No Pontiac? I want my G8!
Posted by JimFirst Oldsmobile and now Pontiac and even the vaunted Hummer join the Kaiser, Hudson and others in the halls of other Detroit losers. The irony is that Pontiac now has good cars, only a day late and a dollar short. The four-door G8, an Australian-sourced BMW wannabe, is probably as good a performer as the latter but half of the price. I have had my eye on a G8 GXP with a manual 6-speed for some time although I have yet to spy one on the road or tell my wife.
GM’s predictament is a testament to the results of intellectual inbreeding. All of those alleged car guys all lived and worked in the same upscale suburbs of Detroit and failed to realize that the auto world had tilted to the west. They continued to build cars for the guy in Iowa failing to notice the bulging populations of places like San Diego and Los Angeles. The Japanese figured this out early hiring West Coast hot-rodders and other car guys to design their cars.
In my view the denizens of Grosse Pointe wasted a national trust and as such should be held accountable. Years of efforts from the pioneers of the business was squandered. Michael Moore was right and most people ignored his film about my prime villian, GM’s chair Roger Smith. His smug provincialism drove GM into the ground. Under his watch he produced many truly horrid and forgettable cars.
My Dad started to be a GM man back in 1953 and recently purchased a new Cad. The difference in build quality and good design between his latest car and his last Olds was truly night and day. The worker who painted the Olds used a broom and I am convinced most of the assembly workers who screwed it together must have had their minds on the Lion’s game.
So GM should keep the fantastic G8 package and rebrand it as a Chevrolet. They appropriated the same chassis for the new Camaro and this would be easy. But are they smart enough?
