THE RESTRUCTURING of General Motors, which Emporians have been viewing with interest, but from a distance, moved closer to home Monday when GM announced some hard decisions.
The news that means the most to many Emporians is the decision to end the 83-year-old Pontiac brand. GM says Pontiac will be gone by the end of 2010.
There are many Pontiacs on the streets of Emporia — Grand Am, Grand Prix, G6 and Vibe seem to be the favorites — and Pontiac owners in the city must now begin to calculate just how long they can expect to find parts for a car whose make has retired to the history books. Oldsmobile owners had to go through the same uncertainty a few years ago.
Pontiac is not likely to be the only GM brand to disappear. Saturn will be sold or closed by the end of this year. It might find a buyer. Saturn has had a small but fanatic following since it was introduced in the 1990s as the car you could buy without haggling. It has a good dealer network and perhaps, without the burden of GM bureaucracy, it could survive as an independent brand. Hummer will be sold or closed, too. Whether or not it can be sold depends a lot on the price of gasoline.
Between the loss of brands and a shift in attitudes about what makes sense in transportation, the experience of buying a car will be very different in a few years. There will be fewer dealers, and buyers of American makes may have few choices — Buick, Chevrolet, Cadillac, Ford and, perhaps, Fiat-Chrysler. But there may be a few new competitors out there, too. As the GM news came out Monday, USA Today was carrying a full-page ad for electric cars, soliciting orders for everything from a $25,000 electric motorcycle to a $139,000 sports car.
For anyone who has been buying cars for a few decades, it is sad to see the disappearance of a popular make. But Pontiac is not the first car brand to go and it will not be the last. It joins Stutz, Reo, Pope-Toledo, Nash, Kaiser, DeSoto, Studebaker and a dozen other makes in that great parking lot in the sky, where dents and rust are no more and there is always room for a new arrival.
What are Ponitac owners to do now? Well, if they have the time and the patience, they can hang on to their cars for a few years.
Check online to see what a DeSoto or a Studebaker is selling for these days.
Patrick S. Kelley
Editorial Page Editor
madpoet (anonymous) says...
Somehow I doubt my Grand Am will be a collectors item. It's a good car and I really like it. Judging by the number of them on the Emporia streets, they're very popular. But GM makes the choices. It could be like Ford dropping Taurus then changing their minds later.
April 28, 2009 at 3:34 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
dale011 (anonymous) says...
To me the challenge will be how far you have to drive to get service work done. New car warrantees require the work to be done at the dealership, and Kansas has some sort of wierd law that says if you buy your car in Kansas City, Emporia dealers don't have to service them. Of course that assumes there will be dealerships in Emporia. I bought a Chrysler 300 a few months ago - before the thought of American auto manufacturers being destroyed by the current economic environment. I am not looking forward to the possibilty of having the car towed to Wichita or Topeka for service.
April 28, 2009 at 3:56 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
alfalfa (anonymous) says...
With all of the work done to "save" GM to stop the job losses, I wonder how many jobs are going to be lossed through their forced closure of 1000+ dealerships? If dealerships are a private franchise, I don't see why GM has the power, need or want to close any of them. All it does is stifle competition. John Deere is doing the same thing, they killed the Burlington and Garnett stores, I am certain it is not good for consumers.
April 29, 2009 at 7:36 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )