Poncho Profile: The Rise and Fall of Pontiac

Before Pontiac there was Oakland. Assembling its first vehicle in 1907, it would sell a two-cylinder car in 1908. In February 1909, Oakland had this display at the Chicago auto show as it was adding its four-cylinder Forty to the line. On April 9 of that year, Oakland became part of General Motors.

By the mid-1920s, it was apparent to GM leadership that there was a niche between Chevrolet and Oakland on the corporate pricing ladder. So by the time this Oakland six-cylinder 6-44 was on sale, the Pontiac was being developed as a companion to it. The first Pontiac arrived as a ’26 model, and it was a big hit, with 76,742 built its first year. By 1932 Pontiac had replaced Oakland at GM.

Here in all its modest, demure, subdued, low-key glory is the first Pontiac: the 1926 model 6-27, which was powered by a 3.0-liter six-cylinder engine rated at 40 horsepower. Novel features included smaller-diameter wheels with lower-pressure tires for a better ride and a harmonic balancer on the crank for smoother operation.

Prices for the 1926 Pontiacs started at $745. That was comfortably below Buick’s cheapest car, the $1150 Model 24 that was also six-cylinder-powered. Pontiac’s first V-8 came in 1932—a version of Oakland’s aged 4.1-liter (251-cubic-inch) eight rated at 85 horsepower. After all, Oakland had been discontinued after the 1931 model year, so it wasn’t using it anymore.

Pontiac and Cadillac both introduced column shifting for the 1938 model year. And it was only a $10 option on the Pontiac.

The 1941 Pontiac Streamliner four-door at that year’s Chicago auto show attracted the attention of many women in white dresses. By now, Pontiac’s straked ornamentation was well established as a distinctive element of the styling, most notoriously the trim that ran up over the hood. The 1941 model year set a record for Pontiac with 330,361 cars sold.

Pontiac’s sales hit the doldrums in the years following World War II as the styling became conservative and ornate. Then on July 1, 1956, Semon “Bunkie” Knudsen became the division’s general manager at the tender age of 43. With the 31-year-old John Z. DeLorean at Knudsen's side, change was coming. In 1968, Knudsen told Time Magazine that Pontiac’s big problem when he arrived was its “grandma image.” So he told the designers to rip the trim off the hoods of the 1957 models that were just weeks away from production. And during the 1957 model year he was able to put the Star Chief Custom Bonneville convertible into production with a fuel-injected version of Pontiac’s 5.7-liter (347-cubic-inch) V-8 under its hood. Only 630 were produced.

The all-new Pontiacs for 1958 included the now regular-production Bonneville coupe and convertible at the top of the line. And to build even more excitement for the division, in March 1958 high-performance “PK” and “PM” versions of the 6.1-liter (370-cubic-inch) V-8 were added to the option list. The PK engine was rated at 315 horsepower, while the PM powerplant, which included triple-carbureted “Tri-Power” induction, was good for 330.

In 1959, Pontiac began advertising that its vehicles benefited from a “Wide-Track” stance. And by 1960, Pontiacs were regularly winning races in both NASCAR and NHRA competition.

Between 1959 and 1971 many Pontiac ads featured the brilliant illustrations of Art Fitzpatrick and Van Kaufman. The illustrations always emphasized the Wide-Track styling and put the cars in glamorous places like elegant supper clubs, the middle of Paris, and near jets. Or, as in this 1960 Bonneville ad, at a lodge après ski. It all helped Pontiac rise to become the third-bestselling auto brand in 1961.

