Sad News For Pontiac Fans

By now everyone's heard GM is moving to kill the Pontiac brand. Car and Driver has a nice take, in case you want more history and details.

Whether it was GM mismanagement, changes in world markets or just plain lack of interest, the brand had been slipping for years. Pontiac's failure certainly isn't a sudden event, nor should anyone feign surprise. The division has been struggling too long. But it wasn't the economy that ended the Pontiac line. Any such claims are an excuse.

Ultimately, it may be a case of too little too late. The new Solstice was a nice-looking car with sweet lines that deservingly won awards. The Vibe was a quality compact supplied by Toyota as part of a joint venture in Fremont, California. So the company deserves credit for trying.

But there were too many Aztecs (one of Time Magazine's 50 Worst Cars of All Time) and too many Montanas, which lasted only a handful of years. And where were the F bodies, abandoned after 2002 (answer: Pontiac execs chose to focus on more profitable SUVs, instead, even though that flew in the face of the brand's rich history, character and personality)?

When Pontiac killed the Grand Prix (last year), I knew that was it. This is especially true because I debated purchasing an '08 model. But with the options I wanted, I would have had to pay $30K or so. For a Pontiac that would depreciate 35% (approximately) when I drove it off the lot? It didn't add up.

Regardless of the cause, it's a sad event. I grew up with Pontiacs. My dad and grandmother owned Grand Prixs and Trans Ams (complete with screaming chicken decal), respectively. Friends owned LeMans, Firebirds, Grand Ams and Bonnevilles. I remember lazy summer days as a kid scrubbing my old man's Grand Prix whitewalls and cleaning the maddening spoke wheels. So, too, do I remember the bark of the massive 6.6-liter that powered the late 70s Firebirds with the gaudy brushed-aluminum dashboards.

Those days are gone, though. And so, now, is Pontiac.

Booklist

I've been working too much to pay much attention to the Reds (they appear to be holding steady at .500) or the Bengals (leveraged the draft to stock up on linemen, which is fine and good).

I've been able to knock off a couple books, though. I finally finished Undaunted Courage, the mammoth book on Lewis and Jefferson by Ambrose. I recommend it, definitely.

I also finished Orson Scott Card's Shadow Puppets and Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers.

Shadow Puppets was OK, but I've found myself losing interest in the whole Ender saga. I guess a couple books was enough but four was too many, maybe, for me.

I found Outliers interesting, but most any undergraduate could easily invest hours debunking some of its methods and conclusions. That said, some breezy pop nonweighty nonfiction is needed every now and then.