Was there anything that ever could have saved Pontiac?

I had a 2001 grand prix with the 3.1......HOLY FUCK the worst vehicle and specifically engine Ive ever dealt with.

this

>Continuing to import HSVs like the G8 and GTO
>Not cancelling the USDM Ute after the design was finalized but before production

Buick's not going anywhere, it sells too well in China.

>it sells too well in China
it's too late....

>tfw pontiac is forever dead, oldsmobile is even more dead, and saturn is so dead it's started growing flowers

They should have continued to improve on the Fiero.

They were, and were about to put a second generation into production when corporate made them can it.

>Oldsmobile
rip in pips

Sweet precious babby Corvette can't have any competition, it had to die

Oldsmobile had been a zombie badge for a decade and Saturns were just rebadged Korean junk.
Pontiac could have been GM's "driving enthusiast" badge but the performance didn't deliver on what the styling promised.

>Oldsmobile had been a zombie badge for a decade
That doesn't make it hurt any less, motherfucker, that just means they got mismanaged into their death ten years earlier.

Non-ironically, a 2nd gen Aztek with a stronger engine and less ugly design wouldve sold like hotcakes. It was ahead of its time in design and practicality, making it less ugly was all it needed to sell well. GM gave up on it too fast.

Probably not. Would people choose Pontiac over Buick and Chevrolet for the endless parade of crossovers that boomers and soccer moms buy by the million?

They prostituted whatever legacy they had leading to things like pic related. There was no need for 4 different brands to sell a niche vehicle like a minivan. It would be little different now. It would be dealer lots full of Chevy Traxes and Traverses with red gauges, twin grilles, and slightly brighter colors.

If there was ever an automotive company that needed to be broken up, it was 90s-00s GM.

Having this many largely rebadged, competing brands was pointless to begin with. If anything, Saturn should've been saved and Buick should've been killed off.

Saturns were garbage though. GM didn't need a separate budget brand, that's what Chevy was for.
GM has always had too much internal competition.

it doesn't help that most of Olds's big hits were midsize coupes and sedans, which easily became the most bland and boring and samey car regiment, and they didn't have any 'oddball' platforms shared with them to make up for it (like the F-body for both Chevy and Pontiac, or the late model fullsize B-body for both Chevy and Buick) and by the time they finally got something unique, the Aurora, it was already the end of the line
>tfw ywn live in the timeline where the Aurora was a proper FR luxobarge powered by an actual Rocket V8 instead of the fucking Northstar

they weren't originally just rebadges, each division would have all their own sheet metal, their own engines, often even their own transmissions, but past the 70's and 80's GM wanted to cut as many costs as possible so one by one every engine except the corporate small-block and the various (awful) cadillac engines disappeared, sheet metal became closer and closer, option packages became identical and you got a fleet of beige, blobby boxes all identical other than the badge on the hood

Kill Buick keep Pontiac as a sports car brand but leave the vette to the bowtie. Change the emblem to modernize the brand.

There was an Olds version of the 91-96 b-body, it was 91 and 92 only though, and no sedan version.

Saturn at least tried something new, both in engineering and in corporate leadership.

Chevy, Buick, Pontiac, Oldsmobile on the other hand, entirely the same thing by the time two of them were killed off.

yeah, that's what i mean- the last gen of Custom Cruiser only lasted two years and the Olds V8 was discontinued in '90, and the cruiser was a complete oddity because while historically based off the full-size 88 and 98 (similar to the Vista Cruiser with the Cutlass), the full-size Olds sedans had already been moved to a smaller, FWD platform nearly a decade prior, leaving the Custom Cruiser completely orphaned

i'd like to see what a sedan version would have looked like, though, given the wagon shares most of its looks with the Roadmaster, would the sedan look more like the Caprice or would it have done its own thing?

RIP you magnificent bastard
What could have been

None of the GM badges meant shit after the mid 70s anyhow. They were all the same.

Yeah, but without a quality product to back it up it was always going fail.
We used to joke that the reason they made Saturn shops so friendly and comfortable was they knew you'd be spending all your time there.
Plus GM shot themselves in the foot by having both Geo and Saturn as badges.
Again, just way too much internal competition.

>Saturn
>bad
Go on.

>lol who really needs a head gasket?!?

I can't seem to recall any Saturns that were remotely korean. Most of their platform sharing was with Opel.

Early Gen Saturns were terrible cars. The philosophy was that you provide cheap cars with a really great dealer/service experience with the assumption that your now loyal customer base (the Saturn Family) would be trading in their cars for a new one before the warranty expired so they wouldn't notice any long term issues like cracked heads, blown gaskets, etc. They were literally disposable cars, like a lot of other shit being produced during the 90s car boom.
Later Saturns were better in quality but we're directly competing with Chevy and Pontiac because GM likes to shoot themselves in the foot with golden bullets.

owned mine since it was brand new. not one issue besides a radiator leak

GM reminds of that guy who swears he's brilliant with money, but it turns out he's actually a guy who's terrible with money but has a higher paying job so he doesn't notice it.

The G8 is australian and the solstice is an ugly rebadged saturn retard

Ugly rebadged Opel.

The ve commodore has nothing to do with an Omega. They were related in the 90s but ve and vf are different.

No, I mean the Solstice.
Both the Solstice and the Saturn Sky were built off the Opel GT.

>Both the Solstice and the Saturn Sky were built off the Opel GT.
The Opel GT was exported to Europe from the USA.

The Maloo

Before you get any ideas, it's completely unrelated to the Lotus-built Opel Speedster as well.

