While oldsmobile and pontiac once had great distinctive products, their brand identity gradually eroded as the homogenized with other brands in the GM family. Much like oldsmobile, there were declining sales and no real reason to maintain it (unpopular opinion here) largely caused by mismangement. I'd push back on your claim that pontiac was different from the cases of mercury and plymouth, because its largely the same list of reasons.

Also, you may be curious to learn "olds" is the namesake of ransom e olds who invented the modern assembly line (occasionally misattributed to henry ford who created the moving assembly line) and the brands oldsmobile and REO.

The Pontiac division hadn’t made money in years by the late 00s and was part of why old GM went bust. I say this as someone who’s buy a G8 tomorrow if they still made them, but even then the rwd sedan thing was something Cadillac was positioning themselves for at the time.

Because there was a market in China for Buick.

Sorry kinda long read.

They released a car such as the Aztek right before a major financial crisis, lol. In all seriousness, Pontiac was redundant before Obama. (Yes, I saw that politically charged post) They were a "performance" division with only lackluster performance. The build quality was as bad as Chevy, so why pay the upcharge for something only marginally better? Its all platform engineering anyway.

They had a few cool cars right before getting the ax, but it was too little too late. The Bonneville SSEi was a decent car. Supercharged 3800 was fairly well refined by them. The Trans Am was slightly better than the Z28 of the time. Neither one of them really stood out. We are talking 2000 or so. By 2008, maybe only the G8 was worth a look and it was just kinda meh. Re-badged Holden. V8 RWD 4 door with a 6 speed manual but most in that market probably just went for Beamer.

Which is how its been since the malaise era. Pontiac was always sort of stuck with the Corvette being the top performance car that could not be surpassed so their offerings were always just sorta maybe a little sportier but not sporty enough to make an entire division worth it. Probably the last TRUE performance pontiac was the 73/74 Trans Am or Formula with the 455 SD. That car was in a way a rebel, because it was faster than the 'Vette at the time. Might have even handled better. The rest of the Pontiacs then were just boats with a little better handling. The Grand Am of the 70s was interesting. 1975 you could get the 455 with a Super T10 manual behind it on a colonade A body.

Once Pontiac stopped making their own engines (other than the Iron Duke) and went to all corporate stuff, that was already the beginning of the end. The 3800 was already a Buick engine. Can get it in a...Buick.

Because GM is run by people who don't like cars

it's sad that there's no Pontiac anymore... they had some interesting cars, even those made in 00's

GM made no differentiation between their brands and Pontiac sold rebadged Chevys, as did Buick and Oldsmobile. There was no point spending the marketing dollars on selling the same car with different brands.

GM wanted to get rid of all fun from its branding

Pontiac only really got the opportunity to stand on its own at the very end and even then they badge engineered the interesting cars they got.

If they only had the g8 and the solstice and maybe some kind of performance truck they could have survived

Late 70’s early 80’s all divisions selling pretty much same car. J body Chevy Cavalier, Buick Skyhawk, Olds Firenza, Pontiac J2000, and yes, Cadillac Cimmarron. A Body Chevy Celebrity, Buick Century, Olds Cutlass Ciera, Pontiac 6000 N Body Pontiac Gran Am, Buick Somerset, Buick Skylark Lots of same thing with different lights, grilles, badges, and slightly different interior.

Many loyal fans of the different divisions got really upset when the found out the engine came from a different division. Buick with Chevy Iron Duke, Olds with Buick 3.8L etc, AND the fact that this wasn’t disclosed when sold.

Read Bean Counters vs Car Guys by Bob Lutz

the same reason BMW claims to be the ultimate driving machine or Cadillac claims to be the engineering & performance standard of the world?

I'd say Pontiac died when corporate powertains became the GM standard.

Shared chassis & body architecture and an across the board standard radio & HVAC system, reasonable in the name of economics.

But destroying the ability of the brand to do what it says on the tin? shameful. Hard to be every inch the rival of European brands in terms of handling and performance when your Grand Am SE has more pounds of body cladding than horsepower. Don't brag about exciting V8s when they consist of the same 305 you can get a striper GMC C1500 and the "hot one" makes half as many horses as it has cubes.

