(Source: CNN) 

Pontiac owners around the United States are feeling nostalgic amid reports that cash-strapped General Motors will end one of its most coveted brands.

 Pontiac models, such as the 1969 GTO, helped usher in the era of the muscle cars, enthusiasts say.

Jean Lindsay of western New York fondly recalls the muscle cars in her family’s driveway: Two 1967 GTOs.

“I had two brothers, and they each had one of these cars,” she said. “The GTO represented the suburban culture of its time, heavily laden with root beer and plain beer.”

“Those were the days of Bob’s Big Boy [hamburger restaurant], when girls wore skates. Back then we pleasantly wasted gas looking for fun. It was a social thing.”

Debuting in 1964, the Pontiac GTO is widely regarded as the original muscle car. It was a risky model in that it featured a big-block engine in an intermediate-size frame.

The GTO’s success not only buoyed GM but helped jumpstart the high-performance market for Detroit’s Big Three automakers — and ushered in the era of the vehicle as status symbol.

“It was a chick magnet, for God’s sake. Even from a girl’s standpoint,” Lindsay said.

Pontiac’s other emblematic performance car, the Firebird Trans Am, featured the outline of a firebird on the hood — the whole hood. It enjoyed a rise in popularity and brisk sales after being featured in the “Smokey and the Bandit” movie franchise beginning in the late 1970s.

But like even the most sturdy odometer, the numbers, years ago, had begun to work against Detroit.

In February, GM announced the end of the Saturn and Hummer lines while casting a ray of hope for Pontiac enthusiasts by saying that the brand would survive but be scaled back to a niche product.

But as a potential bankruptcy filing looms on June 1, the automaker has reportedly studied closing down the Pontiac brand. In the midst of pressure from the Obama administration to present a restructuring plan that shows the company’s long-term viability, the automaker recently released a statement to downplay fears that brands Americans have patronized for generations are on the chopping block.

“General Motors has not announced any changes to its long-term viability plan or to the future status of any of its brands,” the automaker said Friday in a statement on its Web site.

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(SSource: Reuters via CNN)

Tentative agreement, aimed at cutting costs and keeping automaker out of bankruptcy, to be presented to workers for ratification.

Chrysler LLC and the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) union reached a tentative agreement Friday on a new labor contract intended to cut costs and keep the struggling automaker from bankruptcy, the union said.

The deal, which will be put to CAW-represented workers for ratification this weekend, is one of several agreements that Chrysler needs to reach by next week to win new U.S. government aid and avoid liquidation.

“We were told by Chrysler that they still didn’t have entire deals done to avoid a bankruptcy filing. We urge all the stakeholders in the United States to make equal sacrifices,” CAW President Ken Lewenza told reporters.

Chrysler, which has been kept operating since the start of the year with $4 billion in U.S. government loans, has until the end of this month to clinch an alliance with Italy’s Fiat SpA and win concessions from its bank creditors and major unions or face a cutoff of its government funding.

“We are extremely grateful to the CAW leadership and to its hard-working members for their openness in this challenging environment to create a new strategy that will lead this company on a path to success,” Chrysler vice chairman Tom LaSorda said in a statement.

The tentative contract for Canadian autoworkers with the No. 3 U.S. automaker would leave hourly base pay intact but cut a range of benefits, including an annual Christmas bonus, and add flexibility to work rules that would make it easier for Chrysler to hire temporary workers.

Chrysler will also cut the third production shift at its Windsor, Ontario, minivan plant.

Taken together, the contract changes will save Chrysler an estimated C$240 million in annual labor costs, Lewenza said.

 (Source: Autoblog & Detroit Free Press)

As in a basketball game when players are yanking on jerseys trying to block each other out under the basket, General Motors and Chrysler’s creditors have officially begun jockeying for position. 

Michigan’s Attorney General, Mike Cox, has sent letters to the CEOs at both companies to ask that, if they file for bankruptcy, they do it in Michigan. Why? Because that would be more convenient to the creditors that GM and Chrysler have in Michigan.

“I am gravely concerned about the impact of any bankruptcy filing in a jurisdiction outside Michigan,” Cox wrote in separate letters to GM CEO Fritz Henderson and Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli. 

Cox goes on to say that the financial health of both companies and Michigan have been intertwined for decades.

The state is a significant creditor for each of the troubled automakers through the Michigan Business and Single Business Tax obligations, workers’ compensation claims, unemployment insurance and environmental regulations. 

“The costs for many of these creditors (in Michigan) to participate in a New York or Delaware bankruptcy is overwhelming and would undoubtedly lead to unjust bills,” Cox said.

While Cox does not say that either company should file for bankruptcy, neither does he acknowledge that they might not need to if they meet certain criteria set by the U.S. Treasury Department.

“If you ultimately decide to choose bankruptcy as the vehicle to a stronger (company), I respectfully ask that you and your representatives meet with me before any filing is made,” the letter concludes. “Please feel free to contact me at any time, day or night, to discuss this matter.”

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(Source:  NYT via Jalopnik.com)

Saab, GM’s meatball-of-a-badge, officially filed for bankruptcy protection today in Sweden. Remaining to be seen is what role, if any, GM will have with the born-from-jets brand.  

Here’s what the NYT has to say:

Unmoored from its parent, Saab went to a Swedish court for protection from its creditors, and said the company would – with assistance from the Swedish government – reorganize to pave the way for private investors to buy all or part of the company.

“We explored and will continue to explore all available options for funding and/or selling Saab, and it was determined a formal reorganization would be the best way to create a truly independent entity that is ready for investment,” the managing director of Saab, Jan-Ake Jonsson, said in a statement.