Solstice was put into production first in 2006, as well as the first concept for the kappa platform. The Sky/Opel GT didn't come out until a full model year later for 2007, so the Sky/Opel GT are a restyled and rebadged Solstice.

Wasn't that also rebadged as a Vauxhall? I remember that from Need for Speed.

...

Yes, the VX220.

link to a video of this?

Pontiac couldn't have been saved because the dealers were the problem. Pontiac could have been a "performance" line, but the dealers kept wanting minivans, SUVs, and ever cheaper "entry level" cars.

Emblematic of GM's larger problem. they had a dealer network for 60% of the market, but sales of 20%.

I love that car.

I want to fuck that car.

pontiac was the best american manufacturer imo. Even their low end cars had good styling.

F

Please make a worthy successor to the aztek
t. someone whose aztek is falling apart

the water pump busted on the way back from the movies a few days ago. Having your thermometer all the way in the red for 2 minutes is really scary. Luckily I made it home safe.

literally buy another aztek and part it out, you can get one for like 500 bucks anywhere

> aztek

pls be joking

Also I have a 2004 grand am, and had a sunfire before that. Grand am was a granny mobile, so only has ~60k miles on it. Fuel pump / fuel pressure regulator died in both of the damn things, but otherwise I love(d) both of them.

>poorfag student here
I've got an 02 Grand Prix with the 3.1, I was thinking of getting a junkyard 3.5 and rebuilding it to swap in. The car is fine other than the occasional engine trouble. I don't and won't have the money to get a new car for a long time. Worth it to swap in a rebuilt engine, or just keep dealing with the used 3.1 that came with it?

It's pretty good man, better than any other crossover bullshit that every manufacturer is jumping on now.

>muh cooler
not where I live.

what almost was

If you're poor, I wouldn't risk fucking up your only car to swap an engine, especially considering there's nothing wrong with the existing one.

Pontiac was fucked the day somebody came up with
>poor old nigger thinks it's a cadillac

i'm surprised they held on as long as they did

Yeah it makes sense. AFIK it's a pretty simple swap, but I'm not that mechanically inclined. I'm balls-deep in a headgasket replacement to try and fix a misfire in cylinder 4, but I got everything off and none of the gaskets seemed that fucked. Point is, I'm just a bit tired of the engine giving me trouble every couple months.

>GM was so quick to kill off Pontiac when they had dead weight like Hummer around

>Buick still exists

i still dont get why Buick still exists. want a "regular" car? buy a Chevy. want a luxurious car? buy a Cadillac. Buick exists in a weird gap between them that no one was looking for, same reason Ferd killed off Mercury.

it fit a gap between Ford and Lincoln that didnt need to exist. if you cant afford a high end marque just get a normal one then start adding options, you dont need a third marque in the middle that shares the features of both.

Buick exists because China
Life is bigger than what happens in the states you pea brained teenaged cretin

WTF that shit is disqusting.

A Fiero with a bodykit?

a company in colorado will custom build a Holden Ute off certain pontiac and chevy cars.

What company?

Is the vibe any good? I don't think i've ever heard anyone talk about it. Maybe it's super forgettable.

where do you live that azteks arent cheap as dirt?

No it's like Opel and holden

It's literally a first gen Toyota Matrix, the GT trim have the 2ZZ engines

I would keep Buick around if they got off their ass and brought back the Grand National and GNX to compete with the Mustang and Challenger.

>ywn see a three way comparison/shootout between a Hellcat Demon, GT-350-R and a modern GNX

It's a Toyota in Pontiac drag. Not terrible but just a typical econobox.
Pretty roomy for their size, though.

bulletproof engine and roomy. I might get one as my first car

thanks doug demuro

I'd rather see a modern Hurst/Olds but obviously we don't live in that timeline.
>tfw you will never see the social justice outrage to a modern muscle car equipped and marketed with a Hurst His and Hers™ Dual-Gate Shifter

thedetroitbureau.com/2014/01/credit-a-communist-chinese-leader-for-buicks-survival-and-record-sales/

lefthandutes.com

>GM has always had too much internal competition.
Offering all that variety worked when they controlled like 90% of the market -- before they became greedy scam artists building junk to rob American buyers -- which gave the chinks and Euros an 'in' to steal all their marketshare

Not even the commonwhore saved pontiac.
they had no hope of ever surviving.

base chevy cars and small SUVs are soul crushing rental car dog shit. base buicks & gmcs feel so much better

I had that car, an intrigue but without the body kit, in that same color. Piece of shit because it couldn't go 2 months without something breaking but when it DID work it was actually really good. """""Decent"""""acceleration, leather seats and spongy suspension makes for a great time in the twisties, and was surprisingly fucking good in the snow

I have a G6 GTP with a 6 speed.

Aside from the shitty interior and shitty weather stripping, I love it. I am usually not a fan of V6's, but I do like this 3.9L.

Wish I could have found a G8.

I want your power train/drivetrain/interior in my Fiero

>I want a fwd Fiero
In the immortal words of Seneca the Elder, "lmao wat?"

>thinking the Fiero's drivetrain isn't transverse
New around here?

When life gives you lemons..

This. my family had an oldmobile silhouette but the neighbor might've had a chevy venture and they all fucking look the same. We eventually bought a Pontiac Montana in 2006 just as they went out of biz

>Saturns were just rebadged Korean junk.

Quit posting anytime

Innovating the A-body

Them starting their brand revitalization they started in like 07 sooner. So basically probably not unless they were equipped with hindsight.

That and a Motor that wasn't dogshit.