It’s because GM DOES NOT produce based on demand. Toyota and Honda would never produce more cars than their dealers could sell. This drives me crazy, not to mention the Sky looks a lot better in my opinion. Saturn has become a stronger brand over the years as Pontiac as a whole has diminished.

Why not build mor Saturn Sky’s if they’re more popular? IMHO it’s better looking vehicle to start with.

I am in agreement, the Saturn Sky looks better. Maybe the Saturn Sky sales are eating into the Solstice sales?

Just like Oldsmobile was killed because there was no point to having Oldsmobile and Buick, Pontiac should also be killed because there is no point in having Pontiac and Chevrolet. Saturn used to have its own distinctive vehicles in the beginning (SC, SL, SW) and therefore did not compete against other GM marques, but as Saturns individual identity disappeared and was replaced with the usual badge engineered GM vehicles, we’re now back to having too many divisions at GM.

I want GM to build the Solstice Coupe and build far too many of them so I can get a deal on one of the excess stock.

problem one is that the solstice is on equal footing with the sky…..an obvious slap in the face to the “performance-excitement” division. gm is pronouncing to the world that pontiac has become nothing more to an equal to saturn… how sad and pathetic that a division that was supposed to stand for performance and exitement cannot be made successful. the solstice clearly should be the street burner with an 8 cylinder engine exclusive to pontiac….but it sure doesnt look like its going to happen…where is that next generation gto/firebird????? makes you wonder….

murphy, the solstice was originally a concept called the curve… by saturn. so pontiac really stole it from saturn.

When they are all divisions of the same company, there’s no way to apply the concept of “stealing” to the matter.

Saturn is where its at. When you have sweet new products, sales go through the roof.

Why did they make both in the first place? They’re the same car, what’s the point really.

They should have kept the sky a competitor to the miata…sort of a quick little sunday drive roadster, and made the pontiac available only with the turbo, better tires, stiffer suspension… Make the pontiac more of a harder edged serious roadster and keep the saturn more of an ice-cream run with the wife car.

If you’re going to differentiate products, actually do it, don’t just make it look slightly different. I thought the car companies had figured that out already.

Saturn got it’s own version for returning Saturn customers and to breathe more life into a once declining brand.

I’d suggest pontiac be the only brand to get the club sport coupe and leave the Sky as a drop top only.

One of the biggest contributors to this situation is what brings buyers to the lots. What LLN fails to mention is Saturn’s current lineup of many new vehicles like the Aura, Vue, and Outlook. Those vehicles are brand new and attract alot of attention. Not all of the Sky’s sales are people who solely visit the dealership for that particular vehicle. There are 4 great looking cars/crossovers on the lot that draw attention and build sales off eachother. What does Pontiac have? The G6 is no longer ‘new’. Neither is the Torrent. In fact, besides the Solstice, Pontiac’s lineup is lacking excitement, thus less attention and visits to the dealer lots.

Personally, I prefer the Solstice.

Jonnycat – A hard top “Sky” would certainly be something of a paradox!

Not too hard to figure out… the Saturn looks better. If they were going to insist on making two different versions they should have made the Buick Velite… it could have been way more upscale and would have given Buick a much needed model/halo car.

R-Head… they should make the Pontiac a hardtop only.. at least then the ugly one could be justified.

The Solstice looks like an insect, the Sky is clearly the superior looking vehicle.

ARE YOU ALL BLIND?? REAL REASON……… THE SOLCTICE’S INTERIOR IS PURE CRAP!!!! SEA OF ****IN’ GOD FORBIDDEN G-R-A-Y PLASTIC FROM EARLY 90’s!!!

UUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHH ! ! ! ! ! ! puuukkkeee!!

the coupe version help, i was never a convertible fan anyway. i was very interested in a Solstice until the Camaro hype started. and yeah, the interior could use a small refresh.

The coupe version would probably help, like you guys already said…

I think the reason for the decline in sales is because dealer gave such large mark ups, and now that sales are waining a little bit people are dissapointed they paid so much. The Saturn brand comes by as a little bit more on-budget, and although I’m sure there have been large markups on it, they haven’t been nearly as high as Pontiacs.

