Pontiac History: From Oakland's Companion to GM's Performance Brand

Pontiac at a glance

Oakland roots and the first Pontiac (1907–1931)

The story starts with Edward Murphy, a maker of horse-drawn carriages in Pontiac, Michigan. In 1907 he founded the Oakland Motor Car Company, and early accounts describe its first car as a light two-cylinder model of about 12 hp. William C. Durant bought Oakland for General Motors in 1909, a year after founding GM in Flint.

GM planned a "companion make" for each of its divisions in the 1920s, a cheaper car sharing the dealer network. Oakland's companion was the Pontiac Series 6-27 of 1926, a six-cylinder car priced between Chevrolet and Oakland. It sold 39,000 units in its first six months and 76,742 in its first year. By 1928 Pontiac was the best-selling six-cylinder car in the United States and seventh among all brands.

The Wall Street Crash of 1929 decided the family dispute. GM kept the cheaper and more popular Pontiac, dropped the Oakland in 1931 and made Pontiac a division of its own. Between 1927 and 1941 knock-down kits were also assembled at GM's plant in Osaka, Japan.

From Silver Streak to Chieftain (1932–1955)

Through the 1930s the division sold sensible family cars with a few memorable details. In 1933 it switched to straight-eight engines and added the "Silver Streak" chrome strips on the bonnet, a styling signature that lasted until 1956. An all-steel body arrived in 1937, and a new streamlined range followed in 1940.

On 2 February 1942 the Pontiac plant built the last civilian car made in the United States before the country's car plants turned to war production. The cars sold from 1946 to 1948 were updated pre-war designs. The Hydramatic automatic gearbox was offered from 1948, and the first all-new post-war cars came in 1949, when the Chieftain line took over.

The Catalina name first appeared in 1950 on a pillarless hardtop coupé, and the Star Chief joined the range in 1954. In 1955 the division dropped its six-cylinder engines and introduced the Strato Streak V8, an overhead-valve unit with 129 kW (173 hp). This engine became the base for the performance cars of the next 15 years: nine years later, the strongest GTO engine had twice its output.

Knudsen, DeLorean and the performance years (1956–1970)

The turning point came in 1956, when Semon "Bunkie" Knudsen became general manager and brought in Pete Estes and John Z. DeLorean as engineers. Their brief was to make a dull brand exciting.

• 1957: the first Bonneville, a fuel-injected Star Chief convertible built in about 630 examples, showed the new direction.
• 1959: "Wide-Track" styling widened the track by 5 inches (127 mm), the split grille and arrowhead badge appeared, and Motor Trend named the whole range Car of the Year.
• 1961: the compact Tempest, with a rear transaxle and curved driveshaft, won Car of the Year again.
• 1962: the Grand Prix personal luxury coupé arrived, and the brand rose to third place in the American market, a position it held until 1970.
• 1964: the GTO, an option package for the Tempest LeMans with a 389 cu in (6.4-litre) V8 of 242 kW (325 hp) or 260 kW (348 hp), started the muscle-car era. Jim Wangers of Pontiac's advertising agency helped launch it.
• 1965: DeLorean became general manager, and the range won a third Car of the Year title.
• 1967: the Firebird pony car, built on the same F-body as the Chevrolet Camaro, answered the Ford Mustang.
• 1969: the Trans Am package appeared on the Firebird, and the new Grand Prix sold about 112,000 cars, four times the 1968 total.

The full story of the muscle car is on the Pontiac GTO page, and the four Firebird generations are covered on the Pontiac Firebird page.

Emissions, downsizing and the Fiero (1971–1988)

Lower compression for unleaded fuel cut engine outputs from 1971, and insurance costs hurt the muscle cars. The Tempest name ended in 1972, while the Colonnade Grand Am of 1973 and the Super Duty 455 engine kept some of the old spirit. The Astre of 1975, a version of the Chevrolet Vega, was the brand's first small economy car.

The 1976 full-size cars were the last with the big V8 engines. GM downsized its range in 1977, and the first front-wheel-drive model, the Phoenix, followed in 1980. The wedge-shaped third-generation Firebird of 1982 restored some of the excitement.

The boldest model of the decade was the 1984 Fiero, a two-seat coupé with the engine mounted in the middle. Its arrival brought the division's first sales increase in four years. By 1988 Pontiac was again the third-best-selling American make, and the median age of its buyers had fallen from 46 to 38 since 1981.

Badge engineering and the final decades (1989–2010)

Division sales peaked at 801,600 units in 1989, the year the last rear-drive full-size Pontiac, the Safari estate, ended. The 1990s brought the Trans Sport minivan, a new Bonneville and the fourth-generation Firebird, which received the LS1 V8 with 227 kW (305 hp) in 1998. The Grand Prix "Wider is Better" campaign and the supercharged GTP kept the performance image alive.

After 2000 the range became harder to explain. The 2001 Aztek crossover was widely criticised for its looks, and the Firebird ended in 2002. Several later models were built with partners. The Pontiac Vibe shared its design with the Toyota Matrix. The 2004 GTO was based on the Australian Holden Monaro, and the rear-drive G8 of 2008 also came from Holden.

The Bonneville ended in 2005 after almost 50 years, the Solstice roadster ran from 2006 to 2009, and the G6 replaced the Grand Am. The last NASCAR Cup win came in 2003.

On 2 December 2008 GM told the United States Congress that it was considering closing several brands to qualify for federal loans. GM confirmed the end of Pontiac on 27 April 2009. The last car, a white 2010 G6 saloon with a 3.5-litre V6, left the Orion Township plant on 4 January 2010. The franchise agreements expired on 31 October 2010. Pontiac became the second historic GM brand to close in six years, after Oldsmobile in 2004.

Landmark models from 84 years

The brand's history spans 84 years from the first Series 6-27 to the expiry of the dealer contracts. By our calculation, its annual sales grew more than tenfold in that time, from 76,742 cars in the Series 6-27's first year to 801,600 in 1989. The other lost brands of the American industry are covered in the story of the missing American car brands.

Racing: NASCAR, Indianapolis and Trans Am

The racing image was built in the late 1950s, when Knudsen's team developed multi-carburettor V8 engines for NASCAR. A Tri-Power Bonneville paced the 1958 Indianapolis 500. The Trans Am name came from the SCCA Trans-American racing series. The brand remained in NASCAR's top series until 2003, when Ricky Craven won the last Cup race for the brand at Darlington.

How the brand compared with its GM sister makes

Within GM's price ladder, the brand sat above Chevrolet and below Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac. It often shared bodies with Chevrolet: the Firebird with the Camaro, the Astre with the Vega and the Phoenix with the Citation. Its role was to add style and performance at a small premium. From the late 1950s to 1970 that formula made it the third-biggest American brand. Later, too many badge-engineered models blurred the difference. The parent company's own story is told in the history of General Motors.

Which classic Pontiac to buy

For most collectors the clear choice is a 1964–1970 GTO or a first- or second-generation Firebird Trans Am. Parts supply is good, values are well documented and the cars are easy to work on. Buyers on a smaller budget can look at the 1980s Fiero or a fourth-generation Firebird with the LS1 V8, which offers modern performance and reliability. The best approach is to compare original build records, check numbers-matching engines and avoid heavily modified cars. The 1cars ranking of the most powerful coupés shows how a classic GTO or Trans Am stacks up by power. You can set two candidates side by side in the 1cars comparison tool and browse more American classics of the period in the 1960s classics section.

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