It just seems like yesterday that our plant was awarded the Pontiac G6. We had a big celebration, Oprah paid us a visit and almost immediately GM began killing our fine little sedan known as the Pontiac G6.
As Yogi Berra would say, first, let’s start at the beginning. The G6 was supposed to be a replacement for the Pontiac Grand Am. The Grand Am enjoyed sales of 200,000 plus, was a small, cheap, 12 to 15 thousand, back and forth to work machine meant for those who made just north of 20 grand and needed a low cost ride to work. The Grand Am filled that bill to a T. Along came the G6, somewhat larger that the Grand Am, way more technology and a price tag north of 20 grand. Still very fuel efficient and low maintenance. It’s big brother, the Grand Prix, was sitting there in the same price range just waiting to eat up those G6 sales, more about this later.
THE POWER OF OPRAH
The G6 did have the power of Oprah. In September of 2004 Oprah, with money from Pontiac Marketing, gave away 256 brand new G6’s on her show. By anyone’s measure it was the greatest moment in car marketing history and the Marketeers from Pontiac were forever branded genius. The obvious market for the mighty G6 was women with an income greater than 20,000 who identified with Oprah and wanted to be like her. It seemed that the Pontiac Brand and particularly the G6 was destined for greatness.
NOT SO FAST
At this time, Orion Assembly was only producing the G6 Sedan with promises for a Coupe and a Retractable Hardtop. Those promises took two years to bring to fruition. Two years is an eternity in car years. By the time the two-door and RHT were out the Sedan was ready for a refresh, a refresh we are still waiting for because GM pulled the Pontiac plug.
MEANWHILE BACK AT THE GM RANCH
In the meantime, General Motors was launching G’s like a drunken sailor hurling insults. First the G5 showed up. This was a vehicle built off the same platform as the Chevy Cobalt, a replacement for the Cavalier. Heh, wait a minute, wasn’t the Grand Am a vehicle built off the same platform as the Cavalier? Then what is the G6? And more importantly, where is its market. That was the question of the day. The G6 was raked from the top by the Pontiac Grand Prix. The Prix wasn’t as good a car as the G6 by a long shot but it was bigger and many dealers sold it for the same price as the G6. Lord knows when Americans are given the choice we always pick bigger. Then the G5 comes out in the price range where the G6 should have been $15,000 to $20,000. This little bottom feeder picked off anyone who was trying to move up. Throw in the G8 and the G3 for good measure and how in the hell was the G6 supposed to compete? Even the power of Oprah couldn’t save us.
WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN
Who, other than GM, could squander the power of Oprah. When perhaps the most popular person in the world sponsors your car you at least give it a chance to survive. I can remember being told by GM leadership that we couldn’t put the G6 into fleet orders because it would hurt the retail sale price on the car. In recent days we have survived off the fleet sales of the G6. The Pontiac G6 is a fine automobile, I personally have owned two of them and have found them to be excellent by every measure. The demise of this car had a lot to do with GM Corporate Marketing and nothing to do with GM Manufacturing. Unfortunately, we can’t be successful if they aren’t. Do you ever remember any member of GM Corporate Marketing coming to the plant for a dose of common sense. Yeh, me neither. Perhaps as the “New GM” emerges things can change.
Thanks for listening . . .Tony
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