WHAT KILLED PONTIAC--A COUNTERPOINT TO JIM BRENNAN

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Bangshift.com has pointed its readers to an Automotive Traveler e-zine story entitled "Recently Deceased: The Top 10 Reasons Why Pontiac Failed", by Jim Brennan.

Brennan's analysis is solid and should be read. However, it tends to overfocus on more more recent and superficial mistakes instead of hitting many of the core structural problems that doomed Pontiac.

Here's Truth With Speedzzter's alternative hypothesis:

10. GM Politics -- Protect the Corvette. Delorean, Estes, Knudsen and Co were often "shut down" in their attempts to remake Pontiac into GM's performance division by the politics of protecting the 'Vette. The original Bonneville was a two seater. So was the Banshee. Only the Corvette could have multiple carbs after '66, killing the legendary GTO "Tri-Power" system. The Fiero was hamstrung with weak engines out of fear that a high performance model would hurt the 'Vette.

9. Performance Malaise -- After the insurance companies and the government killed Pontiac's 1960s business model, Pontiac floundered in coping with the new, low-performance reality of the 1970s. Instead of building smaller, lighter high-performance cars, GM forced Pontiac into building some of its most overweight and underperforming cars (which were badge engineered as Mr. Berman observes) since the flathead Straight 8 days. These cars haunted Pontiac's brand image for decades.

8. Design Malaise -- Co-extensive with PMD's performance malaise was the stagnation in design that gripped Pontiac. Corporate downsizing lead to a series of boxy models that looked like the shipping crates for the swoopy Pontiacs of the 1960s. Moreover, Pontiac stayed too long with the Colonnade/neo-classic styling initially championed by the '70s Grand Prixs (before they were disasterously replaced by the horrible, FWD GM10s)

7. Leaving NASCAR -- Every GM division that has left NASCAR racing, save Buick has ended up dead. Coincidence?

6. The GM Racing Ban -- The real death of Pontiac started in February 1963 when the GM board killed Pontiac's Super Duty aspirations in the infamous racing ban. The ban sent folks like Mickey Thompson and David Pearson into the arms of rivals. The ban dried up most high performance development of the Pontiac V8. The ban left Pontiac coasting on the inertia of the Super Duty era throughout the entire lifespan of the original GTO, up to the point where it became the fat, bloated, "old Elvis" cartoon of itself featured in "Two-Lane Blacktop." Pontiac's forced withdrawal from racing made the brand flabby. When it returned in the 1980s, its race cars were too far removed from anything it offered to the general public.

5. Three decades without a GTO -- Nowhere is GM's mismanagement of Pontiac more salient than the decades spent without a GTO. When the going got tough in 1974, GM politics and Pontiac's failure to adapt killed the Goat. And even as Buick was making headlines with the turbocharged Grand National/Type T Regal, Pontiac soldiered on with the freakish 150 h.p. Chevy-powered Pontiac 2+2 (a car which rivals the Aztek for ungainly styling). However, the idea of a practical, good handling, exciting-to-drive muscle car has never lost currency. The 2004-2006 GTO was simply too little, too late.

4. The slow death of the Firebird -- The Firebird was a good idea. But GM simply didn't keep it current enough. Each generation hung on too long. The innovative OHC 6 was killed not long before it would have been a huge help to PMD during the gas-crisis '70s. Each generation after the first was or became too heavy and inefficient. The quality of the latter generations was horrible. The 301 Turbo Trans Am was shockingly underdeveloped and killed off before it could be refined into a Grand National-killing supercar. The CAFE "two fleets" rule forced GM to build the F-Bodies in Canada, alienating some U.S. customers. By 2002, the Firebird simply was too impractical and dated. As others (namely Ford, Chrysler, Chevrolet, Hyundai) have proven, the Pony Car concept remains viable, but Pontiac simply forgot how to build them.

3. Front wheel drive -- GM's insistence on Wrong Wheel Drive in its sedans and coupes was anathema to Pontiac's sporting pretensions. While the Bonneville, Grand Prix and others soldiered on for decades with archaic two-valve pushrod sixes and hamstrung with FWD, they were not attractive for brand-building grassroots motorsports activities. While PMD attempted to offer sporty FWDs with the 6000 STE and various Sunbird/Sunfires, Pontiac had nothing competitive for the emerging sport compact and sports sedan niches until it was way too late.

2. The Iron Duke -- Possibly the most antediluvian engine of its time, the wheezing pushrod, two-valve Iron Duke four was the antithesis of Pontiac's performance image. It is emblematic of GM's short-sighted, penny-pinching ways. It was the boat anchor that held down Fiero. It regularly burst into flames in Fieros as well. It's lack of attractiveness and weak bottom end drove scores of sport compact tuners to higher tech Japanese cars, depriving Pontiac of another generation of customers.

1. Death of the real Pontiac V8 -- The modern soul of Pontiac was cut out in 1981 when GM forced Pontiac to use Chevrolet engines. Brand loyalty plummeted. The one thing that made sporting Pontiacs unique was lost forever. Everything that happened after that point was simply rearranging the chairs on the Titanic.