This week for Way Back Wednesday, I was sitting and thinking about our new car, a Kia Sedona.  As I was thinking about it I began to thing about the demise of the Pontiac Brand, and other car brands that have gone by the wayside over the years.  One of my first cars in fact was a Plymoth Colt.  It was a funny looking car that was actually a Mitsubishi import.  So today we will honor the cars that are going, or gone, and some of the more memorable vehicles they brought us.

Pontiac
The Pontiac brand was introduced by General Motors in 1926 as the ‘companion’ marque to GM’s Oakland Motor Car line. (1926-2009) The Pontiac name was first used in 1900 by the Pontiac Spring & Wagon Works. The name was taken from Chief Pontiac, an American Indian chief who led an unsuccessful uprising against the British shortly after the French and Indian War.

Introduced in 1982, the wedge shaped Firebird was the first major redesign of the venerable pony car since the early 1970s. Partly due to the hugely successful NBC television series Knight Rider, it was an instant success and provided Pontiac with a foundation on which to build successively more performance oriented models over the next decade.  On April 27, 2009, GM officially announced that Pontiac will be dropped and that all of its remaining models will be phased out by the end of 2010. Enjoy the commecial for the 1982 Pontiac Firebird.

 Plymouth
The Plymouth automobile was introduced on July 7, 1928. It was the Chrysler Corporation’s first entry in the low-priced field, which at the time was dominated by Chevrolet and Ford. Plymouths were actually priced a little higher than the competition, but they offered standard features such as internal expanding hydraulic brakes that the competition did not provide. Plymouths were originally sold exclusively through Chrysler dealerships. 

While the original purpose of the Plymouth was simply to cover a lower-end marketing niche, during the Great Depression of the 1930s the car would help significantly in ensuring the survival of the Chrysler Corporation in a decade when many other car companies failed.  DaimlerChrysler decided to drop the make after a limited run of 2001 models. This was announced on November 3, 1999.  Here is a commercial for the 86′ Plymoth Colt.

Oldsmobile
Oldsmobiles were first manufactured by the Olds Motor Works in Lansing, Michigan, a company founded by Ransom E. Olds in 1897. In 1901, the company produced 425 cars, making it the first high-volume gasoline-powered automobile manufacturer. Olds became the top selling car company in the United States for a few years. Ransom Olds left the company in financial difficulties and formed the REO Motor Car Company. The last Curved Dash Olds was made in 1907. General Motors purchased the company in 1908.

Oldsmobile sales soared in the 1970s and 1980s (for an all-time high of 1,066,122 in 1985) based on popular designs, positive reviews from critics and the perceived quality and reliability of the Rocket V8 engine, with the Cutlass series becoming North America’s top selling car by 1976. By this time, Olds had displaced Pontiac and Plymouth as the #3 best selling brand in the U.S. behind Chevrolet and Ford. In the early 1980s, model-year production topped one million units on several occasions, something only Chevrolet and Ford had achieved.

In spite of Oldsmobile’s critical successes since the mid-1990s, a reported shortfall in sales and overall profitability prompted General Motors to announce in December 2000 their plans to phase out the Oldsmobile brand.  Even you could drive the 87′ Cutlass.

 Until Next Time.

~Family Man