A few weeks back, I wrote about how General Motors sold some of the most American of cars ever on the other side of the globe when it offered Pontiacs in bubble-era Japan. They didn’t find many takers in Asia, but that didn’t stop General Motors from trying to push “Pontiac Excitement” onto other parts of the international stage.
As unforgiving as the Japanese market was, would places like France and even Germany really be any better? I wouldn’t think so, but that didn’t stop GM from making a marketing effort with some Pontiac cars in the early 1990s, including some that seemed to make no sense at all. Some of these weren’t even cars, and in a few cases they technically weren’t even Pontiacs. I can explain.
Das Ist Ein Sehr Schnelles Auto, Ja?
Imagine sitting at an outdoor café in a small German town, enjoying some strudel with cathedral bells ringing down the alleyways around you. You hear an odd rumble that shakes your dainty coffee cup. Soon the entire street next to your table is filled with bright-red painted sheet metal, covering the width of the cobblestone thoroughfare. What is this?
Or let’s say you’re making a run on the autobahn, and suddenly your rear view mirror is filled with lights and the low shape of a sports car, raising its headlights and flashing them to suggest you make way immediately. Is it an exotic? Well, sort of; I mean, you couldn’t get more exotic than a Pontiac in Deutschland.
source: General Motors
I saw the above brochure online but couldn’t find much evidence that any mainstream Pontiac sedans and coupes like the Grand Prix were offered for sale across the pond; the unchanged lighting sort of proves that out. Honestly, you could find a dozen German cars that offered what those front-drivers had (and did it better), but there’s one car that really had no equivalent from Stuttgart, Munich, or even GM’s own Opel in Russelsheim: the Pontiac Firebird.
source: General Motors
Besides the mandatory flip-away mirrors, the most jarring thing about the Firebird in the ad above is the lighting. There must have been (or still is) some German law that requires white parking lights at the front of the car, requiring someone at the factory in America to run out to the nearest Pep Boys and load up on these cheap white lamps. Hey, I know that this was the early nineties and we all thought that Cindy Crawford’s prominent mole was beautiful, but this doesn’t work here:
It looks like the Trans Am version with the “knight’s helmet” nose was also marketed, but lacking the standard driving lights, leaving open “eye sockets.”
source: General Motors
In back, some red reflectors (or fog lights?) were stuck into recesses below the taillights, modified with amber signals at the ends.
source: General Motors
This thing looks so odd on narrow European roads. Again, this one has the Trans Am nose with fog lights missing – were there cooling issues at Autobahn speeds? If you know, please share.
source: General Motors
Based on the back of the brochure, it looks like you could get a V6 or a V8, and that power figure translates to roughly 268 horsepower with the bigger engine.
source: General Motors
I don’t remember any palm trees in the Black Forest, but a green Firebird drop top would absolutely get you as much attention as you’d be able to stand on the streets of Freiburg.
source: General Motors
For better or worse, the Firebird was like a Big Mac at Oktoberfest: something that you couldn’t get anything quite like in Germany. The same could also be said about another vehicle that GM modified for Europeans around the same time.
Was Ist Ein “Dustbuster?”
I have an odd feeling that in the early nineties some GM marketing people looked at the new Pontiac Trans Sport “dustbuster” minivans and scratched their heads. “This thing is weird,” one would quip, “like something we’d only be able to sell in France.” At that moment the idea popped into their heads to do just that. That’s just my read on what might have happened, but I’m probably not far off.
source: General Motors
Unlike the Firebird, it appears that Pontiac put some actual effort into making their new minivan Euro-ready, such as some bizarre things to meet European lighting regulations. Early examples from 1990 had rectangular lights in place of the flush composite units.
source: Artcurial (car for sale)
These were just GM truck parts bolted in place with high-output yellow bulbs:
source: Artcurial (car for sale)
In the back, amber signals were put in the bumper reflector holes.
source: Artcurial (car for sale)
For 1992, Pontiac was somehow able to install legal flush lamps, and amber signals replaced the American version’s under-bumper front foglights.
source: General Motors
Things got strange for 1994. The American market got a mid-cycle facelift with a slightly longer hood, ostensibly to “normalize” the looks (it didn’t work):
source: General Motors
There was no way GM was going to make a Euro version of this nose. Their answer was to go to another division and raid their parts bin, in this case, Oldsmobile’s:
source: General Motors
GM essentially took the entire front clip from the Oldsmobile Silhouette version of these controversial vans and just stuck a Pontiac logo on it. In fact, all of the lower- body cladding was now from the Olds to the point that little actual Pontiac identity remained.
source: General Motors
They sure got tricky with the lights in back, featuring amber signals and rear fog lights on the tailgate.
source: General Motors
Even more strange, under the sort-of hood (really the ultra-long dashboard), GM made the “Quad 4” twin cam engine and hooked it up to five-speed manual as a standard powertrain. Our David Tracy uncovered one a while back and was understandably obsessing over it.
source: Annuncki al Volante (car for sale)
In case you’re wondering, absolutely zero row-your-own-gears Pontiac Trans Sports were sold in America. The 3800 V6 with an automatic was available in Europe as well, but considering the price of fuel on the Continent and the fact that the six only generated a few more horsepower more than the Quad-4, that stick shift drivetrain might have been a better option.
source: General Motors
After 1996, the new boxier and more normalized body style Trans Sport was rebadged as a Chevrolet and sold as a version called the Opel Sintra as well, marking the end for this, uh, “Pontiac.” I really do want to send away for the VHS cassette below.
source: General MotorsFahr Pontiac, Fahr!
Did the European experiment work? The numbers are very hard to find, but they would suggest a solid “no.”
My research found that very, very few Firebirds were sold, but Pontiac did reportedly find homes for several thousand of their funky vans over the total number of years they offered it. Interestingly, around 30 are still listed as actively operating in Denmark, and over 300 in Sweden.
Maybe my fictional General Motors marketing reps were right: weird really does sell better overseas.
Pontiac Points (Euro Trans Sport): 59/100
Verdict: Sure, a funky van with a five-speed and twin-cam four is cool, but they put it in an Oldsmobile disguise!
Top graphic image: GM