Oakland Motor Car Company To Pontiac.
Like many other historic brands, Pontiac began with the manufacture of carriages. Edward Murphy founded the Pontiac Buggy Company in Pontiac, Michigan, in 1893 for the purpose of manufacturing carriages. However, Murphy wanted to switch to automobile construction and, in 1906, he turned to Alanson Brush.
Brush had established himself as a consultant in Detroit after creating some of the first Cadillacs. This shows him the project of a vertical bicylinder that was rejected by Cadillac. Murphy accepts it and in the summer of 1907 he creates the Oakland Motor Co. The lack of success of this first model makes him think that, finally, in Cadillac they did well in rejecting the project.
Pontiac and the firebird.
The image of the Pontiac Firebird with the mythological flaming bird in its hood is already part of pop culture. However, Pontiac hasn’t existed for a few years now. After 82 years of history, Pontiac disappeared from the map in 2010. General Motors was forced to sacrifice one of its most emblematic brands in order to survive. With the end of the road to Pontiac, an essential page in the history of the automobile was turned.
General Motors and its monopolization of the market?.
It is not the first time that General Motors has disposed of any of its brands, from Oldsmobile to Geo, the giant of Detroit does not shake the pulse when it comes to load a brand.
While some of these missing brands were pure marketing products, such as Saturn or Geo, it was not the case of Oldsmobile, founded in 1897 by Ransom E. Olds and that in 2004 disappeared because GM no longer knew how to make it profitable, nor Pontiac.
GM’s “sports” brand, as it came to be known, was not just a commercial product. Pontiac was the instigator of the highly acclaimed muscle-cars. With Pontiac’s death, she is not just a piece of American industrial history that disappeared, but an important player in automobile history.
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