“Pontiac Joins the List of Extinct Brands” by John K. Teahen, Jr.

Going. Going. Gone.

Any day now, a revered 83-year-old brand — Pontiac — will be a relic of the past, and a relic of what General Motors used to be.

Pontiac was introduced in 1926 to fill the price gap between Chevrolet and Oldsmobile, and the brand has had an up-and-down life.

It was a solid performer in its earlier days. But sales were unsatisfactory in the mid-1950s, and I’m sure some GM executives asked, “Do we really need Pontiac?”

After 1956 the answer was a thunderous, “You bet we do!” That year, Bunkie Knudsen, Pete Estes and John DeLorean took over Pontiac — Knudsen as general manager, Estes as chief engineer and DeLorean as assistant chief engineer.

Their first car was the 1959 model, and it was a sensation. It had great styling, a split grille and, most important, “Wide-Track Drive,” a phrase coined by Pontiac’s ad agency, MacManus, John and Adams. Buyers told salesmen, “I want one of those Wide Tracks.”

The Glory Days

Estes and DeLorean succeeded Knudsen in the general manager’s office, and that decade was Pontiac’s golden age. In 1962 the brand was No. 3 in U.S. sales, and it stayed in third place until 1971. Sales peaked at 896,980 in 1978. Before Wide Track, Pontiac usually was in sixth place.

Today, all that is history.

GM, as we knew it, is gone, and so is Pontiac. The new downsized General Motors dumped it, along with Saturn and Hummer. The latter two were relative newcomers; Saturn arrived in 1990 and Hummer came in 2000.

I’m sure there was a hot debate in the GM boardroom when it came time to kill a few brands. Saturn had never been success (it was supposed to be an import fighter, remember?) and the humongous Hummer was a remnant of the SUV craze. Out they go.

But do we keep Buick or do we keep Pontiac? Pontiac partisans surely stressed sales; Pontiac has outsold Buick in 42 of the last 51 years. Pontiac clearly has the edge in styling. It’s GM’s sporty car division, and it has a fleet of small cars.

They kept Buick

Buick backers had history on their side. Buick was the foundation of GM when Billy Durant began putting GM together; Pontiac is a relative newcomer by comparison.

Buick also could call on GM patriarch Alfred Sloan and his theory of brand progression. Sloan felt buyers should step up from a Chevrolet to a Pontiac, to an Oldsmobile, to a Buick and, finally, to a Cadillac as their economic situation improved. Chevy to Pontiac is a mighty small step indeed, but Chevy to Buick is a significant step up the ladder.

But in the end, Buick lived and Pontiac died.

On Oct. 1, Pontiac dealers had 14,200 new cars and trucks on hand. Since then about 6,900 G6 models have been built for fleet sales. October sales totaled 10,646. Thus, about 10,450 remain. All should be sold by the end of this month.

Pontiac then will join Oldsmobile, Plymouth, Studebaker, Packard, Winton, Duesenberg and many other proud brands in the automotive graveyard. Pontiac will have sold an estimated 41 million cars and trucks during its 83-year life.

Column courtesy of Automotive News.