Pontiac

Pontiac is a automotive marque owned, manufactured and market by General Motors. It was founded in Pontiac, Michigan in 1926 a companion make for GM's more expensive line of Oakland automobiles, however, Pontiac overtook Oakland in popularity and supplanted its parent brand entirely by 1933.

It was discontinued on October 31, 2010 due to financial problems and restructuring efforts.

Why It Flopped

 * 1) In its final years, Pontiac has stopped making their own cars and most of their products are simply rebadged versions of other GM cars. This is made worse by the fact that Pontiac was once considered as GM's excitement division.
 * 2) * For example, the Pontiac G5 is simply a rebadged Chevrolet Cobalt, the G3 a rebadged Aero, and the new GTO is just a left-hand drive version of the Holden Monaro.
 * 3) They discontinued the Firebird/Trans Am models - which is perhaps their most iconic product - in 2002.
 * 4) The Pontiac Aztek, while being a practical crossover vehicle, is infamous for being one of the ugliest cars in history.
 * 5) Pontiac made the bad move renamed their product lines by replacing iconic names such as Grand Prix and Bonneville with generic G(insert number) names.
 * 6) To give their cars a distinctive style while maintaining whatever they could to cut costs, Pontiac reserved to plastic body cladding. While this isn't the first time body cladding is used, Pontiac used this method so frequently that it became one of their design clichés.
 * 7) Their updated versions of the Bonneville and the Grand Prix are absolute failures.
 * 8) Some of their more sporty vehicles also ended up flopping:
 * 9) *The Fiero, while looking sporty, was never designed to be a sports car, rather it was sold to GM's management as a commuter's car. It was discontinued after a short 5-year production.
 * 10) *The Solstice is rather original, however that originality was killed of GM decided that the Solstice can't survive on its own and badge engineered it into the Saturn Sky.
 * 11) The fifth and final generation of the Pontiac Grand Am (one of the marquee's best selling cars) is also rather unsuccessful, built more for style than the practicality and value it's known for.
 * 12) Another mistake is the Pontiac TransPort minivan, originally it was a futuristic looking concept designed to be "exciting". However when the production model came out, they not only failed to be exciting but also appeared impractical in front of other minivans. It's successor, the Montana, didn't fare much better either.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Without Pontiac, we will never have the GTO and the Firebird - two of the most iconic muscle cars in history.
 * 2) They'd also made several legendary movie cars like the Trans Am Special Edition in Smokey and the Bandit as well as K.I.T.T in Knight Rider.

Trivia

 * 1) In both the Grand Theft Auto series and the Saints Row series, the car that's based on the Pontiac Firebird is named Phoenix. In reality, Pontiac actually made a car called the Phoenix, but it's a compact car rather than a muscle car.