Pontiac, You Will Be Missed

As Nathanael pointed out a few days ago, General Motor's Pontiac line of vehicles, known as the Excitement Division, has been put to eternal rest (aka phased out by 2010) earlier this week. Pontiac, you will be missed... eh, not really.

My simple twist of fate/love affair began with Pontiacs back in high school. First off, when they came out with the new, sleeker look of the late 90's, I just flat out thought they looked cool. "Ahhh, yeeeeeah, that Pontiac is hot, yo!"

I was lucky to find a fellow Pontiac enthusiast in my friend, Kyle. Where we were at the time, Hagersbush, MD, the bourgeois thought souped up Hondas were the shiznit. "My Honda is so faaaast and furious!" Little did they knew their Tokyoshit 1.8L engines were no match for Pontiac's much larger 5.0L. The Grand Am GT (pictured below) was a muscle car and had an engine more than twice as big, with tons more horsepower than the bullshit toyrides kids our age were fronting. Keep in mind this entire time Nathanael is also mocking me endlessly for liking the brand, which (in typical contrarian fashion) only made me spout more how they were the greatest cars on the road.


If you're thinking, "what about NICE cars, like BMWs, Audis, or Ferrari? That's a normal boys dream ride," well, I was too poor at the time to think those brands were cool. "Only a rich bitch would be caught in a BMW. Fuck that." I knew a new Pontiac was an attainable goal, so I was drawn to it.

I finally broke my Pontiac cherry one fateful spring in the late 90's. Nat's mother was renting a new Pontiac Bonneville (aka Ponti Bonny) as a replacement for her car in the shop. Nat understood I would NEED to drive this vehicle (and get my picture taken with it), so he convinced her to let us take it for a spin (and something was said about, "pick up Will at golf practice, blah blah blah, wHaT? We can't hear you, Mom").... The next couple minutes are blurry, but before I know it I'm behind the wheel on I-70 going 115 miles per hour. No joke. The other cars seemed like they were in park or driving in molasses as I dangerously flew by. Once I hit 115 the engine literally shut off, I assume the car's "governor" (when the engine shuts off so your car doesn't go too fast to out run cops or catch the engine on fire, I guess) kicked in until I was going about 85 miles per hour. No harm done. UPDATE: there was harm done! That afternoon Nat and I were supposed to pick up his younger brother from golf practice, but came home Will-less and totally got chew out by Nat's mom!! Will referred to it as "the worst day of his life" when he assumed he was forgotten; left to spend the rest of his days abandoned and deserted, bones picked by vultures in the parking lot of a golf resort. Haha!

Then I went to college, still no money to buy a car, yadda yadda yadda. I HATED the Pontiac Aztec with such a passion I largely turned my back on the brand forever... until I heard they were gone this week. It did bring back memories of largely faking a love of Pontiacs. I knew they weren't the best cars on the road, but I felt it didn't hurt having the brand's back... They were made in America afterall... soon to accept the fate of only existing as a warm (but distant) jpeg memory (and you used to mean so much to me).