Pontiac closes doors 84 years later

General Motors has officially announced the end of the Pontiac brand, 84 years after the first vehicle came off the production line. Pontiac was one of the four brands that had to be sacrificed during the 2009 bankruptcy process, with decreasing sales having major weight on the decision.

In 1968 Pontiac had its sales peak. It was the decade of success of the muscle cars and at the time the brand managed to reach the one million sales figure. Since then the brand’s sales continuously decreased to 267,000 in 2008.

Pontiac's Firebird Trans Am model was one of the vehicles who made Pontiac famous after featuring in films like "Smokey and the Bandit" in 1970.

The  GTO, Trans Am and Catalina 2+2 are some of the models which make part of the golden days of Pontiac.

The Pontiac case is a proof that the long term effort of sustaining brand differentiation is almost impossible to keep up. Although brands share platforms and components, the difference between the models end up reduced to styling cues and random ephemera.

Today’s example is Volkswagen that has been acclaimed for its multi-brand manipulation of core engineering cost savings, but it is said that the VW Group has only started its marathon and there is still no proof that it can handle the tough task of managing several brands, without compromising its future, like it happened with GM.