Loss of Pontiac hits hard here

By Mike Boyer

With the sun shining and temperatures in the 80s, Monday should have been a perfect day for John Hugentober to take his classic 1968 Pontiac TransAm convertible for a spin.

But Monday turned out to be “a very sad day for Pontiac enthusiasts,” said Hugentober, a 44-year-old Lebanon resident who owns four Pontiacs and is vice president of the Southern Ohio Buckeye Chapter of Pontiac Oakland Club International.

Struggling to survive in the worst auto market in a quarter century, General Motors Corp. Monday unveiled a massive restructuring plan that would eliminate its 83-year-old Pontiac brand and terminate another 21,000 jobs by next year while turning over ownership of most of GM to the U.S. government and the United Auto Workers union.

The plan, GM’s latest attempt to avoid a bankruptcy filing by June 1, also included an offer to swap $27 billion in debt for stock and accelerated plans to reduce its U.S. dealer network from 6,246 to 3,605 by the end of next year.

In a conference call Monday, GM said it would notify dealerships that will be closed in the next 30 days. But because of their location, sales performance and customer service scores, several local dealers contacted said they don’t expect to be on the closing list.

There are 48 GM dealers in the 15-county Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky region, according to the company’s Web site. Fourteen are Buick/Pontiac/GMC stores.

GM said Monday it would stop making Saturns and Hummers this year, moving up its scrapping of the brands. There are five local Saturn dealers and one Hummer dealer. The company also plans to divest or close the Swedish carmaker Saab, which has three local dealers, by year’s end.

The Pontiac brand, once a symbol of Detroit muscle cars, has a loyal following in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. Pontiac Firebird sports cars were produced along side Chevrolet Camaros at the former GM Norwood assembly plant, which closed in 1987.

“A lot of people around here have been born and raised around Pontiacs,” said Kim Borcherding of Borcherding Pontiac Buick GMC at Kings Auto Mall in Deerfield Township, a Pontiac dealer since the early 1980s.

GM had hoped to retain Pontiac as a niche brand. But under government pressure to make deeper cuts, it concluded it couldn’t continue to support the brand. As distasteful as GM cutbacks are, area dealers say they’re necessary if GM is to survive.

“I hate to see Pontiac go away,” said Mark Sweeney, owner of the Buick Pontiac GMC dealership in Columbia Township. “But I’m glad they’ve made a decision one way or another, so we can get this behind us.”

Sweeney said the uncertainty over GM’s fate isn’t helping car sales. “Hopefully, this will allow GM to concentrate on products they do well,” he said.

He and other Pontiac dealers say GM will be introducing new models such as the Buick Lacrosse and GMC Terrain crossover this year to appeal to Pontiac buyers.

Sweeney, who like other GM dealers has invested in new showrooms in recent years to sell multiple brands, said Pontiac – despite some sleek new models, like the Vibe and Solstice sports car aimed at younger buyers – hasn’t done well against its foreign competition.

Borcherding thinks the Pontiac is a residual victim of the nation’s credit crunch. Pontiac was traditionally a big part of GM’s leasing business, but when the crunch forced GM to scale back on leasing, Pontiac sales suffered.

Inside Media Inc., an Anderson Township media research and buying agency which tracks auto sales for its clients, said that Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky area Pontiac sales were down 35 percent in the first three months of 2009 compared to the same quarter in 2008. By contrast, first-quarter 2009 sales were down 41 percent decline for truck-heavy GMC and 22 percent for Buick.

The 45-member area Pontiac-Oakland chapter annually holds a car show at Bill DeLord’s Pontiac, Buick, Cadillac and GMC dealership in Lebanon. This year the event is slated for Sept. 13.

Hugentober, who fell in love with Pontiacs when a neighbor ran his GTO up and down the street in Cheviot in the early 1980s, said what makes Pontiacs special is their combination of styling and performance.

He thinks GM missed an opportunity to take advantage of the retro-styling craze a few years ago to reintroduce the GTO as Ford did with the Mustang.

The demise of the brand won’t have much effect on classic Pontiac muscle car lovers who disdain the current models as “jelly beans. They all look like jelly beans,” said Hugentober. Aftermarket parts for older models are readily available, he said.

DeLord said recent changes in the Pontiac lineup have helped the brand. “I sold two G8 sedans on Saturday, one to a fellow who was also looking at a BMW 5-series,” he said.

“Pontiac was an icon for GM,” DeLord said. “It’s hard to see an icon go away.”