By Peter M. DeLorenzo

Detroit. That I’ve a deep love of all the things Pontiac is well-known. I grew up immersed on this enterprise – proper within the thick of GM’s heyday – and Pontiac performed an important function in each my early life and my early promoting profession. That’s why when GM took the chapter tablet in 2008, I used to be crushingly dissatisfied to study that the Pontiac Division was one of many property to be jettisoned. (And Hummer, too, however luckily that nameplate has now returned.)

It’s exhausting 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 residence about. The division existed below the GM company umbrella, but it surely was decidedly missing in nearly all the things 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 common supervisor in July of 1958. Knudsen was given the task to inject some life into the division and enhance gross sales, and he was given carte blanche to do it.

As a reminder, in case you had been a GM vice chairman and divisional common supervisor again within the day you had been akin to a potentate operating a small nation. GM’s divisional common managers had immense energy with accountability for engineering, manufacturing, gross sales and advertising and marketing. Occupied with that compared with how issues function in the present day, it doesn’t appear actual, as a result of it was so dramatically totally different from in the present day’s automobile enterprise it’s like studying from a fairytale e-book. However make no mistake, it was very actual, and GM’s divisional common managers had been like giants roaming the earth, swashbuckling their manner by way of the day-to-day of the enterprise whereas making essential, pivotal selections 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 along with them. Once more, compared with how issues are performed in the present day, 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 best way.

The one enviornment the place GM’s divisional common 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 common managers had been legendary, and I’ll save these tales for one more column. However suffice to say, Mitchell acquired what he wished for probably the most half, even when he needed to play the divisional common managers off towards one another to take action.

However again to Bunkie and Pontiac. His first hires had 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 things was on the desk, from NASCAR to tug racing.

And unexpectedly, sizzling Pontiacs filled with huge V8s began to indicate up all over the place, from Daytona to Pomona. And even in our driveway. Since Bunkie and his spouse had been social pals with my mother and father, 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 had been at all times shiny purple with a white high and a shiny purple inside. And so they had been at all times geared up with the most well liked Pontiac engine on the time, which at first had been 389 cu. in. V8s with 3×2-barrell carbs, and ultimately 421 cu.in. V8s. Evidently, my mother cherished 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 out there 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? Properly, that was true, till Pontiac – below Bunkie Knudsen’s tutelage – started to upset the pecking order throughout the firm. Earlier than Pontiac grew to become a “downside” for the opposite common managers, the GM divisional hierarchy was clear: Cadillac was up and off to the facet luxuriating in its personal rarified world. Buick was subsequent when it comes to status, with the super-popular Chevrolet sucking up all the air within the room due to its unimaginable gross sales numbers, adopted by Oldsmobile, which simply chugged alongside, after which the moribund Pontiac. 

At the least that’s the best way it used to be earlier than Bunkie and his “pirates” acquired rolling. Hastily, issues had modified. Chevrolet, which just about had high-performance advertising and marketing alternatives cornered inside GM, was being critically 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 best way to GM’s vaunted 14^th flooring, with whining Chevrolet executives complaining to high 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, had been in Pontiac’s favor so GM’s high execs just about let Pontiac go, which added much more gas to Chevy’s hearth. 

Then, in 1963, when GM issued its official ban towards the participation in racing as company coverage (a monumentally chicken-shit resolution, by the best way), the divisional common managers needed to comply. (That is when Zora Arkus-Duntov, slightly than destroying the Corvette Grand Sports activities, delivered them to trusted racer pals of the corporate, for principally free. And the corporate’s deeply embedded relationship with Jim Corridor’s Chaparral automobiles went utterly underground.) 

The little-known collateral injury 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 had been enormous by in the present day’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 course. 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 choice bundle on the 1964 Pontiac Le Mans. And the remaining, as they are saying, is automotive historical past, as the unique “muscle” automobile was born. Chevrolet operatives had been apoplectic, however by the point GM company acquired wind of what was occurring, the GTO choice had grow to be probably the most sought-after high-performance choice 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 greatest designs coming in wave after wave. From there, Pontiac would pile success upon success, reaching, at one level, three million in annual gross sales. The rebels out in Pontiac, Michigan, had received. 

And virtually one of the best half? Pontiac was supported by sensational promoting, clearly among the greatest and most memorable promoting within the automobile 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 enormous hit. Chevrolet got here out with the Camaro in 1967, however the Pontiac Firebird to some, was higher wanting. 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 two^nd-generation Fiero, which I had the pleasure of seeing, had “Corvette-killer” written throughout it, however there was merely no manner Chevrolet operatives had been going to permit it to see the sunshine of day, in order that they lobbied towards 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 towards an intramural company rival to ship among the most interesting and most memorable machines to come back 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. Regardless that the enterprise was quickly altering and Pontiac was starting to lose its identification throughout 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 exhausting “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 Fact for this week.

(Pontiac)

Editor’s Word: 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 had been by no means spoken. -WG

Editor’s Word: You’ll be able to entry earlier problems with AE by clicking on “Subsequent 1 Entries” beneath. – WG