The interiors nothing but alright. A refresh will help, but it’s nothing I’d be interested in.

they call Pontiac the Excitment Divison but I can’t think of one exciting vehicle pontiac has that isn’t offered by another GM brand. Even the upcoming G8 will have a chevy impala counter part. The G6 convertable is exclusive to pontiac, but that isn’t what I would call a performance vehicle..

The Solstice is a stripped down, “boy-racer” version of a more mature Sky. That is very much it in a nutshell. The Solstice needs a severe upgrade in performance to justify itself against the very similar, but better equipped, Sky. Simple.

The Sky is a victim of taking Pontiac’s new tack as the performance division of GM too far. The car needs a V6 or a hotter turbo-4 (300+ hp desired). What it has now is not much better than the Sky and you don’t have to special order one with all the options.

Right now when you look at the line-ups between division at GM you will see redundancies and overlaps. Then you look to and past 2008 and most of them, if not all, of the overlaps and redundancies disappear. This is more of a problem than a solution when you look region to region when not everything city or town has a dealership for every division of GM. Hence why Pontiacs and GMCs are being sold on the same lots. But for those that do, it helps considerably.

As for cheap materials…

It is a convertible and a not too awfully expensive one at that. Those “cheap” plastics most of you seem to love griping about are were chosen for the expressed purpose of withstanding the elements, which soft plastics and leather really can not for more than a couple of seasons. If your’ fancy-pants leather clad [name brand here] convertible interior should accidentally get caught in the rain with the top down or spend too many hours basking in the sun, you will be paying for it to get your interior reupholstered.

Like a Jeep with its “cheap” plastic interior, a convertible that is meant to be used and lived with – not pampered (that’s for your butt no the car’s seat) will have hard plastic interior appointments that are frequently mistaken, especially by this lot, for cheap but are actually functional.

If construction is an issue stop picking at it with a screwdriver!

where is GM_sales?
um….

****, what the hell? Why is the Sky outselling the other one 2:1 if they’re the exact same car? Not justifiable on small improvement in looks, because it’s thousands more than the Solstice.

I actually like both designs, and the interiors are OK – big improvement from the GM of 5 years ago.

i agree with deanster, the looks are equally distinct, and neither is ugly, and while the sky is the better looker, the pontiac is way cheaper. Maybe they should compare sky/solstice sales to MX-5 sales?

No wonder they advertised the Solstice in transformers not the Saturn. Apart from looks, what else is different between Solstice and Sky?

The Sky is heavier and therefore slower than the Solstice. Other differences are negligible.

Neither are really that great, they’re cool looking I guess, but the MX-5 performs better in nearly every single category (not comparing the MX-5 to the GXP/Redline-those compete against the upcoming Mazdaspeed MX-5).

Going strictly by performance, the MX-5/Miata did indeed take most categories, but suffered in simply being a better car to live with and drive daily. But I think that most who buy a Kappa are seriously looking to burn up the highways and local Roadtracks, those who are lucky enough to have one to go to.

The “Hi-pro” versions of these cars will likely not do much better against the Mazdaspeed MX-5. In fact the win/lose margins will likely widen but shouldn’t change much. Still it is possible that the Kappa cars “Hi-pro” versions will actually do quite well.

They do suffer from weighing over 3000lbs each, something that needs to be addressed in the future, looking at the Sky the Kappa clearly does have a future. There is also the corporate attitude that got the Fiero killed. With the right engine, the Fiero was able to beat the C4 Corvette. Not a huge feat at the time, well maybe for an American car it was. But the Fiero could still the limelight from GM’s Premier sports car. They couldn’t have that so they buried the Fiero under bad advertising and languishing without serious updates then finally just killing off the car.

The Ideal for the Kappa, would be to get the weight below 2800 lbs. With new materials, like MAP Carbon Fiber, it should be possible to get the weight to around 2600 lbs or lower with the same structure with out greatly increasing the cost. Bob Lutz famously claimed her did NOT want to build another $35K convertible sports car. Up the power with a V6 for the Pontiac and a hotter turbo-4 for the Saturn. Handling should also be addressed with the likes of the Honda S2000 and Lotus Eleven, both FR topless sports cars (the lOtus weighs next to nothing) in mind.

