Demise of Pontiac

We had an '82 Rabbit diesel back in the eighties, I remember having to shut off the a/c and often downshift for any kind of grade at all. Forget about passing anybody. We also had an '83 FI gas Rabbit from new, much more entertaining to drive.

I had a 78 Rabbit--German-made since the Diesel models at that time were all made in Germany. I commuted from South Bend, IN, to Cleveland, OH, often, and the little "Hun-Bunny" really DID get 53-55 mpg on the Turnpike. But in the winter it had all the warmth of your estranged mother-in-law. MAN it ran cold-blooded!

Unfortunately, VW tried to convert their Gasoline-block to Diesel and it lacked sufficient head bolts. After zillions of heads warped, VW added add'l head bolts to later model engines to hold the pieces together.

I sure loved the economy of that car. I sure hated the heat problem and the warped heads. I am looking seriously at the new Diesel Jetta though. VW has had a few decades to get it right.

--Tom

Chris Summers wrote: The new Corvettes are engineering marvels. But then, I was born a Corvette guy, and will die a Corvette guy, no matter what Indiana-born hussies try to win my heart in the meantime.

I have driven a few C6 Corvettes at work and really like them. Yesterday we had a 2007 Indy pace car convertible come in, man, what a sweet car! I checked KBB and found the average retail is about $39K. So I'd have to sell the AMX to get one.

Maybe for a Cord, but not for a Corvette! <!-- s:lol: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_lol.gif" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing" /><!-- s:lol: -->

rockyvoss wrote: ....Part 3
When the VW Rabbit came out in the 70s, I think got 52 mpg, read newspaper article where a guy had a custom tank made that fit in the spare tire well and held 10 gallons of gas. said he could drive from Houston tx to LA without stopping for gas.

A freind of mine had a Diesel VW rabbit back then with an aftermarket tank in the spare tire well.(no spare and a can of fix-a-flat) He could drive from AZ to MN without stopping to fill up.

I rode with him, and about 1/2 mile after the light turned green, we were doing about 50 mph. I was getting impatient, so I asked him when he was going to step on it. He said he had it to the boards the whole time. So the fuel mileage was good, but the performance was completely unacceptable. <!-- s:evil: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_evil.gif" alt=":evil:" title="Evil or Very Mad" /><!-- s:evil: -->


To solve the crisis in the US auto industry, the solution is simple: Eliminate all goverment mandates & regulations on American Industry. Eliminate all corperate taxation. Eliminate all goverment regulations on cars. Eliminate all laws that prop up the labor unions.

Turn good old American entrepenurialism loose, cut off the shackles, restore Freedom to our Free Enterprise system, and watch it soar!

The new Corvettes are engineering marvels. But then, I was born a Corvette guy, and will die a Corvette guy, no matter what Indiana-born hussies try to win my heart in the meantime.

Paul Bryant tells me he gets 72 MPG in his Prius in the summer. Paul doesn't stretch the truth.
CORDially Mike

Hey fellows, I had to put my 2 cents in on this one.
I bought a new Buick Roadmaster in 1994, very heavy for a car. I had
300 HP. This car got 18-19 mpg in town and 25-26 highway. the new Corvettes have 400 or so HP and do not have a gas guzzler tax as they dont guzzle gas.
Part 2
About SUVS, I think a vast majority of suv customers are soccer moms ,and are todays station wagon. every one of these suvs has a heavy geared rear end for pulling trailers and boats. very few of them are used to haul loads. in the past pick up trucks and subs offered different rear end ratios for pulling or light duty. They havent done this in years.
The dealer tried to tell me that the overdrive transmission compinsated for the low rear gear.

Part 3
When the VW Rabbit came out in the 70s, I think got 52 mpg, read newspaper article where a guy had a custom tank made that fit in the spare tire well and held 10 gallons of gas. said he could drive from Houston tx to LA without stopping for gas.

The government may want 60 mpg cars, but they keep throwing more regs at all the mfrs. that keep them from doing it. The Honda Civic was pretty close to that when it first hit our shores. The much ballyhooed Smartcar can't match it today. What's wrong with this picture?

When Washington takes over the car business, all that will happen is another layer of bureaucracy will be formed. Sorry for being a pessimist, but we've seen it happen all too often.

