I guess we all knew it was going to happen, but to see it on the local news it was sad. Brown Pontiac, one of the oldest Pontiac dealers in America owned for 3 generations, closing after 80 years in business. GM's decisions seem strange being that Pontiac outsold Buick last year. Another fine old American business gone for good, very sad indeed. Rest in peace Pontiac. Dave

Another Stupid Decision by a stupid company.
GM should of filed for Bankruptcy months ago instead of asking the Govt for bail out money, at least they would of had their future in their own hands.
Now the Govt is going to tell them what they can and cannot build, sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

RIP Pontiac Motor Division
You may be gone but you will never be forgoten.

Kinda makes me feel different when i drive my bird now. Imagine 30 years down the road, it'll be like seeing a Fairlane. R.I.P. PONTIAC

RIP. The only silver lining is that they aren't selling the brand, so hopefully when things turn around it'll come back... unfortunately the RWD and muscle car mainstay is not likely to return as well.

Too bad. The G8 was just starting to take off. It is becoming one of the hottest cars around here.

Matt

dont know why they scraped pontiac, they should of scraped gmc since that line is a bunched or renamed and rebadge chevy trucks and suv

Buick, while not as popular as Pontiac here, is huge in China. Re-badging Pontiacs as Buicks for that market probably wouldn't have worked given the direction they were trying to go. The fact is, the federal government has been meddling in the automotive industry for decades, tilting the playing field to favor foreign brands that make economy cars. The American public, for the most part, prefers to drive larger cars, trucks and SUV's. The domestic makers have serviced their customer base to the point of their own peril. Without CAFE and a myriad of other government regulations, the domestic makers would be much healthier and probably able to weather this economic storm. Now that the feds are in charge of GM (evidenced by Rick Wagoner's termination), GM is not in a position to make a business case for a division specializing in rear-drive, sporty cars. I hope they will be in the future. Since they're not selling Pontiac to another buyer, I have hopes of its resurrection. In the meantime, I hope the government doesn't try to "help" any other industries I care about.

wonder how much a g8 Gxp will be worth in a decade?

not to mention a 2010 camaro if GM goes under........

Although Rick Wagoner left involuntarily, it was really more of the execution of a Retirement package than a termination. He left with a lot of $ too.

I understand but the President of the United States (any President) has no business firing a private company's CEO. Rick Wagoner was one of the people focused on product, which is what will save GM (if that's still a possibility). I'm not saying he hasn't made mistakes but GM has been operating in a corporate environment that's hostile to the domestic automakers for decades. CAFE has prevented a logical business model (build the types of cars and trucks that people want to buy) from succeeding. If people wanted to drive econoboxes, Toyota would have taken over the market in the '70's. My problem with it isn't that Rick Wagoner has been treated unfairly but rather that GM has been stripped of its leader when it most needs strong leadership. If a change was needed, it should have been driven by management and the board of directors.

Shaun,

Have been reading your comments for some time on this subject and I think you have hit the nail on the head. I'd lke to add that while everyone has been complaining--by "everyone" I mean those people that are really anti-automobile, the Greens, etc.--GM does build the car that all the conservationists and Barak Ubama have been screaming about, but they can't bring them over here. Many know that GM owns about 41% of Toyota, 100% of Suzuki and 100% of Daihatsu. Living in Japan I get to see the results of GM ownership. The top selling cars in Japan are the Daihatsu, Suzuki and Toyota Kei cars. Of those, Daihatsu is considered to be the best and with a mere 660cc engine, the car is a rocket. Could GM sell them in the US? Don't know, but I wouldn't bet against a $10,000 car that gets about 55 mpg in the city and 70 on the hwy with an auto, or a handbuilt sports car that gives a Corvette fits in the twisties and costs only around $20,000. The problem is, GM can't bring them into this country. It's not that they can't be federalized, it's that the Unions won't allow their importation. The Unions do this by sponsoring legislation against cars that are built by robots and these cars (except for the Daihatsu Copen--the sports car) are built almost entirely by robots--that is the only way a profit can be made on these things. The Unions have it written in their contracts that there is a required manpower content to each car built in the US of A or by a USA automobile corporation. Read a book about this--it detailed out the mess that GM had to go through to bring the Gen IV Corvette and 1993 Firebird to market. Did our members know that the UAW got to approve the detailed build plans and design of the Firebird, even though it was built in Canada and they nixed a lot of the robot assembly--not enough manpower content, and that meant the price was raised. GM could have built and sold it for less.

FACT: Due to legacy costs (retired pay and benifits, etc.), GM and others can't build "those economy cars" and maintain a profit and fund the legacy costs at the same time.

I know this is a simplified argument, so forgive the lack of details, etc., but if we got into a round-house detail and blow by blow discussion of all the problems, it wouldn't fit on this forum. However, the question still arises, if GM can build the best selling "green" cars in Japan, why can't they be imported over here? Would a car like that take away from SUV and pickup sales? I don't know that answer.