So long, Chief

GM gives Pontiac a death sentence.

Several years ago, I would have bet on Buick being the division sent to the junkyard instead of Pontiac. The realities of the decades long decay of the American automobile industry have proven me wrong, and it's quite possible this particular move has been rumbling through the 14th floor of the GM building for more than a year or so.

Buick's vehicles have long been old in the tooth, tired designs that fit a description of a retiree's car after its evolution from the original doctor's car appellation. For years, Pontiac rode the crest of the GM performance division, a youthful and energetic brand ("We Build Excitement") with nameplates like GTO, LeMans, Bonneville, and Trans Am, and traditionally held the number three slot in vehicle sales behind Chevy and Ford.

That changed in recent times, along with the rapid disappearance of the small non-conglomerate one marque dealer. Today, Pontiacs exist only as a companion brand to Buick and GMC in retail stores, and soon they will exist with Oldsmobile in the GM brand graveyard.


For what it's worth department:

The automotive tradition runs deep in my family. My paternal grandfather was a master machinist, my father was a mechanic, and shortly before I was born, he joined the Buick Division of GM as a district service rep before switching to the sales side, ending up as the top man in the division's eastern region fleet operations.

As a young man, I worked in almost every department of an automobile dealership, mostly of the GM variety, starting as a summer teenage gofer in Parts, progressing through New Car Delivery service, the Oil/Lube rack, into Bookkeeping/Accounting experience while in college, evolving into Sales and Management after I returned from the service. I have worked virtually every job there is to work in an automobile dealership.

The selling, servicing, marketing, and racing of automobiles put clothes on my back and food in my mouth in one form or the other all my life up to my mid 30s. The doctors say my blood type is O+, but they're wrong. It's 5W-30.

The spirits of Willie Durant and Alfred P. Sloan are restless tonight. So is mine.

But I don't feel sorry for GM. They've been bringing things like this on themselves for almost a half century.

Postscript:

I have a keen sense for doomed brands. I bought a new Pontiac in February, to replace the Oldsmobile I bought new back in 2001.

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