The second generation Kappa should be Aluminum intensive as any Lotus of recent note. The Weight should ultimately be no more than 2500 lbs, and offer engines with outputs greater than 250 hp as a minimum.

I always thought of the Kappas as a great start for a company that seemed infinitely more interested in trucks than hot cars. But they can be better. I’m hoping GM doesn’t just give up because these cars aren’t the greatest or haven’t beaten everyone one the planet. If that were so then the Corvette would have ended in the 1990s, but today it is one of the cars to beat in the World. The Kappas have roundly be called “baby Corvettes”. The Corvette is one heck of a parent to have to live up to. Hopefully the execs will understand that and allow the engineers to bring the Kappas up to that level, in their class, of course, of performance and then bring them to market.

The mantra should read: “Quicker, faster, more agile, for only slightly more if that much.”

That’s the same reason they killed the Grand National/GNX… they were kicking the Corvette’s ass with a turbocharged six.

Correction:

Going strictly by performance, the MX-5/Miata did indeed take most categories, but suffered in simply NOT being a better car to live with and drive daily. But I think that most who buy a Kappa are not seriously looking to burn up the highways and local Roadtracks, those who are lucky enough to have one to go to.

The more I think about it the more I think they should just kill Pontiac. Everyone always says that Buick is the one who should join Olds for a long dirt nap… WRONG! I just don’t get the point of Pontiac… where is the excitement? The General still has a ways to go and putting Pontiac on the chopping block should be one of them. Between Chevy and Saturn there is just no point of having Pontiac, the other two can be shifted to fill the gap. There are more performance oriented Chevys than there are Pontiacs anyway so just kill it already. They are by and large the ugliest of all GM vehicles to boot.

Buick has a purpose and is needed in the General’s lineup. It should be given some more respect accordingly. Pontiac – not so much.

So there, kill Pontiac… and stop making Chevy trucks. Let GMC handle all the trucks or kill them too and let Chevy handle them all.

There are some important issues to consider about this situation. First, the Solstice has been on the market longer than the Sky and may have already hit its “sweet spot” on sales. Cars like this are extremely trendy and once the initial excitement peak has been hit, the sales start to drop off. I think this has happened with the Solstice. You would think that GM would have expected this and altered Solstice/Sky production accordingly.

Second, the Sky is surrounded by a new, exciting product portfolio that is bringing traffic to Saturn dealers. The poor Solstice is surrounded by products that do absolutely nothing to convey the performance image of Pontiac. The G6 is a front wheel drive joke among mainstream midsize sedans. The G5 and Torrent are hopeless, badge engineered clones of Chevrolet products. The Grand Prix is on its last legs on an aging platform. The Vibe should idealistically be a Chevrolet product, it is not a performance vehicle. My advice to Pontiac and GM, broom all of the lineup except the Solstice and start all over. The company needs to bring out a completely rear wheel drive lineup to properly convey the performance image that Pontiac should represent.

I would give Pontiac the following product lineup:
* RWD affordable roadster/coupe on Kappa platform (Solstice).
* RWD compact sedan/coupe/convertible on Alpha platform (G5 and G6 replacements).
* RWD midsize sedan/coupe/convertible on Zeta platform (G8 sedan and accompanying coupe & convertible).
* RWD performance coupe/convertible on Zeta platform (resurrected Firebird or GTO).
* GMC (which is sold on the same lot) could handle wagon, crossover, SUV, and truck products.
* Throw out the silly, meaningless alpha-numeric model designations and bring back model names that evoke passion and performance.
I know sales would not be as great as in the past, but Pontiac would be positioned as a niche performance brand. Basically, the brand would be a poor man’s BMW; offering affordable, sporty products to the performance enthusiast who cannot afford the pricey luxury brands’ products.

