Pride GM: Pontiac demise ends era of ‘single point’ dealers

LYNN – Pride Motor Group General Manager Michael Watson has big plans for his Lynnway automobile dealership but, sadly, they do not involve Pontiac cars.The General Motors automobile line that spawned models like Bonneville, GTO and Trans Am is going the way of the Cord and the Studebaker. Pride phased out Pontiac a month ago and the dealership’s “Pontiac” sign will come down soon.”We’ve refocused ourselves to focus on our car brand. Think of General Motors and Chevrolet and Cadillac come to mind first,” Watson said Tuesday.Watson is not quite ready to tip his hands on his new plans for Pride, but he said they will reflect GM’s new direction as the company emerges from the worst economic times to ever hit the American automobile industry.”We’re still focused on being a General Motors dealer. At the end of the day, we are going to be a strong player in the market place,” he said.Car enthusiasts speculated this week whether it was changing tastes, the move toward more environmentally sensitive cars or perhaps Pontiac’s inability to keep coming up with new signature muscle cars that prompted GM to announce plans to kill off the car line.Pontiac’s more recent contributions to America’s automotive efforts included the very uncool Aztek, a chunky vehicle that looked like an SUV that tried to squeeze under a low-clearance bridge.Jim Mattison, whose Michigan-based Pontiac Historic Services provides information on the model to collectors, noted that for whatever reason the company hadn’t produced anything to capture the public’s imagination in a long time.Pontiac, which discontinued the Firebird and Trans Am in 2002, tried bringing back the GTO in 2004. But the new model, produced in Australia, never caught on and was discontinued two years later.Watson said Pontiac’s demise mirrors the end of single point dealerships for each line of General Motors cars. A motorist shopping for a Chevy Cobalt, for instance, could find the car’s first cousin by visiting a Pontiac dealership.”We’d wind up competing against ourselves,” he said.