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| Pontiac Logo |
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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.
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| 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.
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| 1965 Pontiac GTO |
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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.
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| 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.
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| 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/
