The Pontiac Vibe is a bit of an anomaly in General Motors’ product portfolio. Built at NUMMI, a Toyota -GM partnership facility in California – Toyota’s only UAW plant – it neither looks nor feels like anything else in Pontiac’s slightly confused lineup. On the surface, it’s a Toyota with Pontiac badges. Is this another example of badge-engineering gone awry? Or is it a chance to sample Toyota engineering with a bit of Pontiac flair?
Let’s get this out of the way: The Vibe is a Toyota design built in a joint-venture factory. Ignoring the Pontiac grille and badging, it looks like a Toyota, it feels like a Toyota and it drives like a Toyota. Unless you scraped the Pontiac badges, you could feel confident about servicing and repairing the Vibe at your local Toyota dealership (training must have been easy for dealerships that sell both Toyotas and Pontiacs).
The Vibe was designed with its almost identical platform mate, the Toyota Matrix . However, unlike many badge-engineered vehicles, including some of the Vibe’s cousins at the Pontiac dealership, the Vibe and Matrix really don’t look alike from the outside. Where the Matrix is busy, yet anonymous, the Vibe has a chisel-edge appearance that culminates in a Jeep Compass -style raked D-pillar. Our test vehicle was fortunately devoid of the clunky optional roof rack, giving the Vibe a very pleasant, clean overall appearance marred only by trendy clear tail lamps. For the record, our photoshoot location in no way reflects our opinion of the vehicle. Really. We just feel at home in stinky places here at Leftlane.
Inside, things get a little more Toyota-y. If you’ve been in any recent Toyota product, you’ll recognize most of the switchgear and fonts, as well as the materials. It looks and feels nothing like any other Pontiac, which is both a good and bad thing. The design is contemporary if a little odd – the dash bulges in places a dash shouldn’t bulge and the inset instruments feature logically round speedo and tach with a bizarre rounded-off rectangle for the fuel, coolant temperature and odometer. To say the least, it feels like a modern Toyota interior – a design language that has worked well for Toyota. Materials are generally pleasing, though again they scream Toyota and not Pontiac. We’ve seen good things come out of GM interiors lately, so this is not an insult to either manufacturer.
The Vibe is a comfortable five-seater with a decent amount of space out back in an easily cleaned (and also easily scratched) plastic-covered cargo area. A Monsoon-badged subwoofer robs a little space but sounds pretty good, so we think it’s a fair trade. It’s optional, anyway.
Fire up the 168-horsepower, 2.4 liter inline-four cylinder in our mid-level test car and you’re greeted with a very distant throb from the same engine that does duty in thousands of Camrys across the country. Slip the Toyota-smooth automatic gear lever back into drive, push the go-pedal and you’re greeted with modest but acceptable power, especially low noise levels and slushy-smooth shifts. The handling won’t inspire, but there’s more steering feel here than you’ll get in a Corolla and the ride is just a bit firmer thanks to the optional 17 inch wheels. Overall, however, you guessed it: It all feels very Toyota-like.
The Vibe makes a pretty good Toyota, then. It’s a pretty good car in its own right, thanks to a pleasing blend of comfort, refinement and practicality. And, at least in our eyes, it’s a better looking car than its Toyota-badged twin.
So it’s a good car, then. But is it good for Pontiac?
Pontiac is perhaps the least-focused of all of GM’s brands. Though Pontiac has been around for more than 80 years (initially as Oakland), the late ’70s and early ’80s hit the automaker harder than any of GM’s other brands – even Oldsmobile, which showed some promise before the General pulled the plug.
Pontiac’s product portfolio is as ethnically diverse as they come.
At the top, those who have wandered into a dealership will find the Australian-designed and built G8 (and, in a few months, they’ll find the new G8 ST helping water down the brand). From the bottom working up, you’ll soon find the Korean-designed G3 (a curious addition to a lineup that’s supposed to be moving upscale), the “otherwise-known-as a Cobalt” G5 and the dated – but at least unique to the brand – G6, among a couple of other badge-engineered products. And, mixed in there somewhere, you’ll get the Toyota in Pontiac clothing otherwise known as the Vibe.
Our advice to GM: Either invest in Pontiac with cohesive designs, both inside and out, or give it up. The brand is stretched about as thin as it could possibly be, resulting in a bevy of products that share only a red badge and a dual-snouted grille.
Words and photos by Andrew Ganz.
2009 Pontiac Vibe 2.4 base price, $15,710. As tested, $21,145.
Sun and sound package, $1,285; Preferred package, $1,070; Five-speed automatic, $1,050; Air conditioning, $950; 17 inch alloy wheels, $495; Destination, $585.
