Pontiac auto news

Video: The other way to get snow off your car

There are plenty of automotive phenomena we don't entirely understand. Take sound system competitions, for example. We just never saw the practical use for a stereo worth more than your vehicle, especially when the largest fraction of that investment gets channeled into bowel-wobbling subwoofers. That is, until now. The owner of this particular Pontiac Grand Prix has found a unique way to shed snow from his car in the winter. Instead of standing in the cold with a brush and scraper, he simply cranks the volume on his Rockford Fosgate P3 subwoofers and lets physics take over.

Thanks to a little pounding bass, the vehicle's windows are clear of snow in no time flat. Of course, the gentleman's neighbors might have a word or two to say about his turning the community's winter wonderland into a pounding dance floor. Hit the jump to check out the clip for yourself, just be sure to nix the volume.

Continue reading The other way to get snow off your car

2008-2009 Pontiac G8 recalled over airbag concern

General Motors is recalling around 38,000 Pontiac G8 sedans from its 2008 and 2009 model years. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that the cars may have a passenger-side airbag flaw that might prevent proper deployment in certain scenarios.

According to NHTSA, the airbag might not adequately protect a fifth percentile woman - that is, a woman around four-foot, 11-inches weighing 108 pounds. The New York Times indicates that the anomaly was found during a crash test conducted by GM's Australian branch, Holden, which was testing the G8's twin (read: Commodore) for head injuries. According to that report, the test in question is specifically tailored to simulate injuries to females, so the results do not apply to men or children.

The issue has been blamed on a seat position sensor that governs airbag deployment rates. NHTSA indicates that when the front passenger seat is moved all the way forward, the faulty sensor may inappropriately trigger a 30-millisecond delay between airbag stages, potentially leading to greater injuries.

With the Pontiac division closed, other GM dealers will reprogram the sensor module of models covered under the recall at no cost to vehicle owners. GM says that no injuries have been reported as a result of this issue. For more information on the recall, click past the jump for the official notice.

Continue reading 2008-2009 Pontiac G8 recalled over airbag concern

Study: GM doing fine at retaining Pontiac owners

This isn't the first time we've reported positive news about General Motors retaining former Pontiac owners. Get a few more stories like this latest report from Edmund's Auto Observer, and it will mark an ongoing positive trend for GM. Edmunds.com crunched the numbers to see how well the General is hanging on to customers after shutting out the lights at Pontiac, and it found that nearly 40 percent of Pontiac owners stayed with a vehicle from a General Motors brand.

The numbers are a little lower than an earlier R.L. Polk & Company study, but Edmunds says General Motors is keeping more former Pontiac buyers than it has since 2007. Most are turning to vehicles from Chevrolet, especially during January and February of 2011, when GM incentivized Pontiac owners to stay under the umbrella. Those moves seem to have worked, and 28.1 percent of Pontiac owners trading up made the jump into a Bowtie.

Buyers that have gone elsewhere have largely stayed loyal to Domestic automakers, with Ford picking up the most conquests from Pontiac, with 9.4 percent switching. Toyota and Honda picked up 7.4 percent of the pool of former Pontiac drivers. The numbers are defying any predictions that Pontiac buyers would completely exit the General Motors fold, and have climbed up closer to parity with the retention figures of other GM brands from a 2009 low of only 16 percent retention.

Video: General Lee takes on Bandit T/A in classic Hollywood car showdown [w/poll]

You don't have to be born in the 1960s or 1970s to be able to recognize the General Lee from The Dukes of Hazzard and the Pontiac Trans Am from Smokey and the Bandit. These old school four-wheeled stars seem to transcend demographics thanks to the miles of film that show the orange 1969 Dodge Charger and the jet-black 1977 Pontiac Trans Am performing seemingly impossible stunts.

The folks at Hot Rod magazine are obviously hip to this fact, and they put together a fun video in tribute of the instantly recognizable duo. Hit the jump to watch on as Sam Young and James Smith replace Bo Duke and The Bandit for a bit of dirt-road shenanigans in a pair of otherwise well cared for classics. We're not so sure we'd call it the best chase scene ever, but it sure looks like a lot of fun.

More importantly, which of these two cars would you rather own? Have your say in our poll below.

View Poll

Continue reading General Lee takes on Bandit T/A in classic Hollywood car showdown [w/poll]

1939 Pontiac Ghost Car commands $308,000 at auction

For the 1939 World's Fair, Pontiac built a Deluxe Six bodied in Plexiglass. Part of the Previews of Progress pavilion in which General Motors' Futurama showed off what was to come in the world of autos, the 'invisible' Pontiac is credited as the first transparent car in America. And there were no shortcuts taken with its body: the Plexiglass form was fabricated by the company that brought the material to market in 1933, Rohm & Haas.

The see-through sedan was sold at RM Auctions' St. John's auction in Michigan on July 30, fetching $308,000. Not bad appreciation for a domestic oddity that cost $25,000 to build when new. You can check out the high-res gallery of its innards, including copper and chrome metalwork and white moldings and wheels, and get the exhaustive details on it after the jump.