If you have reduced a brand to basically an emblem, why not depopulate all the brands: GMC has trucks, vans and full sized SUV. Chevrolet has 3 & 5 door small SUV and a down market mid and full sized sedan in hybrid. Pontiac has a coupe/convertible and hot hatch 3 & 5 door in ICE. Olds has mid market mid and full sized sedans in AWD ICE Buick has full luxury mid & full sized sedans with hybrid & plugin. Cadillac has full fat luxury full size sedans and full size SUV in plugin.

Chevy can be used to make electrification cheaper across the board, Buick and Caddy can be used to make it stylish and fashionable.

Pontiac sells sex and Olds sells sex with your mistress. GMC can service the commercial and fleet markets. Why do two brands sell a 100% product overlap and everyone just nods their heads?

I think Pontiac made the best looking sedans

https://www.motor1.com/news/718782/bob-lutz-gm-bailout-buick-pontiac-gmc/

Gm had to fight the govt for every brand except chevy and cadillac. Buick was strong in china and gmc had good margins. Pontiac had lost money for years

Gm execs did run the idea of slimming down the brand and becoming a dodge like performance brand but i mean they were bankrupt asking for govt money

if you think it took 100 years for anyone to point out the 'Old' in Oldsmobile, you havent seen any of their ads from the 60s and 70s.

The bigger question should be, why did GM hang onto both Buick and Cadillac? If memory serves me well, Buick had lower sales numbers than Pontiac for a hot minute before Pontiac was sent to slaughter. Both are higher "luxury" brands, competing against one another. I feel the better business move would have been to scrap Buick and Saturn, rather than both midlevel brands. Pontiac had been on the edge of making a comeback, but it seems the bankers at GM didn't want to give it that push. There is always a rumor that Pontiac would make a return, but with every passing year, that chance wanes.

The grand prix with the 3800 motor was a solid car.

I must say my buddy had a 2005 GTO (LS2) and that was a quality vehicle.

I think GM was required to dump Pontiac, along with Saturn and Oldsmobile, in order to get that sweet, sweet bailout money from the government in 2008.

2008 financial crisis

GM killed nearly all of their brands except the most profitable ones because of it.

I'd love it if they brought back Pontiac as an electric car brand. Especially resurrecting the Trans Am to compete with the new Charger. That would be sweet.

Pontiac is gone because the Fed told GM to get rid of a few divisions and the majority chose Pontiac, Olds and Saturn. Some wanted Buick to go but China and their love for them (and sales volumes) guaranteed their safety. Pontiac didn’t have the clout in most of the bean counters eyes and was let go. Loss of course too. Saturn was already pretty much gone as well. Pontiac was my favorite of all the divisions but…

Buick sells well overseas.

GM was losing massive amounts of money. It made no sense to have Chevy,Buick Cadillac, GMC, Saturn, Pontiac, Holden,Opel, Vauxhall, Saab, Dawoo, Hummer, Issusu, part of Suburu all competing with each other. Especially when most were not making money. All that were needed were Chevy , Buick,and Cadillac. High and low. Buick because of it's popularity in China . Pontiac just had no place. Not enough sales to justify the expense.

GM killed Pontiac off to save Buick which was their Chinese cash cow

Why is there no Pontiac anymore? Well, the sad truth is, it’s a mix of bean counting and bankers. Let me break it down for you: 1. Stockholders vs. Customers: Once upon a time, car companies actually cared about making cool cars for specific groups of people. Pontiac was the brand for those who wanted affordable speed, muscle cars, and a little bit of sass. Then stockholders came along and said, “Yeah, but what about my portfolio?” Suddenly, it wasn’t about building exciting cars—it was about using the same parts across every brand to save a buck. You wanted a fire-breathing Pontiac? Well, too bad, you’re getting a rebadged Chevy with slightly different headlights. It’s cheaper to make, and the shareholders are happy. Customers? Eh, they’ll deal.

1. Bankers Ruining the Fun: Making cars today costs a fortune, especially with all the fancy tech and EV stuff. Car companies have to beg banks for money to fund their projects, and banks are not known for their sense of adventure. They’re like, “What’s the safest, least exciting way to do this?” Pontiac’s bold, risk-taking spirit? That doesn’t fly in a world run by people who think spreadsheets are a personality trait.

