Today, the Big Three domestic auto company CEOs went back to Washington to present their comprehensive restructuring plans, in the hopes of winning the all-important federal bridge loans to keep their operations running. For GM and Chrysler, the news was particularly dire: Either they receive $4 billion and $7 billion, respectively, in federal aid in the next 30 days or they will cease operations. If given a reprieve, GM’s plan asks for a total of $18 billion in federal aid, which it expects to pay back by 2012 based on its restructuring plan’s cost-saving efforts.

I delved through the official PDF copy of GM’s proposal, which the Detroit Free Press has available for download, in the hopes of finding some news about my brand of choice: Pontiac. I’ve been a Pontiac fan since…well, “the dawn of time” might be an accurate assessment, although there was a time when I was actually more enamored with the Ford Mustang. I’d say that it was 1992 or thereabouts when I really started soaking up all the information I could find about the Firebird, and started to become intimately familiar with Pontiac’s lineup and future plans. Of course, since I was old enough to drive, every car I’ve ever owned has been a Pontiac — and a black one, at that.

After hearing the recent rumors that GM was considering the total elimination of Pontiac, along with is Saab and Saturn brands, I was of mixed emotions. As much as I always loved Pontiac, their current lineup is a sad, shallow caricature of its former “rebel” image. No one takes them seriously, and given their haphazard flailing about and vapid product portfolio, it’s hard to take them seriously. With the Firebird and GTO gone, the Solstice being upstaged by the spiffier Saturn Sky, and the G8 being billed as a somewhat less-than-exciting replacement for about four different discontinued models, GM’s former “Excitement” brand hasn’t been offering us much to get excited about. And the “Green Appeasing” subcompact they’re trying to introduce, a rebadged Chevy Aveo called the G3, is nothing but a total embarrassment to the brand and its few remaining fans. Still, despite what Pontiac has become, I was bitter about the prospect of the nameplate ceasing to exist.

Which is why GM’s vision for Pontiac, as presented in their restructuring plan, is probably about the best thing that could happen to it. From the document:

Significant efforts have been expended to combine the Buick, Pontiac and GMC (BPG) brands into a single dealer distribution network, with approximately 80% of these brands‘ combined sales sold through BPG-branded stores. This channel will be fully competitive in terms of total entries offered, with Pontiac serving as a specialty/niche brand with reduced product offerings solely intended to complement Buick and GMC models and reinforce the channel as a whole.
GM Restructuring Plan for Long-Term Viability, 12/2/2008

In a way, this makes perfect sense. Rather than each of the entities in the “BPG” tier trying to function as a full-line marque, the combined entities should represent a single full-line marque, with each nameplate contributing something different to the goal. And in this case, Pontiac would contribute some “specialty/niche products” — perhaps just the halo cars, if you will.

Besides, as far as I can tell, Pontiac already is a niche brand — it just doesn’t know it. Pontiac’s attempt to be a fully-rounded GM marque, offering vanilla cars like the G6, G5 and Vibe, watered down (if not completely snuffed out) the brand’s “Excitement” image. And let’s be honest; anyone looking for a bread-and-butter car isn’t going to buy a Pontiac. Pontiac only exists for one reason: To provide inspiring, soulful product to mainstream, middle-class buyers who actually want some fun in their mode of transportation. Pontiac should not be about utility, or fuel economy, or ergonomics. It should be about performance, design and — dare I invoke the term — excitement. And it should not try to compete with Porsche, BMW or any of the Euro marques in refinement, comfort or panache — let those brands have that stuff. Pontiac cars should be all about stuffing it in your face, like it was in the ’60s and ’70s. Like the nostril-festooned Trans Am of the ’90s. No holds barred!

And because this should be the brand’s focus, it naturally should be a reduced portfolio with maybe two or three cars. The “sporty, fun” alter-egos that grin at you mischievously from the corners of the Buick/GMC/Pontiac combined showroom. If you want your cushy pseudo-luxury ride, you have your Buick sedans and crossovers. If you want your fun car, you have your Pontiacs. And then, for some reason, you have your GMCs. Frankly I think it’s GMC that needs to cease to exist; what with Chevrolet offering everything GMC does in essentially the same package, I don’t see the point.

But you can see from GM’s discussion of the three combined “second tier” brands — Buick, GMC and Pontiac — that it’s Pontiac that would get the axe first if it came to it. They’re just there to “round out” the product offerings of the second tier, and if it doesn’t work out, Pontiac will go the way of Oldsmobile. So yeah, the brand might still cease to exist in the very near future, but at least it sounds like GM has finally faced the music and relegated it to the niche status that it has so deserved, for better and for worse, for a long time now. (And hey, with GM about ready to throw in the towel and dissolve Saturn, maybe the Sky can go away and the Solstice will finally be able to stand on its own merits.)

So if Pontiac were reduced to two or three niche products, what should they be? I think Peter DeLorenzo of AutoExtremist has the right idea:

A Firebird Trans-Am, a GTO and a big Bonneville sedan would do nicely. Notgonnahappen.com, but it’s an interesting thought…
AutoExtremist.com

Perchance to dream.

Edit: As if reading my mind, Mark Phelan of the Detroit Free Press posted practically the same thoughts today. Well done.