By Peter M. DeLorenzo
Detroit. That I’ve a deep love of all the pieces Pontiac is well-known. I grew up immersed on this enterprise – proper within the thick of GM’s heyday – and Pontiac performed a vital position in each my childhood and my early promoting profession. That’s why when GM took the chapter tablet in 2008, I used to be crushingly dissatisfied to be taught that the Pontiac Division was one of many belongings to be jettisoned. (And Hummer, too, however thankfully that nameplate has now returned.)
It’s laborious to imagine now, however Pontiac was simply one other GM division again within the mid-50s. It had a lineup of stodgy automobiles, and there was nothing to write down house about. The division existed underneath the GM company umbrella, nevertheless it was decidedly missing in nearly all the pieces when in comparison with GM’s different divisions: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and Oldsmobile. However that might all change when Bunkie Knudsen was appointed a GM vice chairman and the division’s basic supervisor in July of 1956. Knudsen was given the project to inject some life into the division and enhance gross sales, and he was given carte blanche to do it.
As a reminder, in the event you have been a GM vice chairman and divisional basic supervisor again within the day you have been akin to a potentate working a small nation. GM’s divisional basic managers had immense energy with accountability for engineering, manufacturing, gross sales and advertising and marketing. Interested by that compared with how issues function right now, it doesn’t appear actual, as a result of it was so dramatically completely different from right now’s automotive enterprise it’s like studying from a fairytale ebook. However make no mistake, it was very actual, and GM’s divisional basic managers have been like giants roaming the earth, swashbuckling their method via the day-to-day of the enterprise whereas making essential, pivotal choices on the fly. Keep in mind, this was a enterprise that debuted new automobiles each fall with new sheet metallic and new options to go together with them. Once more, compared with how issues are finished right now, it’s simply jaw-dropping to ponder how the enterprise churned again then. Sure, as I’ve stated many, many instances earlier than, it was a unique time and a unique period, however GM’s heyday was actually outstanding in that the company soared due to it, even with the bean counters making an attempt to rein issues in each step of the way in which.
The one area the place GM’s divisional basic managers needed to take a step again was when coping with GM Styling, which was run with an iron fist by design legend Invoice Mitchell, who inherited the mantle from Harley Earl. The clashes between Mitchell and GM’s divisional basic managers have been legendary, and I’ll save these tales for an additional column. However suffice to say, Mitchell acquired what he needed for probably the most half, even when he needed to play the divisional basic managers off in opposition to one another to take action.
However again to Bunkie and Pontiac. His first hires have been two younger and gifted engineers – Pete Estes from Oldsmobile and John Z. DeLorean from Packard. The cost to DeLorean was very particular: get Pontiac into the efficiency enterprise proper now. And since Bunkie was an enormous racing fanatic, all the pieces was on the desk, from NASCAR to pull racing.
And rapidly, sizzling Pontiacs filled with large V8s began to indicate up in every single place, from Daytona to Pomona. And even in our driveway. Since Bunkie and his spouse have been social pals with my dad and mom, Bunkie began sending the most well liked Pontiacs to our home particularly for my mother to drive. Starting in the summertime of 1959, we had a collection of Bonneville and Catalina convertibles that have been all the time shiny purple with a white prime and a shiny purple inside. They usually have been all the time geared up with the most well liked Pontiac engine on the time, which at first have been 389 cu. in. V8s with 3×2-barrell carbs, and ultimately 421 cu.in. V8s. Evidently, my mother beloved her sizzling Pontiacs. (And my brother and I did, too, particularly since he had simply gotten his license and we’d “train” mother’s automobiles at each alternative.)
The transformation of the Pontiac Division is a wonderful a part of GM lore. Pontiacs went from being sensible transportation gadgets to among the hottest automobiles within the business. Providing efficiency engineering and styling that simply weren’t accessible wherever else, Pontiac rode a wave of recognition that took the enterprise – and GM – by storm.
I say GM as a result of, keep in mind that half about GM’s divisional vice presidents being akin to potentates of their very own international locations? Effectively, that was true, till Pontiac – underneath Bunkie Knudsen’s tutelage – started to upset the pecking order inside the firm. Earlier than Pontiac grew to become a “downside” for the opposite basic managers, the GM divisional hierarchy was clear: Cadillac was up and off to the facet luxuriating in its personal rarified world. Buick was subsequent by way of status, with the super-popular Chevrolet sucking up the entire air within the room due to its unbelievable gross sales numbers, adopted by Oldsmobile, which simply chugged alongside, after which the moribund Pontiac.