I think that both the Solstice and Sky are attractive vehicles that properly represent their brands. I would like to see them both continue in the market.

im sorry amgoff, buick should be the one to go…. the editor of high performance pontiac made the perfect suggestion for pontiac. make pontiac build a TRUE high performance version of all the main gm platforms. NO watered down gas miser cars at all, just top performance versions. performance and excitement CAN be successful….. kill buick!

negative… especially in light of the direction the General is taking Cadillac. The General needs Buick to cover the “traditional” luxury segment, filling the spot Cadillac is vacating. That particular might not appeal to you but it is still a segment to be reckoned with. You might laugh at the geriatric set but we are talking about a demographic with the largest amount of disposable income, a demographic that also wants a quiet, comfortable, no fuss kind of ride. If the General were to kill Buick they would basically be saying to that entire group “Nope, we don’t want your money, we don’t care if you come back every three years for a new model… nope… go buy a Lexus or something else because we just don’t want your money.” Like I said, just because the division doesn’t appeal to you doesn’t mean that it’s not needed. Plus the General would never can their only division that ties Lexus in dependability/customer satisfaction rankings. And Pontiac? What’s the point… no excitement and redundant models with ugly styling. Chevrolet is the General’s true performance division and should be recognized as such. Saturn is there to pick up the rest of the displaced customers. Buick – needed, Pontiac – not so much.

The talk of GM eliminating another division is as best pig-headed speculation. If it is going to happen GM will make obvious movements to that end. PERIOD.

GM is currently retooling every division with new products and hopefully better service. Pontiac is scheduled for an enormous influx of new cars that will be largely unique to GM. While not as separated as Cadillac is. Pontiac will persist. It will change but I doubt GM would dumped billions on a division just to shut them down.

Buick is changing. With China becoming so important to GM, I would not be surprised if Buick was eventually based out of China and imported to the US. It too would change and would likely reflect Buick’s then home market, China, more than America.

Oh oh oh wait, BUICK recently tied LEXUS is dependability and customer satisfaction so Buick isn’t going anywhere. That’s like saying we won’t deny them just because we like their shade of red more. Try the recall that Buick in NOT a company unto itself. What Buick, or any division does right can be translated, given adequate time to do it right, to all other divisions. Plus did you actually read all the conditionals attached to Buick’s tying with LEXUS. LEXUS was still the vastly better division. Sad but true. BUICK’s problems were frequently bigger, more expensive, and more difficult, than LEXUS’s, even though the number of problems was roughly equal.

“Like I said, just because the division doesn’t appeal to you doesn’t mean that it’s not needed.”

Unfortunately, Appeal is all part of the game. Younger people, those under the average age of retirement, buy cars and trucks frequently. Several in their lifetimes. Older people buy fewer often seeking that one last car for the rest of their lives. BUICK does not appeal to folks like it used to in America. Buick might well be needed, but not that badly and not as it is for that much longer.

Given this, I would have to disagree and say that Pontiac will be needed in America much more than Buick. But in 10-20 years, who is to say. Maybe Buick will come roaring back. But for now… Let them send us postcards from China.

okay… so you’ve proven that you know how to **** on Buick even though I completely disagree with you on it. yes i read the entire report from jd power, but it’s still the highest ranked brand from general motors, that can’t be disputed. appeal is subjective and the enclave is proof positive that buick is capable of alluring more than the geriatric set. gm is always going to make a “cush” ride and now the cadillac is moving more and more to a performance oriented lux, that leaves buick to fit the bill. i never said they were going to kill pontiac, i said they should kill pontiac. also, don’t assume that just because they are dumping tons of money into a division means that it’s automatically safe from being axed. do we remember a little company called oldsmobile? they poured a ****load into that division in the 90s. remember the aurora? it was to be the car that was to save the division. the pumped out the aurora, the alero, the intrigue.. all pretty decent cars.. and what happened? bye bye olds, why? because it was redundant having both olds and buick in the lineup, just like it’s redundant having pontiac in the lineup. so again, we know you can **** on buick but you’ve yet to explain why pontiac is necessary to the lineup. it’s a redundant division especially with chevy and now saturn in the picture. it’s as unnecessary as having chevy and gmc trucks. and remember, all of this is coming from a gm supporter, there are only two car manufacturers I have ever and hopefully will ever buy a vehicle from – chrysler and gm. despite how much i love them i still think they are still brand heavy by at least one division, possibly two (gmc). so please, please professor tell me why pontiac is essential to the general?

