A Quick History - Pontiac

Pontiac Logo

In 1926, Pontiac was introduced as a companion make for General Motors' Oakland brand. It later became the companion to Chevrolet. By 1928, the Pontiac Chief was seventh in sales in the United States and was beginning to outsell it's companion! GM dropped Oakland in favor of the Pontiac.

1928 Pontiac Sports Landau Sedan

Early on, the Pontiac was known as a quiet solid car, but not exactly powerful. New model designs were introduced and changes made constantly to already established vehicles. In the 1960s, they concentrated on making Pontiac a performance brand.

1965 Pontiac GTO

In 1971, the Pontiac division began to decline. Emission and safety regulations would stop the uninhibited, powerful engines that were so popular during the 60s and this put a damper on Pontiac's sales. Also, the company began to try to compete with the luxury known with Buicks and Oldsmobiles.

Over the 1990s, Pontiac continually updated, revamped, and refined their models. In the later years of that decade, they also began to reintroduce updated revisions of their older models, such as the Firebird, in an effort of nostalgia.

1995 Pontiac Firebird

However, in 2008, General Motors discussed ending the Pontiac line. At this point, they may have just been trying to appease Congress for the loan and later talked of just lessening the model range. But, in 2009, they officially declared Pontiac was done, mostly because the bankruptcy deadline was looming and they had to do something. There had actually been people interested in the Pontiac line but GM had already begun to retire the brand and close factories, so it wasn't for sale.

Click to see our 2010 Pontiac GTO!

Sources: Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac; Auto Detective, http://www.autodetective.com/vin/2g2fv22pxs2237537; Cars of Yesteryear, http://sirlimphand.tripod.com/id12.htm; Serious Wheels, http://www.seriouswheels.com/1960-1969/1965-Pontiac-GTO-Aqua-Convertible.htm; Mkalty, http://mkalty.org/pontiac-logo/