On Friday, we reported that GM will be eliminating the Pontiac brand entirely, rather than going forward with the original plan, which was to keep it as a performance-oriented nameplate. We tried to temper this bad news with some hope though, by putting forward the idea that GM wouldn’t be silly enough to get rid of the Solstice and G8, Pontiac’s only remaining exclusive sports cars (The Saturn Sky is mechanically identical to the Solstice, but with Saturn’s fate already sealed, the Solstice would have been alone).
Unfortunately, our optimism was premature. The G8 and Solstice will not be rebadged and sold under another GM nameplate, according to The New York Times and Jalopnik, who each covered this morning’s conference call with GM’s CEO Fritz Henderson.
Goodnight, sweet prince.
This is sad news for fans of sports cars. The Solstice and G8 are both great cars and the U.S. automotive landscape is a blander and more boring place without them. The upside is that these two models, along with the rest of Pontiac’s uninspiring lineup, will most likely be sold at some pretty steep discounts in the coming months, so jump into one while you can.
The Pontiac Vibe won’t make the trip to another GM brand either, but it was outsold by the identical Toyota Matrix anyway.
Photo Via Edmunds.
