Pontiac LeMans

"Boxer_4" (Boxer_4) 03/21/2019 at 17:59 • Filed to: None

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Just look at the German lines of this Korean built car...

chaozbandit > Boxer_4 03/21/2019 at 18:11

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vicali > Boxer_4 03/21/2019 at 18:11

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Haha.. dang Oppo is all up in my olden- days today~

My high school girlfriend needed her first car, I looked and looked and eventually found an 86 Crx;

She bought a 92 Le Mans instead;

I t didn’t work out.

farscythe - makin da cawfee! > Boxer_4 03/21/2019 at 18:18

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oo i had one of those.... well... i had a kadett but still

when it rained water would drip out of the interior light... first and worst car ive ever had

AMC/Renauledge > Boxer_4 03/21/2019 at 18:42

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I always liked the look of these cars. But they were indeed colossal shitbuckets.

And, in true GM fashion, they were still in production in Uzbekistan as recently as 2016, 33 years after launch .

Anyone who laments the passing of Pontiac and insists they could have made a go at becoming a “performance brand” would do well to remember that Pontiac made rebadged, recycled shitbuckets like this (Astre/Sunbird, T1000/1000, LeMans) from 1975-93 (more than half as long as they’d been making Firebirds) and resurrected the concept for its final full model year in the 2009 G3 .

ranwhenparked > AMC/Renauledge 03/21/2019 at 18:58

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GM always had the ambition of making Pontiac into a performance plan, its just that ambition without follow through is pretty much worthless. 

AMC/Renauledge > ranwhenparked 03/21/2019 at 19:18

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The other problem is that our economy has shifted to the point where it’s mostly older folks that can afford performance models, and older enthusiasts were especially keen on Pontiacs.

Whenever Pontiac would try to placate them with GTO’s and Bonneville/Grand Prix GXP V8s and G8s, those same enthusiasts complained that GM had failed to bring the entirety of their 1960s youth back with the nameplates and V8s.

The cars were styled too blandly, they said. They weren’t priced like V6 Malibus . They couldn’t put Pet Sounds   back on the Billboard Hot 100, either . It was a mess.

Meanwhile, ever since the mid-1970's, the dealers couldn’t make the performance image stick in the wake of energy crises, CAFE, and Japanese performance car encroachment into their territory. Dealers needed to sell something, so they requested GM re-grille their most frugal shitboxes and plaster Excitement! on their ads to sell them as Pontiacs.

By the ‘90s, gas was really cheap, but buyers were shifting away from the coupes that had been Pontiac’s bread and butter, into minivans and Pontiac dealers got none other than the Dustbuster Trans Sport. Buyers were also shifting to SUVs, but Pontiac   had already been dualed with GMC, which was already selling to those customers. So how would they make an economical vehicle that was SUV-like, but with performance car styling conceits? Aztek! Which rode their deathtr... err.. minivan platform.

By 2005, Pontiac was promising no more rebadged Chevys... except for this Montana SV6 they just launched. And the G5 and Torrent they were launching the next year. And the forementioned G3 when the end came. And their performance Solstice was rebadged as a Saturn, too. And their G8 was a rebadged Holden made in Australia. And their funky Vibe was a rebadged Toyota.

Pontiac’s performance image as a brand was, after 1974, always going to be extremely difficult to maintain with any credibility. And GM proved they weren’t up to the task at all.

Khalbali > Boxer_4 03/21/2019 at 19:31

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Wow I shit you not my coworker was just talking about one of these a friend of his was selling this morning and we had a disagreement over whether it was a g eo metro or not. (I was right obvi)

ranwhenparked > AMC/Renauledge 03/21/2019 at 19:40

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The problem is that people don’t want sporty cars anymore.

Younger buyers will happily dump $30,000 or $40,000 on a crossover vehicle or a pickup truck, but it is a much harder sell to get them to spend $26,000 on a Mustang or Miata.

Older people who grew up in an era when RWD coupes and roadsters were a dime a dozen and personal coupes were the best selling body style still buy them because they’re the most familiar with that sort of car. For younger buyers, a light truck is the default option because that’s what’s been ubiquitous during their formative years. 

AMC/Renauledge > ranwhenparked 03/21/2019 at 20:52

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I’m not sure the average buyer ages on those expensive pickups and CUVs are all that low. And it’s not that people don’t want sporty cars so much as they probably can’t afford the crossover for all the shit they need it to do AND the Miata for fun on the weekends. Since the 1970s, car ownership has only grown more expensive and incomes haven’t risen in line.

I think that one of the main reasons that C UVs and pickups continue to be so popular is because most people who buy a new car need it to do absolutely everything because they can’t afford 2.

ranwhenparked > AMC/Renauledge 03/21/2019 at 21:06

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There’s absolutely no reason why a Mustang, for example, can’t work perfectly fine as an only car for a single person, a couple, or a small family.

But, then, you have people like a 30something coworker of mine who recently traded in her 2012ish Mustang on a new Escape, because her F250 driving father told her it was a “tin can” in an accident and she should have something safer, given that she has two elementary school age kids. Note, her husband has an F150 crew cab.

There’s also a very prevalent mentality out there that if you have a sedan or a hatchback, it might very well be because you couldn’t afford a crossover, so people increasingly don’t want to be seen in one.

People buy crossovers because they really, really want crossovers, not because they “need” the utility. 

pip bip - choose Corrour > Boxer_4 03/22/2019 at 06:15

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Daewoo!

making crap then, making crap today

Nauraushaun > Boxer_4 03/23/2019 at 07:33

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High point of American small cars