Today’s news that GM will put Pontiac out to pasture probably does not come as a surprise to most people. My wife, when we saw it on TV yesterday, said, “It’s about time.” And that’s probably the sentiment of a lot of people. But if you’re wondering whether today’s GM can ever build great cars again, amigo, rest assured they already do.
Working with Motor Trend, Automobile Mag and IntelliChoice.com in recent years has given us a ringside seat at the drama playing out in Detroit. One of the biggest impressions we took away is the great strides that GM has made at Chevrolet, Cadillac and, yes, Pontiac, in building not just quality cars but great ones. Last year, the Motor Trend staff spent time with the Pontiac G8, a powerful sedan derived from GM’s Holden division in Australia. The G8 was designed to serve as an American super-sedan or bargain priced BMW. In a one-on-one comparison the Pontiac G8 GT bested the Nissan Maxima, and according to Motor Trend editors was “one of the great driver’s-car values on the road today.”
It will have to be chalked up as a moral victory. Aside from the credit crunch, the problem facing GM and Detroit is one of perception built over decades. Anyone who drove in the eighties, as an entire generation of car buyers in their thirties and forties did, will well remember the anonymous and terrible-looking boxes that Detroit churned out. If you showed some of those cars to me today without their badges, I doubt I would be able to name the manufacturer, let alone the model.
One car from the eighties does stand out, at least to me: the hot-s**t Pontiac Bonneville owned by Brendan Finnigan’s Dad. The car had crazy bells and whistles before everything was connected to the Internet, and on those nights when J.T. was crazy enough to give Brendan the keys, a couple of high school seniors put that car through the paces. Riding in it was like gliding.
So long, pony boy
All is not lost. If GM and now Ford can continue to build on the foundation they’ve poured in the last few years, more Americans will get the chance to discover cars like the Pontiac G8. That, and only that, will change the way a lot of people think of U.S. automakers.
