Pontiac closes after 84 years

Pontiac, whose muscle cars drag-raced down United States boulevards, parked at drive-ins and roared across movie screens, went out of business last weekend.
The 84-year-old brand, moribund since General Motors (GM) decided to kill it last year as it collapsed into bankruptcy, had been in decline for years.
It was undone by a combination of poor corporate strategy and changing driver tastes.
GM's agreements with Pontiac dealers expired on October 31.
Even before GM's bankruptcy, Pontiac's sales had fallen from their peak of nearly one million in 1968, when the brand's speedier models were prized for their powerful engines and scowling grills.
At Pontiac's pinnacle, models like the GTO, Trans Am and Catalina 2+2 were packed with horsepower and sported colours like "Tiger Gold".
Burt Reynolds and Sally Field fled the law in a Firebird Trans Am which raced through the 1970s hit movie Smokey and the Bandit.
By the late 1980s, though, Pontiacs were taking off their muscle shirts, putting on suits and trying to act like other cars. The brand had lost its edge.
A reorganisation at the company in 1984 cut costs by combining Pontiac's manufacturing, engineering and design operations with those of other GM brands.
Although the moves were necessary to fend off competition from Japanese carmakers with lower costs, they yielded Pontiacs that looked and drove like other GM cars.
By 2008, the last full year before GM announced Pontiac's shutdown, sales were 267,000, less than a third of those sold in 1968.
This year, Pontiac's sales are less than 1 per cent of the 2.2 million cars and trucks GM is expected to sell.
GM built the last Pontiac in May.