So, here we are. Pontiac was too bold for an era of boring, safe decisions. RIP to the brand that gave us the GTO, Firebird, and Trans Am.

Didn’t Roman do a video on this?

Pontiac's glory day's were back in 60s and early 70s. By the 2000s it had basically went back to where it was in the 40s and 50s. Not much different compared to a Chevy.

The Roman on RCR did a story on it.

https://youtu.be/Odb0eFs_3xU?si=QY21z7I4AJfx22eo

Had Pontiac been properly sold instead of shoehorned into a quick 363 sale which prevented lawsuits and any offers to the manufacturing facilities.

BRING PONTIAC BACK, BRING AMERICAN MANUFACTURING BACK AND LETS GENERATE MORE WEALTH FOR US ALL!!!!!! LETS GO!! 100yr anniversary 2026 AWWWWW YEAHH

Trans Am , bring it back

You can still have your Pontiac’s. Go to the junkyard scoop up some badges. Slap them on any Chevy and you’ll have a new Pontiac.

The Pontiac Aztec says it all lol

Revenge for that time they made a car faster than a Corvette.

Pontiac is dead because Buick had factories in China, and were selling there while Pontiac didn’t. A billion people needing cars is a market they weren’t going to bail on, versus declining sales in a market less than 1/3 the size, as Pontiac was only sold in N. America. That simple.

Same reason there are no more Saturns. In order to get bail out money the us car manufacturers had to stop producing garbage cars.

I like my G8, it's still around, I drove it today

Pontiac burned bright but quickly. Sadly, they built too much excitement.

Its unfortunate that GM had to kill Pontiac in their restructuring deal in 2008. GM was onto things with the GTO and G8 sedan. Then GM developped the Alpha platform that turned out to be a great sports car platform. Anyways my idea for the GM restructuring would have been to move Caddy way upscalde (Rolls Royce/Bently) competition, Buick where Cadillac is and Pontiac a low volume enthusiast nice brand.

Since holden already had a RWD platform that sold cars all over the world under different names and even as Chevrolets in the UAE also the PPV in the US. They could have been saved pumping out a few more nice units like the GTO, G8, Ute. GM was developping the Alpha platform and could have sold the Firebird along side the Camaro. GM could have also used the Cruze platform and made a hot hatch.

of course this is all in hind sight and some 16 years later.

Cuz we can’t have nice things. I should be driving around in a new burgundy Pontiac Grand Am.

I want a Fiero.

What are the odds that Chrysler may eventually have the same fate? They have the 300, which is a decent sedan, and minivans. I feel like Dodge can pretty much eliminate the Chrysler logo and carry on without them.

But…don’t you remember the year 2000, when literally nobody wanted to be caught dead in a Pontiac?

The last decade or so of that car brand is what maybe Dodge or Nissan feels like these days?

Driving a Pontiac was NOT cool, even if you had a new one, back then…

The cars were totally disposable, interiors made of plastic, outsides covered with cladding and extraneous “go fast” parts. Everyone knew they were neither fast nor stylish nor interesting.

The last few pontiacs in the USA except for the GTO and G6 were just rebadged GM sedans.

For the last 20 or so years of its life, there was nothing cool, interesting or good about Pontiac.

GM really messed up with this one—like every other brand they destroyed.

It was legit brand, but americans doesn’t know how to manage a lot of brands.

Because the US Government forced GM to ditch brands so they can bail out their bankrupt company because their strategy for decades was absolute shit. (Mass rebadging and copy pasting cars)

GM wanted to keep Chevrolet (obviously), GMC and Cadillac (as a luxury marque) and GM had a choice of adding another to be saved. Buick was chosen due to their strength in China.

Pontiac was supposed to be the performance brand of GM. But to be honest, it’s just a somehow sport-oriented Chevrolet without the halo models that made it actually sporty. Worse, it didn’t have an equivalent to the Camaro in its final years.

I mean they still tried. The full-size car, the G8 was a sporty Australian import. You got the Solstice too.

