- This topic has 9 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 4 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
-
-
“Rebadged Cheviys don’t create legitimacy for a brand”
With you there, but not here:
“the G8 was a huge mistake and sold horribly.”
The car, by itself, was awesome.
And while it wasn’t a runaway sales success, it didn’t really have enough time to permeate the market. However, it garnered enough “street cred” to be a halo car, which — as you know — doesn’t need to sell in Cruze-like volumes to create interest in the brand and its other products.
Even then, the G8 was the flagship Pontiac vehicle, and — when measures against other flagships — like the current Ford Taurus or Hyundai Azera, it sold well.
But two good vehicles don’t make up for a lineup-worth of crap.
-
The G8 was not a mistake. Was actually a proving ground to see if Pontiac can be jump started from the bean counters destruction. It actually did; is perhaps the best holding value vehicle in the GM line up as of today. Lutz used an already car build car and re-badged it as Pontiac. Thanks to the Aussies it was a success that proved that people wants a Performance Sedan and prove the market is there. To be honest, why investing on a new platform to find out that is worth it or not? So I give tons of kudos to Bob Lutz for thinking as a real Car Guy. Later on the Zeta platform could be improved/modified for Pontiac as true Pontiac. Sharing Platforms is not unusual; look at Toyota and Lexsucks. Is the same car lower end car with plush up equipment (Chevy and Buick). But they put more into it, so they seems to look and feel different. GM has the line up all wrong. GMC and Chevy Trucks is nothing but redundant that is in your face badge engineering as its cheapest but bean counter heaven (dealership association with GM?). Buick is just a Luxury car wannabe so is all pretend wimpy and fake. I would not buy one. Cadillac is just no heading. Want to be a BMW, MB, Audi, all at once and is none of them; the only decent in their line up is the CTS-V because of performance; in my opinion I think is ugly.
-
You’ve a very skewed perception of the auto industry, what works in the marketplace, and what doesn’t.
No one is saying that the G8 was a bad car. It just didn’t sell well, hence it was not a success as it never moved more than 3,500 units a month!
That’s not bad when you’re talking about a low-volume, high-profit luxury vehicle. But it doesn’t make financial sense for a mainstream, low-margin brand like Pontiac.
Either way, the new Chevy SS Performance Sedan will be an exception, as it will be low in volume, and high in margin:
http://gmauthority.com/blog/2012/05/chevrolet-confirms-ss-performance-sedan/As it relates to Lexus (which does not suck), Buick, or Cadillac, let’s not even go there. In a matter of a decade, General Motors has the potential to outright own the luxury space with its two high-line brands. If you don’t understand this, you should do some research. Here’s a good starting point:
-
-
-
The G8, G6 and Torrent were pretty much the only great cars Pontiac offered. Pontiac started to go down with the redesign of the 2004 Grand Prix, it was a very cheap car to build and GM had to do it. Another wrong turn Pontiac did was get rid of the Bonneville nameplate, Pontiac should have did an interim restyle until 2008 when they change the Bonneville completely into the G8 bodystyle. The Aztek was a horrible mistake. The G6 was awesome, but in 2008 Pontiac should have already had done the interim restyle that they did in the middle of 2009, and then in 2010 change it nearly completely but still keep that G6 attitude. The Vibe should have been a sportwagon (like the Saab 9-3 wagon). The G5 could have been a cool coupe that would compete with the BRZ, FR-S, etc. The G3 was a horrid mistake. Also, Pontiac went wrong when they discontinued the Grand Prix name in 2008, they should have redesigned the Grand Prix into something more similar to the 97-03 models, The Holden Coupe60 would have made an awesome GTO, Trans Am should have been introduced.
G5 – Sporty Compact Coupe/Convertible (next gen sunfire)
G6 – Sport Sedan/Coupe/Convertible
Grand Prix – Sport Sedan/Coupe
Bonneville – Flagship full size sedan
GTO – American Muscle Coupe
Trans Am – American Muscle Coupe/Convertible
Torrent – Family Crossover -
-
What everyone forgets is that when GM went corporate in ’81 Pontiac lost all control to corporate. GM is full of s**t. Nobody and I mean NOBODY wants a Buick.
China doesn’t want Buicks anymore either so there you go. What a huge corporate blunder.
GM= Grossly Mismanaged -
-
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
