Oh, Pontiac, your death in 2009 was a bitter pill, as memories of big block Trans Ams and GTOs flooded forth with the tears. Not that Pontiac's end was hard to see coming; the brand had been languishing for years. There were a few bright spots in the 2000s, such as the GXP versions of the Solstice and G8, but it was difficult to ignore the rebadged leftovers and platform-thieved mediocrity that comprised most of the lineup. And, of course, there was the Pontiac Aztek proving it can always get worse -- standing in the corner, occasionally waving, eating all the hors d'oeuvres, and making uncomfortable eye contact while everyone tried to ignore it.
As inauspicious as the new millennium was for GM's former performance division, its beginnings in 1926 were promising. Indeed, they were more than promising, as Pontiac was the most successful new American automotive marque ever at the time. Unlike the image Pontiac enjoyed from the 1950s onward -- thanks to the performance-obsessed Bunkie Knudsen and John Z. DeLorean -- it was originally introduced as a budget version of Oakland, a General Motors division many of you may not be familiar with.
What was truly special about the '26 Pontiac was that it brought high-end features out of the realm of expensive, narrow-market vehicles in a "Prometheus giving humans fire" move to improve civilization. That's not hyperbole -- that Pontiac set the trajectory for the industry, and marked the point where cars went from luxury items to primary transportation devices. It provided a reasonable $825 starting price, an enclosed body to protect occupants from the weather, and a large, powerful, inline-6-cylinder engine making about 40-hp (double the output of a Ford Model T). The 1926 Pontiac was a resounding success, with nearly 77,000 cars sold in the first year.