Legendary American car manufacturer
Pontiac has ceased operations after 84 years of production.
Pontiac was one of five US brands
under the General Motors umbrella along with Cadillac and Chevrolet.
GM announced plans to close the
business a year ago as part of a massive restructuring to keep the group from
suffering greater financial losses.
Created in 1926, Pontiac was first
aimed at the working-class market.
The company had its most successful
period in the 1960s, with almost one million cars sold in 1968.
Fewer than 267,000 cars were sold
in 2008, the last full year before the closure announcement.
A sales slump 30 years after its
creation almost ended the company but the advent of the muscle car prevented a
complete shutdown.
The company produced some of the
most famous American muscle cars of the 1970s such as the Trans Am, Firebird
and GTO.
The Pontiac Trans Am featured as
KITT in the 1980s TV show Knight Rider, starring David Hasselhoff.
Burt Reynolds drove a black and gold
Firebird in the 1977 hit movie, Smokey and the Bandit.
Bill Hoglund and Bob Lutz, former
GM executives, blamed the decline of the brand on a mid-80s brand rethink.
The overhaul saw several GM brands
combine on manufacturing, design and other operations leading to what Bob Lutz
called a “dilution” of the Pontiac performance image.
“There was no passion for the
product,” said Hoglund. “The product had to fit what was going on in the
corporate system.”
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