The alero wasn’t a “decent” car, BTW. My dad has one, and it is a horrendous, unfathomably lame piece of ****. IT’s plagued by a ****ty plasticky interior, awful driving dynamics, ****ty fuel economy, brakes that barely work, and a chassis that shimmies left and right like a ****ing pole-dancer.

It’s downright awful, nonnegotiable. The Aurora, I can’t speak for.

For “pole dancer” read 11-year-old boy scout’s hand during a Haribo-induced sugar rush. Get help Deanster, before its too late.

My prediction was correct. Solstice = flash in the pan.
Double digit drops are not minor sales hurdles.

Oldsmobile was a division of GM. It was also consistently one of the best divisions as well. Not bulletproof but never the worst either. However, it was also plagued by more than redundant products. It, unlike any other division at GM, had no clear or even a vague mission. It was easily leaning toward a performance “near-luxury” position. But I would wager that GM had made plans to move Cadillac in the direction it is in now but more upscale, which would have overlapped with Olds very badly. With Oldsmobile skirting the difference between Pontiac and Buick, It was the only truly unneeded division. This, despite being qualitatively better than either. It would not have been a stretch to see Olds in a position that Pontiac is in now, Importing the Performance models from overseas markets. An F-body Toronado would have been a no brainer.

I always viewed the Aurora as Olds’ “last hooray”. It proved, one last time, that Oldsmobile was the division that should have stayed and if so, Buick AND (I’ll admit it) Pontiac could have both gone. Olds had the style, performance, and the wide ranging appeal, crossing age partitions easily, that Buick and Pontiac split neatly at about age 50.

Also Oldsmobile was the victim of only the second worst ad campaign by GM ever. Also The Alero was a hunk of junk along with the Buick Skylark. The Aurora was great and the Intrigue was remarkable. But Olds was sunk but bad ads and worse marketing. If the Aurora was going to save OLDS, GM didn’t really put much stock into it. “Let’s dress up the horse before we shoot it.”

But that aside, The real difference between GM should or should NOT dump Pontiac is fairly obvious. GM is dead set on giving every division a mission and making each division sticks to task. We’ve gone over what each division is supposed to do. This may change or be adjusted before it’s over, but it is obvious, at least to me, that by 2015, each division will be so different from each other, it will be hard to imagine that they are part of the same company.

The argument that Chevy and Saturn now Sandwich Pontiac like Pontiac and Buick sandwiched Oldsmobile, is not lost on me, however, Saturn does not handle the same types of vehicles that Pontiac does or will. Chevrolet will likely offer only a couple of cars similar to what Pontiac does or will, but is it more likely that Chevy will slide down the performance and price slope.

Corvette will ultimately, most likely be considered, and later actually become, it’s own division. Evidence is in that increasingly the Corvette is spoken sans any mention of Chevrolet. Rumors of a V6 Kappa, styled after the Corvette, called “Stingray” would likely be sold as the “Corvette Stingray” and not he Chevrolet Stingray.

This will remove more high performance sheen from Chevy leaving only the Camaro and Impala, Both will likely hold particularly bright candles to Pontiac’s assumed versions. DO NOT expect an Alpha-platform Chevy or Chevy’s take on the G8. Chevy is the “bread and butter” division at GM and that is their mission: Offer less expensive, noticeably but not terrible less effective models offered by more specializing division. Proof: Compare and GMC truck against a Chevy Truck. The GMC is better built, tougher, and better equipped.

If Pontiac were given the option to make a new FIrebird, I could almost guarantee that it would be several paces quicker, many steps more nimble, and a length faster… and a good couple thousand more, but also a couple thousand better all over.

Buick will continue to be a near luxury mark, but will skew younger but not to a point that it will overlap with Pontiac or Saturn. One could see Saturn skewing to be a import performance competitor against the likes of Honda, and yes Mitsubishi and Subaru. Pontiac skewing larger offering no FWDs at all. It is already seen as the Import competitor division of GM.

Before I ramble off too far: GM is is working to separate their divisions. This will take a number of years. They have six divisions to retool. New products are on their way, but will be a few years before they hit.

