Former General Motors Vice Chairman Robert Lutz is saying that the big car firm was forced to kill its Pontiac brand by the U.S. federal government. Not only that, the government was not so hot on keeping Buick and GMC. Buick was saved because it was the best-selling car in China. If it were forced to eliminate Buick at home. GM argued, the Chinese consumer would quickly lose interest in it. That warning worked. The GMC brand survived when GM insisted it was the heart and soul of its truck business. The crisis is still less than five years old and many will recall how Barack Obama essentially fired GM President Rick Waggoner in 2009 because he would not declare bankruptcy. “I badly wanted to keep Pontiac,” Lutz is quoted as saying recently by Jalopnik.com. Pontiac, Lutz argued, was on its way back after years of mismanagement. The Solstice sports car and Pontiac G6 were new and had a great future, Lutz said. Washington wanted to get GM down to Cadillac and Chevrolet. They said “you don’t need all these brands. You need one prestige brand, and one mass-market brand.”
