longtooth

By CaminoLS6

I still think that the bat-wing spoiler outshone the whale-tail look of that last year Firehawk spoiler.

What a beautiful car.

Just bought a G8 GXP.

Next I'd consider a Camaro SS or Z28 (should they build one) when the availability issue is 'fixed'.

It's been a long time since one could go onto the lot and just pick out an F-Body.

But by the time the shine wears-off of the G8 I might be considering a CTS-V coupe.

And this is from someone that up until a few months ago was dismissive of cars.

[edit] Link to a Huffington Post tribute article to Pontiac.

The comments are mostly sympathetic.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-parker...omment_23530986

Yes, if it were me I would lee it G8 and Solstice only. They are the only two cars that really symbolize what Pontiac should be. When they had more money I would expand the G8 lineup to include the Ute and Sportwagon, then go from there.

Huh? I forgot Solstice.

Those two, G8 & Solstice, would suffice.

Have to find way to bring Solstice to market being produced alongside something else to make/keep it economically viable.

SAmadei, I was referring to the current lineup, not ever car in the past. If you want to go down that route, there's a hell of a lot more $h!boxes than performance cars we can list (we've got a thread dedicated to it).

At any rate, you guys know that GM has the power to bring the brand back as a performance niche brand (What it should be anyway) when it has...you know...money. Since Pontiac is party of BPG dealer's won't have to close because they'll still have BG. If GM saw fit when the economy got better and they had actual money and a strong company again, they could bring it back to the BG dealers.

Were that the case they'd keep the G8, perhaps the next-gen G6 (vastly improved as criticism would have it) as boutique offerings. By necessity it would require the continued importation of the G8 and the G6 would become a sourced product given the likelihood that Lake Orion assembly would ultimately close.

This would be done to keep Pontiac in the consciousness of the consumer and remaining faithful to those that have embraced the G8 in all of it's forms.

This is only what I would do.

And this just crossed the wire: GM to pull the plug on Pontiac

The brand credited with originating the muscle car will not be part of GM's future.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/24/autos/pont...rce=yahoo_quote

Now if you want muscle, from GM, it's Chevy or Cadillac.

Got a baby : '04 Silverado w/ 77,6xx K

My brother's '81 Chevy Camper Special pickup went circa 275K, but led a hard life : original 6.2 diesel died, replaced by a Chevy 350, then replaced after that with a Pontiac 400 (power!), not to mention the truck seriously off-roaded, got lifted, snow-plowed, had a utility body dropped on it, towed equipment & cars. It was still running but was rotting out pretty bad, so it's gone to that junkyard in the sky...

My Dad had, up until several years ago, had an '81 GMC, favorite workhorse of his, that tallied over 330k in the role of brick-mule and doer of odd-jobs. It had a salvage-yard tranny after the original died at 225,000 or so. The original motor went bye-bye at the 250,000 mark. (I'm relating this remembering what Dad told me and accessing my own recollections)

The reason for scrapping it was that the cab-mounts were gone and he felt that if he applied the brakes too hard that the cab would separate and continue on by itself in a shower of sparks.

I told Dad, jokingly, that if he tied some string around it that the trash men might take it if he parked it at the curb.

Fun read. Though I do remember another time that GM was on the brink of disaster. The last time GM was near bankrupcty was during Bush Sr., and this one started during Bush Jr.

Early '90s.

Weren't sure that Corvette would survive then either.

Camaro redesign was delayed for three or four years.

Much was made of Robert Stemple's leadership style at the time. I think he's a New Jersey native.

GM's Been on the Brink Before—Many Times

This isn't GM's first brush with death. Since 1910 the company has nearly disappeared three times—and come back stronger every time

By Ed Wallace

The executives at General Motors (GM) knew they were in trouble: Their negative cash flow had become intolerable, and their lending institutions had locked up. Bankers refused to lend the corporation any more money, fearing that they'd never see GM's current loans repaid, much less any new funds they might advance. New car divisions that had opened only a few years earlier were now huge money pits. And even those divisions whose sales had once shown incredible potential now had virtually no sales at all.

GM put some divisions and parts operations up for sale, but potential buyers showed little interest. GM cut the size of its workforce repeatedly but could not lower expenses quickly enough to match the fall-off in demand. Finally, GM's lead creditors met quietly at Chase Bank in New York, seeking to find out whether they could salvage any of their loans if they forced General Motors to liquidate.

The bankers hammered GM executives: Why did they insist on keeping different divisions, when it was obvious they were simply money pits? One GM executive explained that if the company failed, it had the potential to set off a nationwide panic, which could damage the improving consumer confidence just starting to take hold after the massive downturn in the economy. He also pointed out that the vehicles the bankers were calling foolish had been some of GM's most profitable vehicles just two years earlier. It couldn't be helped, he said, that the public had become so fickle and tightfisted, not when a massive economic contraction had just scoured the country.