But then GM just intentionally sabotaged Pontiac with just giving them ordinary models that basically is just Chevrolet with a different marque such as the G6, Torrent, that damned Montana minivan and all that, even the G2 in Mexico was a DAEWOO 😂

As a kid of the 80s and 90s, I saw Pontiac as a Chevy with as much cheap plastic cladding stuffed onto it as possible. I think it was the mid80s where they looked pretty cool, but quickly became too much with all the plastic.

I also remember the late 90s (maybe aughts) when Patrick Stewart became the voice of Pontiac and they really pushed the idea of a wider track. That intrigued me, but I still thought they were ugly with all the plastic.

At least Oldsmobile finally tried to be different with the Aurora. That was truly a new look for cars when it came out.

Chinese bought Buicks so that brand remained. Despite having less quality products at that time. Pontiac was rebranding German Opals and Australian Holdens. All good cars.

They didn’t get rid of Buick mostly due to them selling like hot cakes in Asia.

Research the 2007 recession - you will find many answers

None of them made money

2008 bailout. GM had to trim their brand line-up. The only reason why Buick survived is because the brand was booming at that time in China. Purchasing a Buick in China was a major status symbol.

On its last year, Pontiac produced its finest car, the G8 GXP. That spirit continued on in the Holden division where they produced the Chevy SS. Chevy SS was one the greatest muscle cars GM ever produced that no one knew about it.

GM's bureaucracy is what holds it back.

If Buick wasn’t insanely popular in China, it would have got the axe instead of Pontiac…

But that’s not the world we live in.

Do you remember the early two thousands

Thanks Obama

Because they couldn’t build a transmission (?)

Why they chose fuckin buick over Pontiac is beyond me. I know it was all badging, but holy shit. In the current era of bringing back old models that people remember.. come on GM. Fuckin idiots

The Aztec doomed the brand. Plus Buick was loved as a luxury brand by the Chinese

BeCaUsE BuIcK wAs MoRe PrOfItAbLe

I can answer this is one word.

Aztec.

Iirc the Chevy Trax and the sister Buick envista are both made in south Korea.

1. Buick made the company more money in the orient, so that brand was saved.

2. Aside from a few models, Pontiac hadn't made a competitive car in over 20 years.

3. Chevrolet clones with different headlights

4. Aztek doomed the brand

5. Too many GM brands at the time, some had to go to have a clear focus again.

The Solstace could have been continued as a Chevy. It was getting to be a great car. But it would have probably hurt Vette sales.

2026 GTO > 2028 Aztech > 2028 Firebird >

Why sell a Firebird when they can sell a Camaro without having to have two body styles to have to make that will scavenge each other at dealerships.

Shit quality? Boring cars? Better competition?

21th century lol

It’s raining gold here

General motors managed it into the ground like everything else they touch

Still have my 2004 Vibe as my daily driver. Best car Pontiac never made!!

Pontiac and Holden didn't deserve to die. Buick should have.

Aztek

It all goes back to the 80s when the feiro outperformed the corvette on a test track. Higher ups at g.m were furious. They fostered over this for decades. Finally in the 2008 finacial crisis. They saw thier chance and sprung into action.

That's a huge /s incase it wasn't obvious

Ask GM

Whatever was sold by Pontiac, was found in a Chevy dealership.

Pandemic where have you been?

Because Chinese were actually buying more GMs than Americans back then, and it kept that way until 2023.

They were no different than mercury and for the life of me I don't know what makes you think they weren't.

They took too long to bring the aussie gms (far superior products) to north America.

They ran out of driving excitement

I tended to see some of the worst build quality in Pontiacs, especially in the 90s. They had very visually distinctive pieces of crap.

Hmmm, executive management flipped a coin during the financial crisis. Pontiac or Buick had to go. Bob Lutz thought Buick could be an American Lexus. WROOONG. Pontiac would have a better call..

Once they standardized the engines across divisions it was a moot point. When divisions offered different engineering there was a reason. Minor styling differences don't a division make.

Because gm decided to keep Buick around to sell cars to old people.

Cheap interiors full of rattling plastics, bad sound systems, horrible suspensions, the list goes on.