The Solstice is indeed in trouble (but not Pontiac), but the people at a company like GM are NOT stupid. They will figure out the problem. But I would not be too surprised if the car was dropped, but that might not happen. Instead production may shift to favor the car that is selling. In the meantime, GM might want to try using the Solstice in more races much as they do for the Corvette as a factory racing car. This will help make the car’s case. I would also just ditch the turbo-4 for hot 3.5L-3.8LV6. There is more than enough room to shove in a Corvettes huge V8, a six half the size should be a no brainer. Send it out to race and learn what you need to separate the Solstice and the Sky and later make a better Kappa. Meanwhile the Solstice will move up in price as it’s performance grows to be clearly greater than the Sky such that one is clearly the racer and other is clearly the cruiser.

Also AMGoff,

Truthfully, I am not altogether trying to harsh on you. But There are those who will clamp on to opinions and try to make them out as facts. I have studied GM to see there big picture for decades now, tracing discontinued cars and canceled projects going back to 1980 (I stopped there to save on aspirin). I fell more able to intelligently discuss what GM is doing or Thinking than a fair number of people who chime in here. I have to challenge such opinions, however benignly meant, to maintain diversity of thinking and opinions. Because as soon as one person can point to one opinion, whether good or bad, the spin machine spools up and soon half the people believe something that just is not even possible, never mind true.

Take this as you will, just don’t take it poorly.

Ahh Blakkarr… two things to learn about me:
1.) I like to bust balls (but usually with import-centric snobs)
2.) I make no effort to hide the fact that the majority of what I say on here are opinions.

With this particular discussion I just don’t see the point of Pontiac.. never have, never will. Even with your rebuttal I find points of disagreement, especially with the Corvette.

Disagreement aside I more than appreciate your style. I feel on some level that we are very similar… the main difference being I have neither the time nor conviction to be as in depth as I would like to be, especially with the the people on this site. It gets really tiring constantly see people on here bashing Detroit, especially GM and Chrysler – two companies I hold near and dear to my heart. So I take a general attitude with everyone on this site which is what I did to you. This site is littered with people who think that just because they read about cars online means they know about cars. I’ve argued til my fingers have hurt on here trying to explain that I don’t buy domestic cars out of some misguided sense of patriotism but because I believe they are as good or better than any import from any part of the world.

So if I come across as crass or ignorant on this site it’s because I just don’t have the energy to counter the wave of ignorance that washes over this site each and every day. It’s much easier to just state my opinions and point out the overt morons.

Needless to say… keep up the good fight.

The Sky outsells the Solstice because it’s better looking and the Saturn no haggle policy made it easier to buy at a fair price. (The dealers tried messing with the price’s but Saturn thretened to stop delivery to those dealers which solved that problem)

BLAKKARR, GMC’s Better Built, Tougher, Better Equipped? It’s the same truck with a different front clip!! Same engines, same chassis, same duty ratings, pretty much the same price feature for feature, same dash and interiors, even the introductory material said the same thing! GMC and Chevrolet Trucks are the textbook case for (and against) the badge engineering business model! (I like the GMC better cause it looks better ) Many people can’t tell the LaCross/Impala/Grand Prix are the same car underneath, but with the trucks, even a blind man could tell they are the same! (no offense to the blind intended) A better example would be the new Outlook and Acadia, The Saturn is Light Years ahead of the Acadia in first impression quality, everything from the dash to the solidity of the doors, to the feel of the materials in the Saturn is just better than the Acadia. I was surprised at how underwelmed I was by the Acadia so much so that I wouldn’t go look at the outlook, but imagine my surprise and delight when I did finally darken a Saturn door to find a great SUV that ooozes Honda-ness.

for what its worth, the main problem with the solstice is that it is only available in 2 variations, and they are very similar. it is obvious multi level variations should be available, or at least some choice add on options. the solstice gxp should have its own unique look….like the 70’s trans am compared to a plain jane firebird. in that same vein, todays mustang has the same multi choices that can make a person feel they have a unique car…. different choices and options would help sell this car….its just too boring compared to the sky…