,
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Viking, Marquette, and LaSalle,
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to build more floors.
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GM believed that filling these gaps
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would help brand loyalty,
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and inspire customers to
buy their way up the stairs,
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eventually making it to the penthouse.
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But Pontiac was the only one
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of the companion brands to survive,
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and did so by outselling Oakland
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by such a wide margin that Oakland
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was merged into Pontiac.
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Pontiac kept building their affordable
[83]
and reliable cars through the 1950s
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when sales started to decline.
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The brand was gaining a reputation
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as a car for old people,
and like cable TV today,
[92]
young people just weren't into it, man.
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I'm Nolan Sykes, and I'm 63 years old.
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(people laugh)
[97]
So Pontiac boss Bunkie Knudsen decided
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to get Pontiac involved
with several racing series
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like NASCAR and the NHRA
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with legends like Mickey Thompson
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and Smokey Yunick driving his cars.
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It was a good first step,
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but Pontiac really got into
factory performance in 1963,
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when Pontiac designers
led by John DeLorean,
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yeah, that John DeLorean,
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decided to soup up the Tempest Coupe.
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This Grand Tempest Option, or GTO,
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was a watershed moment for the brand.
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It was a mid-sized car with a big engine
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from a full-sized car,
and the result was fast.
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This formula of combining a
small car and a big engine
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would help set off one of
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the most important
movements ever in Detroit,
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the muscle car era.
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(dramatic music)
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But the GTO wasn't
Pontiac's only muscle car.
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They released the Firebird in 1967,
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and with the GTO and Firebird killing it
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with looks and performance,
Pontiac was cool.
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More importantly, it was making money.
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Trouble started in the mid '70s.
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People didn't want a muscle car anymore.
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They couldn't afford the gas.
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Pontiac started to develop a car
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that was economical while still being fun.
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Originally pitched as a fuel-efficient,
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two-seat commuter, the Fiero
promised to do just that,
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and it did.
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People loved the Fiero,
and high sells helped
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reignite Pontiac's reputation
for affordable performance.
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Throughout the '80s and
'90s, things were good.
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The "Wider is better" slogan
was revived from the '60s
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to help promote the new Grand
Prix's wide track technology,
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which didn't really mean anything,
[188]
but it sounded really cool.
[190]
The excitement around the
Firebird and the Fiero
[192]
had successfully trickled down
[194]
to Pontiac's more practical models,
[196]
but despite Pontiac's
successful turnaround
[198]
from the '70s to the 1990s,
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the turn of the 21st century marked
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the beginning of serious
problems for the brand.
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Sales were slumping hard,
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and Pontiac had to
reinvent itself once again,
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this time with a cutting-edge SUV
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featuring new-age styling and
some unconventional features.
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The seats were water-resistant.
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The tailgate had cupholders.
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There's even a camping lifestyle option
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that included a two-person air mattress.
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It also had a cool name, Aztek.
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It was a good car.
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Critics praised the Aztek for
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its comfortable ride and practicality.
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But unfortunately for Pontiac,
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the Aztek was plagued with airbag recalls
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almost immediately after release.
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Despite the Aztek's great safety ratings,
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the recalls really tainted
the car's reputation.
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Also, it was kinda ugly,
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Pontiac needed to sell
30,000 Azteks to break even,
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but they only sold 27,000.
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Not a great start to the reinvention.
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The great Pontiac refresh
of the early 2000s
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continued when Pontiac
brought back the GTO in 2004,
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this time as a rebadged
Holden Monaro from Australia.
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It was a handsome car
with good performance,
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but the GTO didn't quite
scratch the retro itch
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like Ford's new old Mustang.
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Everyone was like, "Yeah, it's a cool car,
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"but Ford's new Mustang
looks like a Mustang.
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"I'll just get one of those.
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"This GTO doesn't."
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As a result, the GTO was canceled
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after only three years of production.
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Pontiac then introduced
the Solstice in 2006,
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the brand's first
two-seater since the Fiero.
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Like the GTO, the Solstice was an attempt
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to spice up Pontiac's
otherwise stale lineup,
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and like the GTO, it was a good car.
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Car and Driver called it a
surprisingly pure roadster
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from an unlikely source,
a quote that summed up
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what people thought of
Pontiac at the time,
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like being voted least likely
to make an exciting car
[312]
in your senior yearbook.
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The Solstice's only crime was
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being released at the wrong time.
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Unfortunately, the Solstice wasn't
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the only Pontiac killed by the economy.
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Pontiac had brought another
Holden to American shores,
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the legendary Commodore.
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Pontiac called it the G8.
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It was a four-door sedan with a V8 engine,
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and it looked awesome.
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The G8 was so good that auto journalists
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were calling it the American M3.
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That's high praise.
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It was definitely a
high point for Pontiac,
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but 2008 came, and with it,
a global economic crisis.
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- At one point, the market
fell as if down a well.
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- Down over 16%.
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- Dow, at the same time,
has fallen about 18%.
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Everyone agrees the clock
is ticking for Detroit,
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and the casualties are already mounting.
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- Consumers didn't have any money
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to spend on a new car,
let alone something sporty
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like the G8 or Solstice.
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Obviously, Pontiac wasn't the only brand
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affected by the crisis.
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General Motors as a whole had been
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hemorrhaging money for
years
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For the 2007 fiscal year, GM had reported
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a loss of 38.7 billion dollars,
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So in order to survive, Detroit asked
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the government for a bailout.
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GM received 30 billion from Uncle Sam,
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but on one condition.
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They had to slim down.
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Saturn, Hummer, and Pontiac
all closed their doors,
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and Saab was sold to
Dutch automaker Spyker.
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This decision wasn't easy for GM,
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but the reality was
that Pontiac's attempts
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to rebuild the excitement
just weren't successful.
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Despite consensus that
the GTO, Solstice, and G8
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were all great cars, they
just didn't sell well enough
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to be saved by GM.
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In January of 2010, the last Pontiac
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rolled off the assembly line.
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There was no ceremony
to mark the occasion,
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and no journalists were invited.
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The final Pontiac was a white G6 sedan,
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built to fill a fleet order.
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It was a meek representation of a brand
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with a long history of
pushing the boundaries.
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They helped invent the muscle car.
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They were one of the
only American companies
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to mass-produce something mid-engined.
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The Aztec, yeah, it was ugly,
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but it was ahead of its time.
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It was one of the first crossover SUVs,
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which are huge nowadays.
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But in the end, Pontiac
was a mismanaged shadow
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of its former self that only returned
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to its performance roots
when it was too late.
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(melancholy piano music)
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Thanks for watching Wheelhouse.
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Remember to like, comment,
share, and subscribe.
[482]
What else makes you go, "Hmm,
I never thought about that"?
[484]
Like, where did racing stripes come from?
[486]
Where did cupholders get invented?
[489]
Why do we drive on the
right hand side of the road?
[491]
We're gonna be covering all this
[493]
coming up on Wheelhouse.
[494]
We got a lot of new shows now.
[495]
We've got Wheelhouse with me on Monday.
[497]
Tuesdays is Matt Field's Corvette build,
[500]
love watching that.
[501]
Thursdays, come on, it's Up To Speed.
[503]
Fridays is The Bestest with Tony.
[505]
He's ranking the top 10 everything
in the automotive world.
[507]
It's a different list every week.
[509]
We got shirts back in stock now, guys,
[511]
shop.donut.media, you can
get yourself your own,
[514]
and I'll see you in
the street wearing one,
[516]
and think you're one of my coworkers,
[517]
pat you on the back, and guess what,
[518]
I don't know you, and it's weird.
[519]
Thanks for watching.
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