Hi Guys,
This rethinking of the auto industry has been a long time in the making, in 73 there were gas lines, did anyone care? Not really, the cars became bigger and less efficient.
The latest thing in the GM arsenal is the Camaro. Fine car but in this climate the feds want 60-mpg vehicles. No cure for what ails Detroit.
Sure a smart car is not worth a darn but this type of car is what is being mandated by government regulations.
We are being held hostage by the oil producing nations. If there were some way to build another engine these problems would go away. We build the best cars on the planet
An automobile is only four wheels, two that steer.
If you go into a new car dealership today I am sure there will be something that would interest you. Quality is nothing like the seventies and emissions are as low as possible with internal combustion engines. To compare one make auto from another is fruitless.
I came to this opinion as I walked thru the acres of junk cars parked at the local pick apart. There were rows and rows of old deceased vehicles. Some that would have only needed a tune up to run. They were all equal in this setting. There were Volvos, Mercedes, Toyotas, and Cadillac?s.
I saw a late model Suburban completely stripped to the frame in two hours. This is the bone yard where all marques are equal.
They all fall into this abyss without a caring owner.
Berry Gordy created Motown music, his motto was, ?Make music people would go without food to buy.? The auto manufacturers would be wise to go by this ideal and build cars people would go without to buy.

?The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps-we must step up the stairs.? ?Vance Havne

Agreed, the extra cost of domestic cars vs. imports includes the UAW deals noted earlier. It doesn't seem possible that a car can be built in Japan, sent over on a ship and still sold for far less than a comparable car built right here by Americans. And the foreign makers building cars in the U.S. aren't doing this to be good neighbors, it's to avoid trade imbalance tariffs. Enough about that.

I agree with Mike that Chevy and Cadillac will be the ultimate winners at GM. I predict that Buick (if it survives) will become an overseas brand like Opel or Holden. GMC will die as all remaining GM dealerships will be selling Chevy trucks already. Either that or Chevy trucks will disappear in favor of the GMC brand but it will no longer be a separate division.

Ford will survive but Mercury wont. Mercury is like Plymouth was, duplicate models which cost more. We bought a Sable but I didn't consider it any better than a Taurus, it's just that the dealership was closer to home so they got our business. I hope that Lincoln will ultimately find their way and give Cadillac a run again.

Chrysler and Fiat are reportedly close to hooking up. I would hope that Chrysler would be the dominant partner and only use Fiat platforms for a few low end economy models (to keep Uncle Sam happy). The Ram trucks and 300/Challenger seem too popular to scrap any time soon but who knows? The Chrysler/Fiat deal brings back too many memories of the AMC/Renault marriage and we all know how that turned out.

I'm only going from family and personal experience. As they say, "Your experience may differ."

I come from a lower middle-class family. There are three of us. We couldn't afford what any of the U.S. automakers were building, BEFORE the "economic crisis." I would LOVE to drive a Charger or a 300C, and I've been a Corvette guy since my grandfather gave me a ride in his '79 when I was a toddler. I wanted an Impala; we looked at them, and they were $10,000 more expensive than the $15,000 Mitsubishi Galant I drive now. We couldn't do it on our budget.

But hey, I agree on the UAW, and I've always thought AMC got a very unfair, bad rap, so at least we agree on some issues.

And yes, it is sad to see Pontiac go, irregardless. Like Oldsmobile it had been stripped down to nothing in the past few years.

What do I think will be left? Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, and Corvette as a separate division. Chrysler will built Americanized Fiats. And Ford will still be Ford.

Chris, I believe the idea that Asian cars are superior to American products is pretty much a myth, as J.D. Powers will tell you. Sure the Big 3 (or the old Big 4) built some real crap over the years, but so did the Japanese. I remember going to my first rock concert in 1979 as payment for patching rust holes on my neighbor's 2 or 3 year old Honda Civic CVCC. The cause was a sponge-like material pumped into body panels to give the cars a quieter and more solid feel. Or how about in the mid-1980s when I worked at a Subaru dealership where the techs had to recut rear brake drum bolted to the wheel and tire assembly because torquing the lugs would distort the drums. Nobody remembers this stuff because those cars are long gone. Back when many U.S. cars left a lot to be desired the Japanese cars weren't much better. They were installing a great engine into a junk body.

