Pontiac Motor Car Company History Assignment Paper (Essay Sample)

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Pontiac Motor Car Company
Introduction
Pontiac Motor Car Company was a well-known automobile production company based in America that was recently phased out by its original company, General Motors. However, this company manufactured various American-made performance cars that were considered as the most popular of all time (Pound 120). General Motors sold Pontiac’s brands of automobiles; however, manufacturing was closed in 2009. Pontiac remains an active and registered trademark of the General Motors (Chamberlain et al. 78). The Pontiac Motor Car Company brand was established in 1926 in the cohort of Oakland automobiles, which was General Motor's most expensive line.
Pontiac automobiles overtook Oakland automobiles, which was the parent of Pontiac. Pontiac defeated Oakland in popularity and later became an entire supplement of the Oakland brand by 1933 (Minchin 70). Pontiac and Chevrolet also became companion makes. General Motors sold Pontiac in Mexico, United States, and Canada (Chamberlain et al. 88). While majoring in mainstream vehicles, Pontiac automobile was recognized in the advertisement as General Motor’s performance division for many years. In Canada, Pontiac was marketed as a low-priced vehicle, and this made it relatively popular in that country (Liu 100).
Due to financial constraints and reorganization efforts in early 2009, General Motors announced that it would stop producing and marketing the Pontiac brand vehicles by the end of the year 2010. GM said that they would then focus on the four leading brands in North America, which include GMC, Buick, Chevrolet, and Cadillac (Helper et al. 122). The last Pontiac vehicles were manufactured in December 2009 and the final vehicle manufactured in January 2010. The Franchise policies and Agreements for Pontiac stakeholders expired on October 31, 2010 (Helper et al. 131).
Pontiac before World War II
The history Pontiac begins in the year 1907. Edward Murphy established the motor vehicle company as the Oakland Car Company of Pontiac in Michigan, USA. Finally, Murphy’s company was taken by General Motors and was later, in 1926, rebranded as Pontiac. General Motors started automotive product by manufacturing mid-priced to low-priced automobiles in a wide range of body styles. Pontiac Chief was one of the company's initial successes (Chamberlain et al. 78). The brand was unconfined in the year 1927 and utilized a straight six-cylinder engine. Between the 1930s and the 1940s, Pontiac rose to popularity and fame when they introduced a variety of affordable wagons, sedans, and coupes (Minchin 75).
Pontiac after World War II
Many years after World War II, Pontiac Motor Car Company were yet to refurbish itself as a high-performance design. Pontiac models of early-1950s were understood to be dependable and sturdy. However, the introduction of the Bonneville in the year 1958 changed everything. The Bonneville brand was the first Pontiac motor car that offered high performance as well as a luxury (Minchin 40). Bonneville’s prevalent triumph helped Pontiac ascertain itself as General Motor's performance car section of the 1960s.
In 1960, the Tempest, an entry-level compact was introduced. Tempest’s base model did quite well in the market; however, GTO, Tempest’s powerful option made Pontiac succeed as it is today. Tempest’s GTO version had a massive 389-cubic inch V-8 fixed on it, and this helped in ushering in the muscle car era. This vehicle brand carried on the success of GTO when they introduced the Firebird Trans Am and the Firebird.
In the 1970s, Pontiac Motor Car Company proceeded to manufacture muscle cars; however, it added compacts that were more fuel-efficient like the Phoenix and the Ventura to the lineup. Adding them to the lineup assisted Pontiac Company to stay a step ahead with the dynamic concerns of drivers of America. Approximately ten years later, Pontiac Company manufactured the Fiero. The Fiero got success from the American car buyers by the amalgamation of style and sports car performance with fuel economization of a compact (Helper et al. 133).
During the 1990s, Pontiac design virtually vanished; it was not able to differentiate itself from other General Motors brands (Chamberlain et al. 89). In the new Millennium, Pontiac progressed to counter the scenario and released new designs like the G8, the Solstice, and the Vibe (Minchin 73). These brand new designs helped Pontiac reestablish itself with American drivers for sometime; however the fall of the auto industry of U.S.A in 2008 mandated General Motors to downscale its divisions and eliminate Pontiac in the year 2010 (Chamberlain et al. 78).
Style trademarks and logo
Until 1956, Pontiac Company used a Native American headdress as their logo. In 1957, the logo was then restructured to the Native American red arrowhead. Dart is also another name for the arrowhead logo. Another emblem of Pontiacs, besides the logo, was their "Silver Streaks". The Silver Streaks was the one that contained thin strips of stainless steel that come down from the grille to the central part of the hood (Pound 119). Finally, they extended to the rear bumper from the rear window along the ends of the logo fins. Even though it was originally one band, the stylistic emblem doubled to two for the years1955 to 1956. In1957, the Streaks of the logo were discontinued for the Indian Head emblems in the same year.
The other lasting familiar styling emblems were the split grille make of 1959 onwards), the sharp arrowhead nose of between the 1960s and 1970s), and the grilled over of 1960s), also known as the multiple-striped taillights. The afterward feature came from the 1963 Grand Prix, although the 1962 Grand Prix contained the rear grillework, and the taillight lenses did not get place behind it (Chamberlain et al. 87). The 'cladding', which did not standing for long but was memorable was commonly placed on fenders and doors Pontiac car models produced between the 1980s and 90s. Pontiac builders set two troughs through the length, rather than having to minimize the side bumper. Until G6 arrived, nearly all Pontiacs had such bumpers. New Pontiac vehicles had more premium styling and cleaner logos; however, they retained the conventional split grille from 2004 onwards.
Engines
Clayton Leach, a Pontiac engineer, fabricated the stamped-steel valve train rocker arm, which was a reliable and simplified option to the bearing-equipped rocker. Almost every OHV engine producer may have, at one point, subsequently picked up the design or another. In 1946, Pontiac Motor Car Company began to design the V8 configuration (Helper et al. 128). By the end of the 1940s, this design was originally proposed to be an L-head engine, where eight experimental units were constructed and intensively tested.
However, the tests were not applicable because comparing the L-head and the OHV Oldsmobile V8 was not practical due to performance diversities. Therefore, on top of constructing a new Pontiac Engineering building in the year 1949 to 1951, the verdict to renovate the V8 engine to an O...