No less than that’s the way in which it used to be earlier than Bunkie and his “pirates” acquired rolling. Rapidly, issues had modified. Chevrolet, which just about had high-performance advertising and marketing alternatives cornered inside GM, was being severely pushed by Pontiac on all fronts. Chevrolet operatives grew to become extra incensed with every Pontiac foray into their territory, and the intramural battles between the 2 divisions spilled over all the way in which to GM’s vaunted 14th flooring, with whining Chevrolet executives complaining to prime GM execs that Pontiac was intentionally encroaching on Chevy’s territory. As you’ll be able to think about, this didn’t sit nicely with Knudsen and DeLorean & Co. The growing gross sales numbers, nonetheless, have been in Pontiac’s favor so GM’s prime execs just about let Pontiac go, which added much more gasoline to Chevy’s fireplace.
Then, in 1963, when GM issued its official ban in opposition to the participation in racing as company coverage (a monumentally chicken-shit choice, by the way in which), the divisional basic managers needed to comply. (That is when Zora Arkus-Duntov, moderately than destroying the Corvette Grand Sports activities, delivered them to trusted racer pals of the corporate, for mainly free. And the corporate’s deeply embedded relationship with Jim Corridor’s Chaparral automobiles went utterly underground.)
The little-known collateral harm from that anti-racing ban was a GM inside edict that prohibited sure sized V8 from being put in “smaller” automobiles, which is a joke contemplating these smaller automobiles have been big by right now’s requirements. The Chevrolet operatives dutifully complied with the edict, whereas Pontiac operatives, led by DeLorean and Invoice Collins – the gifted engineer who deserves many of the credit score for this subsequent piece of automotive historical past – determined to go in one other route. Earlier than the racing ban, Collins had been busy stuffing Pontiac’s 389-cu.in. V8s into “intermediate” Le Mans our bodies, and the consequence was, for sure, magical. However when the edict took impact, Pontiac was particularly ordered not to stuff a V8 right into a Le Mans to make it into a brand new Pontiac mannequin.
Then, a little bit of genius. Pontiac operatives determined to get across the ban by making the “GTO” a brand new possibility bundle on the 1964 Pontiac Le Mans. And the remaining, as they are saying, is automotive historical past, as the unique “muscle” automotive was born. Chevrolet operatives have been apoplectic, however by the point GM company acquired wind of what was taking place, the GTO possibility had change into some of the sought-after high-performance possibility packages within the business. And by 1966 it grew to become its personal separate mannequin.
Pontiac was red-hot, with its distinctive model of high-performance engineering and a few of GM Styling’s finest designs coming in wave after wave. From there, Pontiac would pile success upon success, reaching, at one level, 900,000 in annual gross sales in 1968. The rebels out in Pontiac, Michigan, had gained.
And virtually the most effective half? Pontiac was supported by sensational promoting, clearly among the finest and most memorable promoting within the automotive enterprise on the time. That pissed off Chevrolet’s advert company – Campbell-Ewald – frequently, which made it even higher.
As for the intramural battle between Chevrolet and Pontiac, it continued. Pontiac got here out with the Grand Prix in 1962, and the long-nosed ’69 model pushed by DeLorean was one other big hit. Chevrolet got here out with the Camaro in 1967, however the Pontiac Firebird to some, was higher trying. The ’70 Camaro, which was dramatic in its personal proper, was undercut by the fabulous ‘70 Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am and Firebird Components. As late as 1984, when Pontiac got here out with the mid-engine Fiero, the battle continued. Chevrolet insisted that it couldn’t encroach on Corvette territory, so the Fiero was restricted to a 4-cylinder at intro and acquired a V6 proper earlier than it was dropped. The twond-generation Fiero, which I had the pleasure of seeing, had “Corvette-killer” written throughout it, however there was merely no method Chevrolet operatives have been going to permit it to see the sunshine of day, so that they lobbied in opposition to it closely, and it by no means did.
The Pontiac story is value telling. And it’s not simply due to the fabulous automobiles and nameplates like Bonneville, Catalina, Fiero, Firebird, Grand Prix, GTO and Le Mans. It’s as a result of a bunch of maverick True Believers thumbed their noses on the company inertia that threatened to overrun GM on the time and dared to go up in opposition to an intramural company rival to ship among the best and most memorable machines to return out of Detroit.
I had the pleasure of engaged on Pontiac promoting at D’Arcy MacManus & Masius from 1980-1985, and I’ll always remember it. Although the enterprise was quickly altering and Pontiac was starting to lose its identification inside the GM company monolith, the spirit of the previous advert greats that got here earlier than me and my advert colleagues was as intense, vibrant and visceral because it could possibly be. And we labored to make them proud each rattling day.
Is that this a plea for GM to resurrect Pontiac? That could be a laborious “no.” Pontiac existed in a fleeting second in time and left its indelible mark on automotive historical past – by no means to be repeated, however by no means to be forgotten.
And that’s the Excessive-Octane Reality for this week.
(Pontiac)
Editor’s Observe: That is Peter’s well-known advert for the 1981 Pontiac Trans Am Turbo V-8. As Peter says, “It was a unique time and a unique period.” More true phrases have been by no means spoken. -WG
Editor’s Observe: You may entry earlier problems with AE by clicking on “Subsequent 1 Entries” under. – WG
