As far as GM brands go, Pontiac is hardly the oldest. Incorporated in 1926 as a companion marque to GM’s Oakland Motors, which was purchased by GM in 1909, the renaming of Oakland into Pontiac proved pretty successful for sales. The name Pontiac came from an Ottawa chief, on whose name the city of Pontiac in Michigan was also formed.
In the divisional hierarchy within GM, Pontiac came above Chevrolet and GMC but fell below Oldsmobile, Buick, and Cadillac. Known as the performance division of GM, Pontiac continued to make cars till 2009, or rather one last vehicle in January 2010, before finally going defunct.
Due to Pontiac's sacrifice, the other GM brands survived, with Oldsmobile also having gone down in 2004. Today, GM is all about Chevrolet, GMC, Buick, and Cadillac, with Pontiac nothing more than a memory. So here go 15 cars from Pontiac, which helped quicken its demise.
15 1971-1977 Pontiac Ventura: Rebadged And Weak Chevy Nova
Technically, the Pontiac Ventura was a rebadged Chevrolet Nova, and could have been a great car, had GM not meddled with it and made it far less powerful than its Chevy sibling. The car came with a Pontiac 5.7-liter V8 engine but detuned to literally one-third of its capable power. Sadly, what could have been an excellent pony car was turned into a weak passenger car.
14 1973-1977 Pontiac Astre: Rebadged And Uglier Chevy Vega
For some reason, many of the Pontiac cars were often brutally neutered to make them lesser than their Chevrolet siblings. It's like Chevy was a favored son, and Pontiac a step-child. The Astre was a rebadged Chevrolet Vega, which was already pretty terrible. While the Astre was a little more polished on the inside, the exterior looked downright ugly.
13 1980-1984 Pontiac Phoenix: The Infamous X-Body
Calling it a Phoenix turned out to be a misnomer, for it may have gone down in flames, but never managed to rise from its ashes. An X-Body GM Car, the Phoenix, along with the Chevrolet Citation, Buick Skylark, and the Oldsmobile Omega, was plagued with recalls and issues all its short life. Plus, the Phoenix also had the distinction of locking its rear wheels when brakes were applied, making it even more of a pain.
12 1982-1988 Pontiac Sunbird: Too Many Issues
Sudden acceleration, boring performance, peeling paint, drab styling, and finally, transmission plus engine issues: the list of woes the owners of Pontiac Sunbird suffered from was endless. The newly introduced front-wheel-drive made it even more boring to drive. Plus, it shared a platform with the Cadillac Cimarron. Need we say more?
11 1981-1987 Pontiac T1000: A Rebadged Chevy Chevette
The Chevrolet Chevette was a failed car, which is why no one quite got the rebadged Pontiac T1000. Not only was it a boring name, but it was also a boring car, plagued with weak and inefficient engines despite the light and sporty build. It also rusted like nobody’s business and ended up dying an ignominious death in 1987.
10 1984-1988 Pontiac Fiero: Fiery Tempered Pontiac
There’s a Pontiac Fiero in the TV series Young Sheldon, bought by Sheldon’s father to appease his masculinity. As he tries to drive away in style, the rear-engined car sparks up and dies, and that summed what the Pontiac Fiero was: a car with potential, but with problems. It was released too early without proper R&D, which ended up further maligning Pontiac’s already dicey reputation.
9 1999-2005 Pontiac Grand Am: A Bestseller With Issues
After the X-Body disaster that was the Phoenix, the Pontiac Grand Am was brought in to reclaim some of Pontiac’s lost glory. And it did sell okay, for Pontiac’s standards, despite the fact that it had poor safety ratings all through. The car drove okay but often had problems with its power steering so got an average to bad rap.
8 1988-1993 Pontiac Le Mans: The Last Was The Worst
At times the Pontiac LeMans did shine, considering its six generations. Introduced as a Tempest trim, the LeMans also gave us the Pontiac GTO, for which we’ll always be thankful. Sadly, by the end of the ‘80s, the LeMans had lost most of its prowess and was a rebadged Daewoo, a subcompact with barely any power. The worst of the six generations, this was the end of the LeMans, and not in a good way.
7 1995-2005 Pontiac Sunfire: Took Cues From The Chevy Cavalier
The Sunfire replaced the Sunbird. It shouldn’t have, because forget being better than the Sunbird, it was worse since it took cues from the Chevy Cavalier. The cabin noise was jet level, though the car did give a decent economy. Things seeped and leaked at regular intervals, plus everything was plastic and vibrated in a chorus that could give the driver tinnitus for years to come.
6 2000-2005 Pontiac Bonneville: Lagged Behind The Competition
It feels strange to include the Bonneville in a list of cars that killed the Pontiac, considering it lasted from 1958 all the way to 2005, but this is how the wind blows. The tenth generation of the Pontiac Bonneville was pricey, lagging behind the competition and a bit of a stylish flop. Plus while the engine was okay, there were better and bigger ones around, which is why the Bonneville ground to a halt by 2005.
5 2000-2005 Pontiac Aztek: Two Cars Mashed Together?
The very idea of releasing a car on the unsuspecting public that resembled a Frankenstein on wheels should have given Pontiac pause. Sadly, it didn’t, and the Pontiac Aztek took everyone’s breath away because of its sheer ugliness that invaded your dreams and ran you down with its strange hood. We’d say this was the car that killed Pontiac, singlehandedly.
4 2005-2009 Pontiac Montana SV6: Pontiac’s Love-Plastic Phase
Hardly had people begun breathing freely on roads again, following the exit of the Aztek, that Pontiac upgraded its erstwhile ugly Montana into the uglier Montana SV6. It looked like a minivan Barbie would love, because of all that plastic. For 2007, they had to drop the AWD option, because the 3.9-liter engine generated too much torque.
3 2005-2010 Pontiac G6: The Last Of The Greats
Technically, the G6 was a good car, and ruched out any wrinkles left by the Grand Am, which it successfully replaced. But by this time, GM was in hot soup, and the only bailout they saw was to kill Pontiac on the whole. So instead of this car killing Pontiac, we’d say it was murdered by GM to make way for Pontiac's demise.
2 2005-2009 Pontiac Torrent: Aged Even Before Launch
With the Aztek having failed rather spectacularly, Pontiac yet again looked towards Chevrolet for a respectable version of a family crossover, thus rebadging the Chevrolet Equinox into the Pontiac Torrent. The Equinox was a bit aged when they did this, so the Torrent was always a step behind the competition. With Pontiac dying in 2009/2010, the Torrent was upgraded and made into the GMC Terrain.
1 2009 Pontiac G3: Too Late, Too Little
A rebadged Chevrolet Aveo, the G3 was the final nail in the coffin for Pontiac. Despite this last effort by Pontiac to revive its sales, no miracle happened, and sales remained slumped. And so, when the last Pontiac G3 rolled off the assembly lines in December 2009, it marked the end of an era for the now-defunct carmaker.