I have some interest in the Pontiac name plate. My Grand father, father and myself all worked at the Pontiac Plant in Pontiac MI. Pontiac was the red-headed step child of GM. In the 60's Pontiac was the number three car manufacturer in the US, behind only Chevrolet and Ford. Arrogance set in and Chevrolet looked upon Pontiac as it's chief rival, especially when it came time to drink from the corporate trough. To make a long story short, Chevrolet eventually won in it's efforts to bury Pontiac, literally. One early casualty of the animosity was the Fiero, which Chevrolet looked as competition against the Corvette. As corporate offices became filled with former Chevrolet personnel, the writing was on the wall. During a visit to the GM Tech center, while looking for work to bring into the Pontiac facility, one engineer told me point blank when I said I was from Pontiac: "Are they still around? I thought they were closed!" This was in 1992, long before Pontiac's actual demise.
During the years, I saw and heard some interesting and amazing things. I saw a Fiero convertible and Fiero's with 4 cylinder engines producing over 400hp that would eat the then current Corvette's lunch at about 1/2 the cost. I saw Trans Am station wagon and Pontiac "El Camino" vehicles. A local stock car racer who raced Pontiac's came to his shop one morning to find a complete aluminum front end sitting outside with no indication where it came from. Richard Petty paid more than one visit to the Pontiac Engineering facility.
Although GM announced the end of corporate sponsored racing in 1963, Pontiac thumbed their nose at the Downtown decision. Parts continued to find their way to racers who supported the brand and as is well known, Pontiac introduced the GTO in 1964, the car credited with creating the muscle car craze. Catalina 2+2's and Grand Prix's sporting 421 super duty engines that required a second battery located in the truck to turn over the high compression engine were also race car favorites. From 1960 through the oil embargo in 1973, Pontiac had some interesting and unique vehicles and drive trains. Their closure as a result of restructuring obviously left a bitter taste in the mouths of the thousands of people who worked there, myself included.
Located in the City on Pontiac is the Pontiac Transportation Museum. It is an interesting place and deals only partially in the Pontiac name plate. The city was the location of multiple car and truck building factories, including Oakland, Yellow Cab - Truck and Bus and even a car named "Pontiac" before the name plate was picked up by the Oakland Motor Car Company (which later changed it's name to Pontiac) for one of it's models in 1926. The museum isn't huge but is worth looking into if you happen to be in the area.
As a certified "shop rat" I have numerous stories of the life inside the sprawling complex that once employed 28,000 workers. The complex was so large that shift changes had to staggered between the different plants to avoid massive traffic jams. If you lived in the city of Pontiac, you either worked for GM or your job was dependent on GM workers. When you consider that the Pontiac plant located on the north end of Pontiac, (including Fisher Body and the warehouse facility) employed 28,000 and the large GMC Truck plant located on the south end of Pontiac employed a similar number of people, it's pretty easy to understand what kind of influence General Motors had on the city with a population of about 60,000. Pontiac, like Flint, MI was a corporate town. And like Flint, when GM all but abandoned the city, the City of Pontiac paid lost a huge portion of it's revue and nearly had to file for bankruptcy under Chapter 9. An emergency manager was appointed who managed to avoid filling but city services were cut to the bone and remain so today. The Pontiac Police force was taken over by the County Sheriff, the fire department merged with neighboring Waterford Township and numerous other cost cutting measures put into place. Even snow removal is a problem once one wanders off the major roads.
The memory of Pontiac's muscle car fame live on in the hearts of enthusiasts however who give Pontiac props for the legacy they created.