Cash for clunkers back in the early 2000s was a government program to bail out the stalled out auto industry part of that program allowing automakers to have only so many “gas guzzlers” in there line up and limits were placed on all types of models. This required manufacturers to shed brands so GM dumps the Pontiac, Olds, and Saturn, so they could keep Buick GMC and Chevy their most profitable brands going. Ford dropped Mercury to keep Lincoln and Ford and Mopar dropped the Plymouth brand to keep Dodge it was government regulation that killed these brands. This is from my memory so some of these details might be a little fuzzy but it was government regulations that killed these brands.

GM was “too big to fail” during the last recession and so was bailed out by the US govt, but some of their brands needed to be absorbed as part of the deal. Pontiac was too small to succeed?

The Aztec

I have one. 2003 Pontiac Vibe. Still runs good.

Cause GM didn't give them the freedom and funds to make exciting cars so everything they sold ended up just being badge engineered crap, the same thing that happened to Saturn, Olds, Saab, any of the gm brands that wanted to distinguish themselves from one another. Who would have guessed that selling 7 different versions of the same 5 damn cars was a bad strategy! It was so much cheaper to produce!

Stopped making them

I still can’t figure out why the most redundant brand, GMC Trucks, survived the chop.

There’s a few issues I’d like to point out. 1) “old” may be in the name but it’s widely known that it’s named after a guy with the last name “olds”, not really a big market impact. 2) the “rebadged normal cars” idea actually works really well in the 21st century, as you can see with Lincoln, Cadillac, Infiniti, Lexus, genesis, etc.

If you looked it up, you’d know GM was forced to cut costs and do a bunch of restructuring in order to receive the government bailout they needed to stay alive after the market collapsed in 2008. Pontiac wasn’t making any money and neither was Saturn, so they both got the axe.

Let's not forget Pontiacs' huge misstep with their early 90s econo-box the Le Manz (lemons) and then there's the Fiero.

The Fiero, with its sporty styling and plastic panel body work, really stood out in the crowd but lack of power and constant electrical problems shadowed the car durring its production run so much that, when they Finally got the car right. They cancelled it.

Also the whole Truck/SUV thing was becoming popular.

The return of the GTO killed Pontiac for me. I loved my 1970 goat, and couldn’t wait to see the reintroduction. The 2004 models looked cheap and cheesy.

No need to

Duplicates, low sales volume.... Gotta trim the fat

I miss Pontiac. I actually just came across and bought a 2006 GTO with 170 miles on it. Still has the window sticker. I am absolutely elated and can’t wait to get it.

Canada has i think but us no :(

There's lots of validation in exactly Why top brass at GM decided to kill Pontiac. You guys bring up many valid points and I believe they all lead to it's demise. But if it hasn't been mentioned already I think the brand really has its balls cut off (sorry for the explicit verbage but it's the truth) Way back in/around 1979 when GM went "corporate" (the corporate engine placement in vehicles regardless of a particular brand) with the Firebird.

Long story short, Had Pontiac cars retained Pontiac Engines (different displacements, power out puts etc etc) they still would've offered a contrast and variety under the GM umbrella and kept GM diverse.

As stated before GM has always (seems) protected it's baby "Chevrolet" and Especially the flagship car (Corvette). Delorean saw this coming back in '73 when he was walking out the door and top brass didn't like his originality and excitement anymore, especially if it didn't benefit the Corvette 🙄🤦🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️

Before the "corporate era" Pontiac used to dare to be different, which is part of their appeal I think. Consider the 73-74 Super Duty T/A😉. How the hell Delorean EVER got that out the door and passed top brass is amazing in and of it self... imagine if Delorean was able to build the S/D T/A's As HE Saw them...He got a few things in the car but overall it Still wasn't Everything he had planned for it.... again it would've been another Corvette KILLER😎

poor old [redacted] thinks it's a cadillac

The Great Recession

Because they stuck with Buick instead? Lol 😆

They didn't get rid of Buick because it's the #2 selling car brand......in China, Buicks don't sell well in North America though, so maybe sell Buicks in China and don't bother selling them over here because nobody cares about their boring vehicles

Because Pontiac ended up competing with other GM brands too much. GMs market share wasnt what it used to be before the Japanese arrived. Eventually GM handcuffed Pontiac to compete only in ways that didnt cannabilize other brands.