Follow us on TwitterGM Receives Offer for Pontiac
Status updates on GM’s brands continue rolling on in. Saab, Hummer and Saturn along with European brands Opel and Vauxhall are all up for sale. What isn’t being offered up for sale is GM’s North American Pontiac brand. The brand is scheduled to be phased out, not sold. Could someone change GM’s mind about that?
Apparently not. General Motors says it has received at least one offer for the brand. By who? You guessed it, the brand’s dealers. This latest offer continues a recent trend of brand dealers attempting to buy their brands. It’s a good idea in my opinion! The people that sell the cars own the brand. Makes sense!
An ABC affiliate in Michigan reports that Jim Waldron, owner of Waldron Pontiac Buick GMC has proposed, along with six other investors, an offer to purchase Pontiac. How much the offer is worth, we don’t know. But, GM’s vice president of communications Tom Pyden quickly put out a statement saying that GM is not interested in selling the brand.
Waldron’s plan was to purchase unused U.S. plants (I assume GM?) to produce new Pontiac vehicles and would hire a new workforce to produce them. No other details, like if those vehicles would be designed new from scratch, were offered.
Maybe we’ll hear more about the offer and it’ll gain traction. If the offer was substantial enough (which of course we have no idea) I don’t see how it would be a bad thing for GM to get money and rid itself of the hassle of closing down the brand.
The Pontiac name clearly has equity! Like I’ve said before, last year it was GM’s third largest brand by volume. That’s right, the third largest. You don’t sell that many vehicles without significant equity in your brand. Oh well though, the decision is GM’s. It would be dumb to not consider this though. I wonder if Pontiac’s fans will try to mount some publicity campaign to save the brand after hearing about this? Will be interesting to see.
OMG. But what would happen if a third party bought Pontiac, shifted some gears, and then turned around and bested Chevy? What would happen if you could get a Firebird that walked all over the Camaro for less money? What would happen if GM still couldn’t get their shit together and folded, while some know-nothing-peons kept Pontiac alive and well?
Just think of the humiliation! There might be “TotalConfidence” banners in front of every GM dealership on the continent right now, but the only thing they’re actually sure of is themselves. Not the products. Not the actual desires of the market. Just themselves. They’re going to do it their way and do all they can to make sure that nothing less than once-removed from the bowtie stands a chance of doing better than the bowtie.
If Saab recovers and excels, then it’s a Swedish car – not a GM.
If Hummer recovers and excels, then it’s a Hummer – not an overweight Tahoe.
If Opel recovers and excels, well, most people in North America who buy all the cars aren’t even going to know or care.
But if Pontiac is sold domestically, recovers and excels…
See what I mean?
They should stop calling the “The General” and go back to plain old general, as in average, or the opposite of specific. ;)