Continue reading 1939 Pontiac Ghost Car commands $308,000 at auction

Video: Lutz dishes dirt on GM in latest Autoline Detroit

Autoline Detroit recently played host to Bob Lutz, and, as is always the case, the former General Motors vice chairman dished out some great commentary. Lutz was promoting his new book Car Guys vs. Bean Counters: The Battle for the Soul of American Business, and talk quickly turned to his role as it related to product development and high-level decision making at GM. While on the topic of brand management, Lutz revealed a few rather interesting tidbits about his former employer:

• All Chevrolet vehicles were required to have five-spoke aluminum wheels and a chrome band up front, as part of the Bowtie brand's overall image.
• Pontiac was required to utilize "see-through" headrests, despite the fact that they cost more to produce while offering no consumer value.
• All Buicks required a sweep spear in the exterior design language.
• Cadillac considered building a 550-horsepower supercharged Escalade.
• Saturn was working on a seven-passenger Vue.
• Many of the non-car person GM board members preferred to drive imports.
• Proportion and shape didn't matter as long as all the brand-image boxes were checked.

Also, judging solely by the above screenshot, we'll cast a vote for Robert De Niro to play Lutz in the inevitable movie about this period in General Motors' history.

Continue reading Lutz dishes dirt on GM in latest Autoline Detroit

Transparent 1939 Pontiac hitting the auction block in July

It's a car you can't really drive, but RM Auctions expects that a 1939 Pontiac with a Plexiglas body will go for anywhere between $275,000 to $475,000 at the St. John's auction that's being held as part of the Concours d'Elegance of America in Plymouth, MI this July. The Pontiac was built for the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair and appeared as part of General Motors' "Futurama" exhibit that showcased how the immediate pre-World War II imagination pictured 1960.

See-through cars were not part of the prediction, but a tough new transparent material that could be molded into such a complex shape was certainly something worth showing off. The Pontiac's body was created by Rohm & Haas, inventor of Plexiglas, to show off its revolutionary new material, and this particular car is the only one of two such vehicles that's known to survive.

This Poncho is unrestored, so there's some visible damage that's been accumulated over the years, but this impressive artifact is the first full-size automobile rendered see-through and therefore deserves a place of prominence in someone's collection... or living room. Either way, it will be a conversation piece.

Video: 1965 Pontiac GTO does donuts, helps sell boxers [w/bonus boxer puppies]

We love ourselves some vintage muscle cars, and none more so than the one that started it all: the Pontiac GTO. It's 389-cubic-inch V8 engine burbling underhood, its paper-thin bias-ply tires at all four corners and its complete lack of any kind of safety equipment mean the old Goat is nothing if not a hoon's dream car.

But what does it have to do with boxers? Beats us. Whether you're talking about the kind you wear under your jeans (in this case from Camouflage) or the kind that licks you in the face, we're completely baffled as to why the donut-performing muscle car is being used to advertise boxers.

Oh well. The Pontiac GTO (1965 vintage, in this case) is always welcome on these pages, and boxer puppies are adorable. You'll find both of them in the video after the break. Enjoy! Thanks for the tip, Diland!

Continue reading 1965 Pontiac GTO does donuts, helps sell boxers [w/bonus boxer puppies]

Red Bull drifts through downtown Atlanta

According to the company's slogan, Red Bull is supposed to give you wings. Apparently, all it gives Rhys Millen and Ryan Tuerck is smoke... tire smoke that is, and lots of it.

The two drivers - Millen in his Hyundai Genesis Coupe and Tuerck in his Pontiac Solstice Coupe (may it rest in peace) - were flown out to the Georgian capitol to take part in the Red Bull Peachtree Drift Battle, which, as you may have guessed, takes place down Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta.

There's isn't really a winner to this staged race, except for perhaps all the innocent bystanders who got a much-needed injection of excitement into their routine daily commutes. See all the tire-smoking action in the video after the break.

Continue reading Red Bull drifts through downtown Atlanta

Study: Pontiac drivers mainly sticking with GM

2009 Pontiac G8 GXP - Click above for high-res image gallery

Of the 57,641 Pontiac owners who bought a new car in 2010, 53.3 percent of them stuck with a product from General Motors, according to a survey by RL Polk & Co. The hard numbers: 33.5 percent of Pontiac customers chose a Chevrolet, 11.7 chose a GMC, 6.7 went with Buick and the last 1.5 percent bought a Cadillac.

Within the rest of the Big Three, Ford had the best outing, grabbing 10.5 percent of former Pontiac owners. Dodge caught 3.2 percent and Chrysler and Jeep together totaled 1.7 percent of the share.

Large numbers of Pontiac owners who didn't buy another GM product went overseas, with 31 percent opting for an import. Toyota claimed 7.7 percent of Pontiac owners, while Honda netted 7.5. Nissan and Hyundai weren't far behind.

What the numbers show is that buyers who bought a Pontiac largely stuck with a big-name high-volume automaker when it came time for a new car. Even though some of the brands former Pontiac owners moved to are quite different than Pontiac was, they're almost all affordable, mass produced and supported by huge dealer networks.

Gallery: In the Autoblog Garage: 2009 Pontiac G8 GXP

Photos Copyright (C)2011 Drew Phillips / AOL