Officially, General Motors wasn’t involved in racing during 1962. But Glenn “Fireball” Roberts won both his qualifying race and the 500 at Daytona that February driving a Catalina tuned by Smokey Yunick. Joe Weatherly, driving Bud Moore–prepared Pontiacs, won nine races and the NASCAR Grand National championship that year. (Pictured: Linda Vaughn, Miss Pontiac; Cindy Pike, Miss Autolite; Fireball Roberts; and Mary Ann Mobley, 1959 Miss America)

Pete Estes took over as Pontiac general manager in 1961 as Knudsen was promoted to run Chevrolet. Working as chief engineer alongside Estes was John DeLorean, who continued to champion high-performance cars as GM confronted the increasingly youth-oriented 1960s. With GM completely withdrawn from racing after 1963, the Tempest GTO was DeLorean’s sneaky way to circumvent that ban by putting Pontiac’s 6.4-liter (389-cubic-inch) V-8 into its smallest and lightest car.

DeLorean took over Pontiac in 1965 and continued to innovate as Pontiac thrived throughout the muscle-car era. He also moved the full-size Grand Prix personal-luxury car down to GM’s intermediate platform for 1969. Pontiac sold only 31,711 big Grand Prix hardtops in ’68 and a whopping 112,486 mid-size Grand Prix coupes in ’69. That was enough to get DeLorean promoted to general manager of Chevrolet in 1969. By 1972, Pontiac had dropped out of third place in the sales race and would never recover.

While the GTO withered away in the 1970s, Pontiac kept its Trans Am focused on muscular performance after most of Detroit’s carmakers had given up. The 1974 Firebird Trans Am was available with the legendary 7.5-liter 455 Super Duty V-8 ludicrously underrated at 290 horsepower. Over its two-year production run (1973 and 1974) Pontiac made only 1296 Super Duty–equipped Firebird Trans Ams and Formulas.

In 1976, Pontiac introduced the Special Edition version of the Trans Am with its black paint trimmed in gold and a giant screaming chicken on its hood. Output of the top 6.6-liter (400-cubic-inch) V-8 was down to just 200 horsepower, but still 46,701 Trans Ams were sold in ’76. A new “Batmobile” style front end came for 1977 and that attracted more buyers. But something else happened, too . . .

Smokey and the Bandit is what happened in 1977. Celebrating everything polite company was supposed to be beyond celebrating, Smokey was a riotously funny megahit that put Burt Reynolds in the driver’s seat of a 1977 Special Edition Trans Am. Not only did it become an indelible part of American culture, it sold a lot of Trans Ams: 68,745 in ’77—a more than 47 percent increase over ’76. Then another 93,341 were sold in ’78 and an astonishing 117,108 in ’79. The disastrous adoption of an uglier nose and a turbocharged 4.9-liter V-8 in 1980 saw sales collapse down to 50,896 and only 33,493 in ’81.

At the 1980 Chicago auto show, the Firebird was displayed with dignity and restraint . . . and a hot babe wearing your mom’s (or grandmother's) drapes.

When exactly it was that Pontiac lost its Knudsen/DeLorean mojo is open to debate. But the first front-drive Pontiac, the 1980 Phoenix is a good place to start the discussion. Like other members of GM’s notorious X-car family, the Phoenix was an occasionally rolling nightmare of poor quality, constant recalls, and awkward proportions. But Pontiac sold 178,291 of these misery-makers that first year before word got out and sales practically vanished.

A bright spot during the 1980s was Pontiac’s sportiest version of GM’s otherwise generic A-body front-drive mid-size cars. We named the 6000STE to our 1983 10Best list, deeming it “in every way a Car and Driver kind of car. Fun to drive, economical, distinctive in appearance, comfortable in an active participant’s sense of the word, and absolutely contemporary.” It made the 10Best lists in ’84 and ’85, too.

The Fiero 2M4 was such a promising idea that it earned a spot on C/D’s 1984 10Best Cars list. “This car breaks all of the rules set by the timid, for it’s not just a functional box,” we wrote. “It has but two seats, it’s disc-braked and independently sprung, and its engine is in the middle. It’s also about the prettiest car built in the country.” But the Fiero was undermined by its lousy 2.5-liter “Iron Duke” four-cylinder engine and a front suspension swiped from Chevy’s crummy Chevette. Over the next four years it would get better, but by the time it was good no one cared.

Remember the Fiero