As you know, Pontiac has been discontinued.
Yesterday the media was in a frenzy about the big ($6,500) rebates being offered by GM, trying to clear the Pontiac brand from their dealerships by year’s-end.
The New York Times reported, “The sweetened incentive offer, which was announced to dealers earlier this month, means an effective discount of up to 49 percent on the cheapest Pontiac, the G3 hatchback.”
That got my attention.
I stopped browsing on my Blackberry and called Bryan, our local car dealer, who works at Midway Motors, here in Hillsboro, Kansas.
After telling him what I had been reading, we went over to see him. The last thing my wife and I thought we’d be doing in the last days of the decade is buying anything, especially a new car.
But here we were. It was just about closing time, yesterday evening. The dealer had just one remaining Pontiac and it wasn’t a G3.
Using the Internet, Bryan located a handful of G3 within a 1,000-mile radius, the closest at a GM dealership in Topeka. We told him to reserve it, thinking that we could think about it overnight. That car sold off the lot in Topeka overnight. But this morning, Midway Motors had located one more G3, in remote western Kansas, hiding in the tumbleweeds.
He said, “It’s red, like the other one….”
Without hesitation, I said, “We’ll take it!”
Sight unseen, and without so much as a test drive, we bought The Last Pontiac.
Today we finished the paperwork, trading in our gas-guzzling, way-upside down 2001 GMC Yukon. With the $6,500 rebate, we came out about even, in payments, in insurance, and way ahead on gas mileage. We never would have been able to do the deal, to get out from underneath the “bad paper” without the “going out of business” rebate.
We would have been trapped in the Yukon until 2015 or something.
It seemed like the right thing to do, on all sorts of levels, for us, and America, at this moment in history.
They’re delivering The Last Pontiac to us tomorrow, first new car we’ve ever owned.
I know this is perversely backward and unseemly, but you should know that I did do some research. While we were filling out the paperwork, I was browsing on my phone, peeking through my fingers at what the consumer reviews were saying about the car I had already bought. Happily, most of the reviewers were very impressed with the car, which is actually a Chevy Aveo, and sold as something else overseas.
Here’s what one trade publications said about the G3:
Daewoo calls it the Kalos, and Chevy named it the Aveo, but Pontiac has opted to call this five-door hatchback the G3. With the Pontiac brand being phased out, the G3 has one of the shortest lifespans of any car. Still, it goes head to head with the aforementioned Aveo as well as subcompacts like the Honda Fit, Kia Rio5 and Volkswagen Rabbit.
Unfortunately, General Motor’s financial woes have hurt the sales of Pontiac models significantly. And without the established name recognition of the older Pontiac Vibe, G5 or Solstice, the sales for the G3 have been practically nonexistant. According to the Wall Street Journal, GM only sold 141 G3′s in March, or “just one in every 19 of GM’s roughly 2,700 Pontiac dealers sold one during the month.”
The ’09 Pontiac G3 has a 1.6-liter DOHC engine that makes 106-horsepower and pulls 105 pound-feet of torque. A five-speed manual transmission is standard, but a four-speed automatic is available. The G3 also has dual-stage frontal and side impact air bags with a passenger sensing system, a six-speaker audio system with CD player and MP3 playback, and 60/40 split rear seats.
G3 reviewers seem disappointed that Pontiac has presented a rebadged Chevy Aveo as opposed to a new model. But as Pontiac dealerships around the country shut down, you might find the discontinued G3 is a great financial alternative to other affordable hatchbacks, even the similar Aveo. If you do purchase a G3 or currently own one, your Pontiac warranty will still be honored at the remaining GM dealerships. (emphasis mine).
The decade fades into the sunset. GM and the American car industry struggle for their existence. Into the unknown future we will be driving a piece of history, making 30+ miles per gallon, no matter how high gas prices may climb.
Fact is, I would have never bought the first Pontiac, or the second, nor would I have ever purchased a new car at any other time otherwise. But we feel pretty good about buying The Last Pontiac. Like, maybe this one purchase will help redeem a pretty sorry consumer track record for me, personally, over the past decade. Like, maybe we did something right this time.
We will drive The Last Pontiac without remorse. It has the options we wanted, including an automatic transmission, and, as it happens, it comes fully loaded with symbolism and history.
Now hopefully GM will make it through its current restructuring.
If you are a US taxpayer, thanks for investing!
Now as never before, I want this Great American automaker to survive.
For we will be driving The Last Pontiac — with a five-year, 100,000 mile warranty.
President Obama
