Question:
Should GM bring these brands back?
1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Should GM bring these brands back?
Nine answers:
2016-09-17 11:48:03 UTC
Possibly yeah
Harry
2015-03-13 22:28:25 UTC
GM HAS to bring Pontiac back.

1. It has a large, loyal following.

2. It has some 90 years of brand history.

3. It was a strong brand: #3 at GM, and the #1 American vehicle brand in Canada. When GM decide to kill Pontiac off in '09, Pontiac was selling as many cars as BMW was!

4. It was both a legacy brand and GM's performance brand. In '64, Pontiac built the first musclecar, the GTO.

5. One of the earlier posts mentioned the mistake Olds made by changing its logo. Pontiac had such strong brand identity/loyalty, it didn't HAVE to change its logo. Pontiac had the same logo since the late-'50s; only its color changed. From the late-'50s to the late-'60s, the Pontiac arrowhead was silver. In '70, the color was switched to red. That Pontiac logo is as iconic as the brand itself.
MikeL
2015-02-09 14:45:55 UTC
They should bring back Oldsmobile, Pontiac and Saturn; keep Chevrolet, GMC. Holden, Opel and Vauxhall; bring Suzuki, Subaru and Isuzu back into the fold; and let Cadillac go!
?
2014-01-04 12:09:44 UTC
The answer is yes. I still see Olds cars from 1the 1980s, 1990s and early 200s on the road and some, like the Bravada, are still in great shape despite being 8-10-12 years old.
C7S
2013-04-16 07:42:00 UTC
What does Obama have to do with any of this? He was not involved.



No one bought Saturns or Pontiac's. They were very poor sellers when compared to their Chevy, Cadillac, and Buick counterparts.



In order for GM to catch up to competition, they needed to spend money they didn't have. They obviously could not afford to immensly improve all of their cars, so they killed off their weak brands and focused all of their money on improving interiors and drivetrains of their Chevy's Buick's, and Cadillac's



The Vue was a nice looking car, but it's interior was cheap and it was plagued by transmission problems. Most extended warranty companies refuse to give warranties to Saturn Vue owners because of those expensive transmission issues. And Pontiac? They made the GTO, G8, and Solstice as their last 3 cars and their best cars. Unfortunately, GTO owners had to pay the extra gas tax because of the large V8 engine and resale values were low, so sales were low. The Solstice had electronic issues and the motor for the power convertible top was problematic. GM decided to kill off Pontiac right after they released the G8 in a sudden decision to try to save the company.



The G8 is coming back in the form of a Chevy Caprice.



GMC still sells lots of SUV's. There trucks might not sell as well as the Chevy counterparts, but their SUV's sell very well such as the older Envoy and the new Acadia.
2013-04-16 02:27:29 UTC
Hi benito

sadly this is more to do with economics than ones passion for certain models of cars.

it is not general motors which has killed off most makes but they are poor design so they lose favour with the buying public. expensive to run and maintain just has to be the biggest issue.

so the hummer has been banned here in the united kingdom due to it's width ideal in the desert which is what it was designed for as an army truck some have armour so are bullet proof so weigh a extra ton.

hence why they cost so much to drive. low MPG.

so time to get a new life kid we are all going to need 70 MPG as you guys simply have lost the plot with how much oil is needed to run these old relics.
XOXO
2013-04-15 21:19:35 UTC
.
?
2013-04-15 20:32:54 UTC
GMC, Oldsmobile and Pontiac.

I'd like to see a Grand Am that has the older look to it along with a newer sleek look kinda like that new Volkswagen beetle.
It'sSupercharged!2000
2013-04-16 10:40:06 UTC
Oldsmobile could be a great brand if it were to be handled intelligently. I'll partially agree with you in that the killing off of well known nameplates may have doomed the brand, but the cars were typically good. The Aurora was a great car for the time. And the Bravada was introduced in 1991 as a Blazer rebadge, so it wasn't really replacing anything. I'd say the Bravada was a great thing for Olds. I think the Alero could have been a good car if it didn't have the electronic issues that it did. It still sold very well. The Cutlass name should have remained, but the 88 and 98 nameplates honestly just sound dated. They give the brand the old Buick stigma of being an old person's last car. And since the Achieva was introduced in 1992, after the Bravada, it really doesn't make sense for you to say that they should have updated it when you say the Bravada was an unknown name. Achieva was even more recent. As for the logo, I can't imagine anyone liked it, but it certainly didn't kill the brand. I'd have refreshed the old logo a bit, but that wouldn't make or break the entire brand.



Pontiac is a soft spot for me. I'm a huge Pontiac enthusiast, and GM's slaughter of the brand still saddens me. Pontiac shouldn't be a racing brand, but you're on the right track. Pontiac was, for many years, GM's entry level performance brand. That means high performance, low MSRP. That doesn't mean that there's no place for things like the G5 or G6, but they need to be done differently. The G5 shouldn't have been such a blatant rebadge of the Cobalt. And it certainly shouldn't have had the Cobalt SS's turbo and supercharged engines, considering the Pontiac brand identity. The G6 was honestly a pretty good car, and the GXP was enough to satisfy the affordable performance criteria.



Saturn really doesn't need to come back. It wasn't an awful brand, but it was just a recent invention of GM to try to compete with imports. The brand started producing cars in the middle of 1990. They just don't have any brand heritage, and the brand identity was cloudy, at best. The only identity I can give them is Chevrolet's old image: the baseline. Saturn needs to be a budget brand, and they need to stick to a very specific range of vehicles. They were too eclectic for what the brand should have been. While the cars they made were of good quality, they didn't make sense. Why did Saturn need the Sky Redline? How did the Vue fit their brand image? Good cars, but illogical.



Hummer needs to stay dead. No discussion. Hummer was a worthless brand.



GMC won't be killed off, as much as I wish they would be. The fact is, they do sell a great many trucks. Their upmarket SUVs remain popular as well. The trucks just leach Chevrolet sales, and prevent GM from claiming to have the best selling truck (which they usually do, when combining GMC and Chevrolet sales). Fun fact: The GMC Terrain was originally a Pontiac, but the car was given to GMC when Pontiac's demise was imminent.



I don't disagree with you on everything. But some of your plans aren't properly motivated. I'm surprised that you don't mention Saab anywhere here. Seeing Saab go was a terrible thing. And if you have Saturn, why not Geo? GM brought Geo out around the same time as they did Saturn. You've got good potential though, because these plans, although not altogether complete or logical, do show a great deal of thought put into them. I remember when I was 16, Pontiac still had a couple of years before they were to be ended, and nobody ever suspected. I had very similar thoughts to yours when I was 18, only then we thought Hummer would be bought by the Chinese, Saturn would be bought by Penske, and we were holding out for some private investor to swoop in and grab the rights to Pontiac. Sadly, none of it happened.


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