General Motors Contemplates Axing Pontiac And GMC Brands

They are going to have to stop contemplating and start doing.

Totally agree and suitable for your 'roundwego'. Man this should have been DONE in Jan/Feb. I get it will take time to phase out but an announcement would've given us hope that something - anything - was going on at GM. This needs to happen yesterday!

GMC should have been gone years ago, but Pontiac I will miss! I hope the G8 gets a new nameplate... Saturn? =*

Aztecs have not been made in ten years ans cars such as the solstice and the G8 are world class.

SATURN??? The G8? Are you on meth? That car was born to be an Impala SS. They should have eliminated Pontiac and made this car the Impala SS from the very beginning. They don't need Pontiac's debatable 'performance' brand image to sell performance cars, the 'Chevrolet SS' sub-brand has more actual performance heritage and would be perfectly suited to execute Pontiac's intended mission in a more cost-effect manner.

G8 need to become a chevy model.... Death to Pontiac, and Saturn. However I do wish there was a way to have a Firebird / Trans AM again

you do, its called the Camaro. Remember, GM isn't running things like they used to...make one car, modify the front and rear bumper and re-badge it as two other "different" cars.

they should just sell the G8 as a chevy impala. they already do in south africa. they should just get rid of pontiac and gmc even though i drive a g8 gt they need to do what they can to save GM.

This would be a move that's been long overdue. Talk about redundancy! Just cuz you put more chrome on a GMC p/u doesn't make it any different than a Chevy.

There's not a single GMC that's not rebadged as a Chevy. I don't know why this brand lasted as long as it did.

GMC was started so GM divisions had trucks to sell. They didn't want a Buick dealer to sell Chevy trucks.

The G8 should be a Chevy as the G6.Why does GM need a Firebird when they have a Camaro?A GTO made more sense.The problem is it had bland styling.GM does not need Pontiac or GMC.It's always been duplication with GM.That's part of their problem.Car companies that make the same car with a different badge eventually will fail.

Duh!!!

GM should have considered dropping brands years ago. I don't think that selling them (BadGM Ch11 plan) is a very smart idea as they'd be selling off they rights to these historical nameplates. GM should definitely consider selling some their manufacturing facilities and shut 3-4 brands.

I would consider keeping GMC only to sell commercial trucks & SUVs for govt & business organizations. But Cadillac & Chevy remain consumer-oriented only.

I have been saying this since day one of that all shebang, Chevrolet and Cadillac stay, using the Japanese model of one "high volume brand" and one "luxury brand". When Agent001 posted "You are the Car Czar", this is what I said: GMC, Hummer, Saab, Saturn, Pontiac have to die.
I do feel bad for Pontiac because the G8 is one sweet ride and that means the Trans Am will never come back. But as it has been said here, the G8 will make a very nice Impala.
Buick has to stay alive but mainly for the Chinese market, so I would kill it for the US market, the Enclave would make a nice replacement for the Suburban. Even the solstice or the Sky could find their way back into the Chevy or even the Cadillac line up. All the rest can go "bye bye".The sad fact is that the for now and for the unseen future, the US auto market is dead, any brand that rely mainly on US sales to survive is in deep trouble, that includes the Big three but also the like of lexus, Infiniti, Acura and to some extend BMW and M-B. For the big three to survive they need to keep the brands and specifically the models that are truly "Global" meaning that sell in the 10's to 100's of thousand worldwilde every month. Everything else, the AX is waiting.

Well done. +1 X 10

Good, that means I will get a great deal on a Deanli.

They really should kill everything except Chevy and Cadillac. Even Buick in America. Once they kill Pontiac and GMC, the Buick dealers won't have enough products to stand on their own anyway.
Perfect example: I like the Enclave much better than the RX and the ML, but driving a Buick just doesn't match Lexus or MB for prestige or dealer experience. Repackage the Enclave with a V8 as a slightly smaller new Escalade, and then we're in business.
If Cadillac is a luxury brand, then why do you need an 'almost' luxury brand? In today's market, a fully optioned Chevy should be almost as nice as an entry Cadillac - just like an Avalon very nearly approaches the Lexus experience.
They could use some of those swoopy new Buick design themes to refresh the Cadillac design language, because those angles are starting to get old.

Presuming they do "kill off" pontiac... I wonder if they ever would produce an occasional halo car sold from chevy lots but with a pontiac badge. It would be a limited production run type situation where they could produce high value cars (at premium prices to offset the low volume) such as a new trans-am. They would still sell because some people would just have to have them, and it would maintain the history while building a reputation for thier existing brands.

I always thought GM would be best with just:

Corvette (its own sub brand,similar distribution as Dodge did with Viper)

Cadillac (luxury stuff)

GMC (trucks/suvs only)

Saturn (passenger cars only)

The Pontiac name always makes me think of Bonnevilles and body cladding. Buick is doing some good things, but falls into a weird price point. So they go.

And screw the Chevy/Chevrolet names. They just scream old-fashioned and the bow-tie has always been a crappy logo in my eyes.

despite your opinion, Chevy is GM's bread and butter. Killing it and abandoning its scores of loyal customers (there are still a great many of them) would be suicide. Saturn's dealer network and brand strength are inadequate to displace Chevrolet as the high-volume car brand.
I think the bowtie is fine, I've always preferred it to that stupid blue oval.

The number one traded in car for the Malibu is the Camry, they have a winner there, and have you seen the torque curve on the cobalt ss? it's insane! No, the Chevy name is a good thing. People will always have a hard time thinking of Saturn as sporty, or even nice looking due to the crap that has been tagged by it. And unfortuneatly, I agree the Pontiac name has been tainted by to many Bonnevilles (decent car, but should have been a Buick) and the latest G3/5/6.

But really, has the Chevy name and branding been that successful in the past decade?

And you say it would be "suicide" for them to ditch the brand and logo.

But hasn't everything GM done in the past few years added up to an act of suicide?

Desperate times, desperate measures type thinking is needed.

Too little, too late.

Wrong.

The good doctor is right. This decision is well over a year too late but it's a tough decision for GM when they have everybody crying for a new Camaro, a new Firebird, a new Trans Am, don't kill Caddy, how about a retro Fiero? GM really needs to trim the fat, consolidate, and provide a simple offering of some well designed, well built (yeah right) cars and trucks and do their market research.

IMO Pontiac should stay as a niche brand and Buick actually can go but this might affect its China business as Buick is the only brand GM has there.