Posted 5/03/2009 01:30:00 PM by Douglas

It's hard to imagine an America without Pontiac, but as evident with their vehicles, this should have happened about a decade ago.

So General Motors announced this past week that it is killing off the Pontiac brand, maker of muscular, noisy, gas-guzzling V-8-powered vehicles immortalized in song and movies for the way they seemed to shout to every other car on the block: "Out of the way, pipsqueak!"

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Sometime in the '80s, however, the love affair began to fade.

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 was to blame.

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.

"In 1963, they came out with this wonderful car called the GTO, then the Firebird in 1967, and then that evolved into the Trans Am," Mattison said. "The momentum kept on building until more recent years."

Lots of things have changed since then. $4.00 a gallon gas and a shift in public perception of what a sports car is didn't help Pontiac's standing. But there's a reason there aren't any Studebakers around, either. You can't make a car people want to buy, get out of the way and let the people that know how to do it and make money doing it take the lead.