Tech & Biz

GM Pulls the Plug on Pontiac

by Jordan Yerman | April 26, 2009 at 07:59 am

298 views | 36 Recommendations | 4 comments

General Motors, fighting for its life, is pulling the plug on the Pontiac brand. As a former 1968 Firebird 350 owner, I must say that this really sucks.

I understand... GM's gotta do what it's gotta do, but that doesn't mean that I have to like it. Dammit.

Not only was the GTO featured in a Ramones song (Rock 'n' Roll High School, if you didn't already know), but those massive hoods and low front seats are part of the American automotive identity.

My old car (with three out of four hubcaps still attached) was ridiculously fast, though things like fuel efficiency, braking power, and steering responsiveness were somewhat lacking. It always smelled of petrol, and had engine elements that I could fix with my bare hands. Diagnostic port? Fuhgeddaboudit.

Though I consider myself an environmentalist (who likes motorcycles), I cannot help but shed a tear for Pontiac. Not for the Grand Am or those other milquetoast sedans, but the real American steel: GTO and Firebird.

"Those were the days of Bob's Big Boy [hamburger restaurant], when girls wore skates. Back then we pleasantly wasted gas looking for fun. It was a social thing."

Debuting in 1964, the Pontiac GTO is widely regarded as the original muscle car. It was a risky model in that it featured a big-block engine in an intermediate-size frame.

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Mary Richard

at 08:06 on April 26th, 2009

I share your pain, Jordan!

Karl Gotthardt - albertacowpoke

at 08:29 on April 26th, 2009

My first memory of a car was a 1952 Pontiac we owned. Eventually it became a light green and white 1956 Pontiac. My dad owned that car until the 70s and kept it in mint condition. It was stolen by a couple of kids and demolished. I owned a Grand Prix. My kick around car now is a 1997 Pontiac Grand AM. It doesn.t compare to earlier Pontiac models but it gets 34 miles per Imperial Gallon. Sure beats the hell out of my Chevy 1 ton dually, which needs a fuel tanker to accompany it.

Karl Gotthardt - albertacowpoke

at 08:42 on April 26th, 2009

Sure liked the cruising to the local A&W at that time. I'm not sure that windows on the newer cars could handle having those trays hang from them. Yep - those were the days :)

Edmund Jenks

at 05:22 on April 27th, 2009

There was one model of Pontiac, called the Tempest ... GM engineers were becoming experimental with weight distribution and the use of a "trans-axle" where (I believe) some of the weight of the drive train was distributed toward the rear of the car through this approach. Further, this mid-sixties model was the form factor of what we refer today as ... Mid-Sized - slightly smaller than the full road wagons that were common in that era!

Today, a full sized road wagon of yesterday would be able to supply enough raw material to stamp out about six Kia Rio's (or 10 TATA Motors Nano's)... for example!