A Tribute to the Best of Pontiac
As part of the medicine GM had to swallow in its restructuring plan that was presented to the U.S. Treasury, the beleaguered automaker announced that the Pontiac division will be closed down by the end of 2010.
Founded in 1926 to fill the gap between GM divisions Chevrolet and Oldsmobile, the brand had its share of missteps over the years: Recall the Daewoo-built LeMans, the mind-numbing Trans Sport, and the angry dumpster that was the Aztek. But it also produced more than a few models that have now achieved Great American Car status. On the eve of Pontiac’s last stand, here are our five favorite Ponchos.
1958 Bonneville
A child of the Atomic Age, the ’58 Bonneville brought real engineering substance (fuel injection, air suspension, four-speed automatic) along with its spacecraft looks. The first in a long line of advanced and powerful Pontiacs, the Bonneville presaged the brand’s muscular cars of the ’60s.
1964 GTO
Often credited as the original muscle car, the GTO turned a plebeian Le Mans coupe into a fire-breathing street racer with a 325- or 348-hp 389-cubic-inch V-8. Sales took off, and Pontiac became a brand offering affordable performance. We pitted a Pontiac GTO against a Ferrari GTO, a test that helped put this magazine on the map.
1977 Firebird Trans Am
By the late ’70s, the Trans Am’s top engine was an emissions-choked 6.6-liter V-8 making a paltry 200 horsepower. The 3830-pound car could get to 60 mph in a sad 9.3 seconds. But those were the mere realities; in its starring role in the 1977 film Smokey and the Bandit, a black-and-gold Trans Am had as much star power as Burt Reynolds and may have helped him seal the deal with Loni Anderson.
1987 Bonneville SE
Arguably Pontiac’s last competitive and desirable sedan (until the G8) and the division’s last C/D 10Best winner, the Bonneville SE built upon the lessons learned from the sporty but ugly 6000STE. Its 150-hp V-6 may not look like much 22 years later, but its class-leading handling, refinement, value, and styling were good enough to draw comparisons with the far pricier and slick Audi 5000 of the late ’80s.
2008 G8 GXP
Just as Pontiac is about to be decapitated by the reaper, the division builds the G8 GXP, a sedan that offers performance similar to a BMW M5’s at half the price. Built in Australia, the GXP combines BMW-like road manners with a 415-hp small-block V-8 borrowed from the Corvette, at a price that starts at $40,060. Acceleration from zero to 60 mph takes a scant 4.7 seconds, with the quarter-mile falling in 13.3 seconds at 109 mph. Please, GM, a car this good shouldn’t die out. How about making it into a Chevy Impala SS?
The Iconic Pontiac Man
John De Lorean, who became that rare thing at GM—a flashy and flamboyant engineer and executive—joined the Pontiac division in 1956 as director of advanced engineering and was promoted in ’61 to chief engineer. Often credited with helping create the brand’s renaissance in the 1960s, De Lorean turned out hit after hit and grew Pontiac’s sales to nearly one million annually with cars such as the technologically advanced ’61 Tempest, the seminal ’64 GTO, and the ’67 Firebird, and innovations such as Pontiac’s SOHC, inline six-cylinder engine. De Lorean moved from Pontiac to Chevrolet in 1969 and by the mid-’70s had left GM to build his own car, an affair that ended with a videotape of a cocaine deal to keep afloat the 130-hp stainless-steel two-seater with gullwing doors that bore his name. De Lorean died in 2005 at the age of 80.
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