I had a 1971 LeMans that I bought for $200 as a winter car. Put 20k miles on it and sold it to a buddy for $100!

 

I have never owned a Pontiac but the first car I remember "falling in love with" was my neighbors red 76 Trans Am It was SO sexy with the sleek front end, hood scoop and spoiler.

I was 10, the neighbor was the older brother of my best friend so I was over at their house all the time. I used to wash the car for him several times a week, right down to cleaning the tires.

He posed with the car in his senior pictures

The night before he sold the car he took all us "kids" for a ride in it. Everyone knew how much I loved the car and they let me sit in the front seat

KITT of Knight Rider fame was of course, also a Pontiac, another of my all time favorite cars. Anyone remember when they installed the "C" button/mod?

I'm not a fan of American cars in general but it's VERY sad to see a company that has been around this long closing down.

 

The golden era for Pontiac was clearly in the 1960's. A head count of the posts so far confirm that:

'30s - 1
'40s - 0
'50s - 1
'60s - 15
'70s - 8
'80s - 3
'90s - 4
'00s - 0

Here's a few of the legendary Pontiac names:
Bonneville, Catalina, Tempest, Le Mans, GTO, "The Judge," Grand Prix, Firebird and Trans-Am.

The rich additions to the automotive lexicon were legendary too:
"389," "421," "455SD," "Tri-Power," "eight-lug" aluminum wheels, Royal Bobcats, "Endura" front bumpers, hood-mounted tachs.

The marketing and advertising hooks were equally memorable:
"Wide Track" being the most famous.

RIP Pontiac.

 

My only experience with a Pontiac is with a (then) brand new 1964 GTO (Goat) with a 389/348 HP motor. It had the Muncie 4 spd and brakes that tended to give new meaning to brake fad at the least opportune moments! It was scary fast for it's day and provided seating for six comfortably and road very smoothly down any kind of road.

 

The legendary Bunkie Knudsen along with a gifted young engineer named John Z. DeLorean did build some excitement. The '64 GTO was a great one.

 

OK. I confess. By 1969 I was tired of wrenching on Chebbies and started buying Mopars, Hondas, and two Sprites. I never did buy another GM product. After I went to work for Ford in 1986I bought my first Ford and it has been mostly Fords and Mercurys ever since. I did buy two hondas - the 1982 Passport and the S.

 

Here's a quote from a post on another site that sums up quite well what the 60s at Pontiac was about..

"Pontiac was to GM what the writers on the Smother's Brothers Comedy Hour were to the censors on CBS. If there was a way around the stuffed shirts in the GM building, the guys at Pontiac knew the secret. You drove a Pontiac because it represented who you were. I can remember people lined up in our showroom waiting to take a turn with the sledge hammer to whack the Endura bumper on a Verdoro Green '68 GTO. Pontiac didn't just want to beat Ford, they wanted to kick the crap out of Chevy. It was such a healthy rivalry that all of GM was better off because of it. Now that spirit has been suffocated. GM will never again be the same. It's a corporation that has lost its soul."

 

I would have thought Buick would have been the one to go, given that they are rather boring.....but apparently there are plenty of Buick lovers.

Buick is HUGE overseas. A friend of ours who travels to China regularly says Buicks are big time in China.

 

That's how it seemed to me as well. Pontiac built similar cars to the rest of GM, only cooler.

 

1992 Sunbird, 3.1 V6 2 door coupe. Great car