Summary of: Pontiac goes out of business after 84 years
Source: http://www.manufacturing.net/news/2010/11/pontiac-goes-out-of-business-after-84-years
This article discusses a little of the history of GM and why it failed. Pontiac started in the Michigan city of Pontiac in the 1920s. It almost died three decades later but was revived by GM when the company linked the car to drag racing and it gained the muscle image. The ready to race GTO, with a powerful V8 engine, helped Pontiac thrive in the 1960s.
In 1968, Pontiac's sales hit nearly one million! That is most likely something that will never be repeated again. Pontiac went global in the 1970s when Burt Reynolds drove a black and gold Firebird in the hit film Smokey and the Bandit. But in the late 1990s General Motors began to cut back on its performance image and mechanical problems when some of the later models damaged the company's reputation with people who bought sports cars. And in recent years, with GM's troubles, Pontiac had been in rapid decline. In the end, it was a changing market, declining sales and a huge restructuring at GM were the final straws for Pontiac. GM had to rescue itself from bankruptcy and Pontiac was one of the victims.
Relative Concepts: This news article mainly discusses how GM and Pontiac filed bankruptcy and went out of business. It also explains how Pontiac had a poor corporate strategy and how consumer’s tastes changed. Pontiac ruined its brand name by trying to cut costs by producing less reliable automobiles with below standard parts. Pontiac also eventually cut out advertising which really hurt the company because consumers began to think of the company as less reliable. Foreign competition had begun advertising heavily which led consumers to believe their automobiles were more reliable. Pontiac was also paying very high salaries to its employees in their factories which led to a much lower profit. This goes with Chapter 17, Monopolistic