Remembering a car division
In the not-so-distant past I used to follow NASCAR racing, which featured American car manufacturers only.
Dominated by General Motors, Ford and Chrysler and their divisions it provided a lot of discussion among those of us who loved auto racing. Sure, there was a love of the drivers who represented those brands. If you cheered for Chevrolet, Buick, Pontiac or Oldsmobile you were in the GM camp. Same with Ford, Lincoln and Mercury you were on the Ford team and Chrysler, Dodge and Plymouth cars put you in the Chrysler division.
Today, NACAR features only Chevrolet, Ford and now Toyota. If you go the Indy Racing League it is mainly Chevrolet and Honda engines.
During a break one day a colleague of mine talked about a time when even in the smallest of towns he’d see an occasional Oldsmobile shop that might sell 10 or fewer cars a year. In one of the towns I grew up in with a population of under 1,500 people there were three shops that sold new cars plus an International Harvester dealership that sold trucks and Scouts.
Today, that is a part of yesterday.
As October 2018 reminds me of the 10th year of the Great Recession it was a tough year as the Pontiac division of GM closed that year. Earlier in the decade the Oldsmobile division closed as the company dealt with the economic setback from the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Today, GM looks like it is thriving and growing as is Ford and Chrysler. Today friends tell me how foreign companies like Toyota and Honda build vehicles in the United States. When I drive to my church on Sunday morning and I see a number of folks drive foreign brand full size pickups, including farmers and ranchers, it causes me to pause and think to myself what happened to all those pickups that were the exclusive domain of Chevrolet, Ford, GMC and Dodge?
The global market has made many changes and innovations and definitely we can state with ease that the innovation has ushered in better performing, more reliable vehicles.
Still—on the 10th anniversary of the Great Recession—it reminds me of the high performance vehicles of the Pontiac division— GTOs, TransAms and Grand Prixes. Those cars remain popular at car shows across the heartland. When I attend one of those shows I go out of my way to take a look at one of them. It reminds me of what was once a powerhouse now belongs to yesterday’s ingenuity.
I’m glad I have lived long enough to see it in its hey-day. Someday I will be the one who will ask, “Does anyone here in the room remember the Pontiac division?” I’m hoping when I ask the question I won’t be greeted with first a long pause, followed by, “I’ll have to think about it.”