As a Cord fan I hesitate to throw this out but I believe the root of GM's current problems is their decision in the mid-1970s to convert most of their cars to front wheel drive. The first Olds Toronado was a nicely done car but something of a novelty, its sales did not dictate a wholesale switch to FWD. At the same time the rear drive Cutlass was America's best selling car, GM made the decision to switch all of their cars (except the Corvette and F-Bodies) to FWD beginning with the Citation and it's counterparts introduced in April 1979. As GM switched car line after car line to front drive BMW embraced rear drive and look how they have grown since the 1970s. Today most of the American cars that people are still excited about are rear drive: Mustang, Challenger, Charger, 300C, Pontiac G8, the upcoming Camaro, and trucks.

Then there are the crippling labor contracts dictated by the UAW (under threat of strikes) which were signed back when things were good. All of these benefits for workers, widows and retirees cost a lot of money and forced GM to further cheapen their products, at the same time the foreign competitors (who don't take the same care of their workers) were using their capital to [i:1p9qajgz]improve[/i:1p9qajgz] theirs.

If this isn't bad enough the current financial crisis which is keeping many many people from buying new cars, either because they cannot get financing or because they want to hold onto their money "just in case". I don't see how this factor can be blamed on GM, Ford or Chrysler.

I read a lot of comments from people who believe that the Big 3 should be on their own just because they build Hummers, Escalades, Excursions, etc. But you can't fault them for building profitable vehicles that people wanted [i:1p9qajgz]and[/i:1p9qajgz] bought before gas reached $4 a gallon last year. Who could have seen that coming? People forget that the current Big 3 have also produced ecomony models since the early 1960s (Falcon, Corvair, Chevy II, Valiant) but today it's fashionable to drive a Lexus and bash American cars.

Another take on this is that soon you will only be able to buy cars approved by the Fed. When they take over GM we'll all be driving Azteks or worse and can forget about anything with style or remotely fun. Scuttlebut is that when its all done, all that will remain is Chevrolet &amp; Cadillac. Their recent shabby treatment of the GM head leaves me without much hope.

The Big Three were so convinced of their innate superiority to the Japanese and Korean automakers that for years they jammed their...doubtful products down America's throat. "We're American, we're building this, and you'll buy it."

Among the vehicles they built was the Ford Escort, my parents' example of which broke down as often as a two dollar watch. They purchased the Escort after test-driving a Dodge Omni, which broke down DURING the test drive.

Americans buy foreign automobiles for a reason: since the 1970s, they've been better. They have given us what we wanted, when we wanted it, and with better build quality and better reliability to boot. People are not going to spend $25,000 to "buy American" and get a piece of junk, when they can pay $15,000 for a foreign car and get something reliable, especially in this economy. There ARE exceptions; I loved the Chevy Impala that was my driver's ed car, and I think Ford is turning out some great stuff.

I feel very badly for the workers who are losing their jobs from this, but not for the companies themselves. They saw the writing on the wall and ignored it, and now they're paying the consequences. Really sad, but it's also what happens when you fail to give the customer what they want.

I like the old Pontiacs, especially the late 50's and the Muscle Cars.


It doesn't make sense to kill off such popular and well loved brands as Pontiac, Olds, and Plymouth. It seems that the people at these car companies have lost their minds over the last 10 - 20 years. They killed off cars like the GTO, Lemans, 2+2, and built cars like the Aztec??? Then when they reintroduced the GTO, it looked more like a cow pie than a GTO? Olds spends 2 decades building up the Cutlass to be the most popular Olds in the history of the world, then they kill off the Cutlass and introduce some other lame name that I can't even remember anymore???


I am concerned that the way things are going Liberty and Free Enterprise as we know it will soon follow Pontiac down the drain....

Any thoughts or comments on this latest loss of another domestic brand? I've never owned a Pontiac, my only 2 GM's so far were a '74 C10 and a '95 Impala SS, but I sure hate to see another American car line bite the dust. <!-- s:cry: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_cry.gif" alt="" title="Crying or Very sad" /><!-- s:cry: -->

When the dust settles who do you think will be left?