Pontiac. Sport. 1932. 6/1800cc.

Pontiac was a brand of automobiles manufactured and sold by General Motors (GM); when the production ended in 2009, Pontiac remains a registered trademark, and active GM. The Pontiac vehicle brand was established in 1926 as a companion to the line most expensive of GM's Oakland motor cars.

Cars Pontiac reached its parent Oakland in popularity and supplanted the mark of Oakland in its entirety by 1933. Pontiac became a companion make for Chevrolet . Pontiac was sold in the United Kingdom , Canada, and Mexico by GM. Pontiac was announced as the division of performance of General Motors for many years, while specializing in conventional vehicles. Pontiac was relatively more popular in Canada, where for much of its history it was marketed as a vehicle with a low price.

At the beginning of 2009, in the midst of financial problems and restructuring efforts, GM announced that it would cease vehicle manufacturing and marketing under the brand Pontiac at the end of 2010 and focus on four core brands in North America: Chevrolet , Buick , Cadillac and GMC . The last cars Pontiac badged were built in December 2009, with a vehicle last built in January of 2010. The franchise agreements for dealerships, Pontiac expired on October 31, 2010.

History

Pontiac 1926-1942

The mark Pontiac was introduced by General Motors in 1926 as the brand partner of GM's Oakland division, and shared the GM A platform . It was the name of the famous chief of the Ottawa , who had also given its name to the city of Pontiac, Michigan, where they produced the car. A few months after its introduction, Pontiac was beating Oakland. As a result of the increase in the sales of Pontiac, as compared with the drop of the sales of Oakland, Pontiac became the only mark that accompanies it to survive its parent, with Oakland ceasing production in 1932. It is also made from kits of knock-down in the japanese factory that short-term GM in the Assembly of Osaka in Osaka, Japan from 1927-41.

Pontiac produced cars offering 40 HP (30 kW; 41 PS) 186,7 cubic inches (3,1 L) (3.25x3.75, at 82.5x95mm) L-head straight 6-cylinder engines in the Chief Pontiac of 1927; its stroke was the shortest of any american car in the industry at the time. The Chief sold 39,000 worth of units in the six months following its appearance at the 1926 New York Auto Salon, reaching 76.742 in twelve months. The following year, it became the most sold in six from the USA, occupying the seventh place in total sales. In 1933, it had moved up to the production of cars more economical are available with straight and eight (eight) in-line engines -cylinder. This was done through the use of many components of the 6-cylinder Chevrolet Master , as the body. At the end of the 1930s, Pontiac used the so called torpedo body of the Buick for one of its models, just prior to that used by Chevrolet. This body style brought a little bit of attention to the brand. An unusual feature of the "torpedo" exhibition of cars body, was that with just the press of a button the front half of the car body would open showing the engine and the interior of the front seat of the car. In 1937, the eight-cylinder had a 122 inch (3.099 mm) wheelbase, while the six-cylinder had a 117 inches (2.972 mm) distance between shafts. in 1940, Pontiac introduced a new vehicle called the Pontiac Torpedo , and two years later, on 2 February 1942 a Pontiac was the last car on civil manufactured in the united States during the Second World War , because all the car factories converted to military production.

For an extended period of time before the war through the 1950s, the Pontiac was a silent car, solid, but not especially powerful. Came with a flat head (side valve) straight eight. 8s lines were a little less expensive to produce than the increasingly popular V8s, but they were also heavier and longer. In addition, the long crankshaft suffered from excessive flexion, which restricts 8s in a row to a relatively low compression ratio with a red line modest. However, in this application, low-cost (but very quiet) heads flat were not a liability.