In 1907, Edward Murphy founded the Oakland Car Company of Pontiac, Michigan. Shortly after in 1909 the company was acquired by General Motors. In 1926 Oakland released its first Pontiac vehicle at the New York Auto Show, a five-passenger coach car. The car was so successful that the Oakland name was eventually dropped in favor of the Pontiac. In 1929 the 500,000 Pontiac was built and the model was named the Big Six after its new 60hp 6-cylinder engine.
Early Years
From their beginning Pontiacs were targeted as affordable vehicles for the middle class. Pontiacs had a Native American Headdress as its logo until 1956 when it was change to a Native American arrowhead. Pontiac had much success in the 50s with the release of the stylish Bonneville and shortly after in the 60s Pontiac released its most successful car to date, the GTO. By putting its biggest v8 from the full sized model into the small GTO, Pontiac created the first “muscle car.” Pontiac continued its success through the end of the decade with the release of the Firebird and Firebird Trans Am. Pontiac was the last North American, GM car to switch to the V-8 engine.
Present and Future
In the 90’s Pontiac sales started to drop and new models like the Sunfire and Montana minivan did not capture consumer’s attention. In hopes to boost sales Pontiac decided to embark on re releasing classic models and release new cars with distinctive style. This approach has paid off for Pontiac and the release of the G6, Solstice and the all new GTO have been a great success for the company.
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