The bankers had their doubts. But after looking at the facts they decided that if GM would dump its losing properties, effectively fire the CEO, and allow the bankers to elect the new board of directors, then GM would be advanced the funds to get past its current financial problems.

Boom and Bust

Welcome to September 1910, when the bankers revolted against Billy Durant's General Motors...

http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/cont...ampaign_id=yhoo

[The article does go on and I found it an informative take on the matter]

Yea until the Economy goes into the toilet, then alot of people decide to just fix instead of buy new. Example - Vehicles.................... or they become Import humpers and buy a Toyota. :twocents:

Well, being a recently retired GM hourly-type person, I will give you this observation.

Until the mid-eighties, GM still wielded considerable clout within the Industry.

I watched as very inexpensive, and not all that well-constructed, imported cars flooded the market, gained a foothold in the wake of two 1970's 'Gas Shocks'. The Domestic Steel Industry was, at the same time, being systematically dismantled as cheap imported steel found it's way here. I saw textile-jobs, the backbone of many Southern cities, go offshore. All of the jobs which were attendant to these Industries and those in the ancillary industries vanished as imports gradually began to undermine our Domestic manufacturing capacity. Good jobs became supplanted by jobs which did not pay as well as the displaced jobs.

A slow erosion of the standard-of-living for the storied middle-class.

Labor here, in any form, unionized or otherwise, cannot compete with the slave labor of under-developed Nations, China and India as prime examples, where people are treated as cattle or fodder.

We here leverage each other in a vain attempt to do so.

This scenario calls to mind the story: "The Ransom of Red Chief", by O. Henry.

At the end of the day something has to be "serviced." If nothing is left to be serviced, how will the one who service, service the serviced?

We're primed to discard many of the things that were once regard as repairable.

Electronics repair was once a thriving industry.

Now, what do we do?

We throw it away or stash it in that dark corner of our garage.

Amen.

The "service-based" economy is an illusion.

No doubt as "smallchevy" alluded, balance is required.

In summary when it is economically balanced and accountable. Just ask the Europeans.

I'd agree.

Not a wide-open free-for-all.

Sustainable.

Japan's Toyota, to name but one, outsources all 'round the Pacific Rim. Call it a 'Pacific Rim-job'. To inflate the bottom line Toyota's taken to importing itinerant labor from the squalid slums of Vietnam and Thailand. As fragile a house of cards, in a slump as the Globe's tending presently, as our own 'Service Oriented' economy.

America works best when we build, earn and spend here. Importing prosperity, on the back of specious credit, to propel us ever upward, is a scenario only Sisyphus would appreciate.

I don't think there was anyone here that did not see this coming.

The question is how much this will help inventories as 9 weeks may not be enough if sales do not improve.

It'll be more in-line with the new, repackaged and re-sized GM.

Fairfax will be starting production of the '10 LaCrosse in May.

Did you ever have a dead battery? Or had disconnected the battery for any length of time?

Never driven one, have you?

Mini or golf cart

I'm sorry.

What were you bemoaning, just last week, when your spouse couldn't dodge that rock which struck the windshield?

My recollection is faulty.

Price. Nobody is willing to shell out $40,000 for something that looks just like a $15,000 compact.

Didn't you buy a premium fuel burning golf-cart? (mini)

To get a different perspective on it, watch Spike Lee's "Bamboozled".

Chase that with "Soul Men" starring Samuel L. (motherf*cking snakes) Jackson and the late, great Bernie Mac.

unless you're used to torqueless hondas LOL

Torque. Good one. Discussing 'performance' coupes with the reciprocating mass of a sweatshop sewing machine.

Low expectations. Good grief.

Uh, no. Th G6 only wish it looked even remotely this good.

Definitely in the eye of the beholder.

It's a G6 with a grafted-on Sunfire nose. (imo)

Passed Perrine Pontiac this morning on Rte. 130 in Cranbury, NJ and they're stocking 3. Damn. Was it Red/Orange, Black? I can't recall, didn't stop.

But they look very sharp sitting there in the drizzle.

Funny, I've seen lots of these, and they didn't strike me as odd or tacked on. Now that I realize that the sedan treatment was Canadian exclusive, it makes sense... The Jersey Shore is very popular with Canadians on vacation.

Is it still?

In the day, say 25 years or so ago, the 'Wildwoods' were bursting at the seams or so it seemed to me. Every other vehicle had the "Je me souviens" inscribed Quebec vehicle plates. Then we more or less shifted more northerly up the coast. I see one or two in Summer and may be even missing more since I must've stopped looking for them.