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<\/p>\nA 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\u2019t find many takers in Asia, but that didn\u2019t stop General Motors from trying to push \u201cPontiac Excitement\u201d onto other parts of the international stage.<\/p>\n
As unforgiving as the Japanese market was, would places like France and even Germany really be any better? I wouldn\u2019t think so, but that didn\u2019t 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\u2019t even cars, and in a few cases they technically weren\u2019t even Pontiacs. I can explain.<\/p>\n
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Das Ist Ein Sehr Schnelles Auto, Ja?<\/p>\n
Imagine sitting at an outdoor caf\u00e9 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?<\/p>\n
Or let\u2019s say you\u2019re 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\u2019t get more exotic than a Pontiac in Deutschland.<\/p>\n
I saw the above brochure online but couldn\u2019t 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\u2019s one car that really had no equivalent from Stuttgart, Munich, or even GM\u2019s own Opel in Russelsheim: the Pontiac Firebird.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 Hey, I know that this was the early nineties and we all thought that Cindy Crawford\u2019s prominent mole was beautiful, but this doesn\u2019t work here:<\/p>\n It looks like the Trans Am version with the \u201cknight\u2019s helmet\u201d nose was also marketed, but lacking the standard driving lights, leaving open \u201ceye sockets.\u201d<\/p>\n In back, some red reflectors (or fog lights?) were stuck into recesses below the taillights, modified with amber signals at the ends.<\/p>\n This thing looks so odd on narrow European roads. Again, this one has the Trans Am nose with fog lights missing \u2013 were there cooling issues at Autobahn speeds? If you know, please share.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t remember any palm trees in the Black Forest, but a green Firebird drop top would absolutely get you as much attention as you\u2019d be able to stand on the streets of Freiburg.<\/p>\n For better or worse, the Firebird was like a Big Mac at Oktoberfest: something that you couldn\u2019t get anything quite like in Germany. The same could also be said about another vehicle that GM modified for Europeans around the same time.<\/p>\n Was Ist Ein \u201cDustbuster?\u201d<\/p>\n I have an odd feeling that in the early nineties some GM marketing people looked at the new Pontiac Trans Sport \u201cdustbuster\u201d minivans and scratched their heads. \u201cThis thing is weird,\u201d one would quip, \u201clike something we\u2019d only be able to sell in France.\u201d At that moment the idea popped into their heads to do just that. That\u2019s just my read on what might have happened, but I\u2019m probably not far off.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n These were just GM truck parts bolted in place with high-output yellow bulbs:<\/p>\n In the back, amber signals were put in the bumper reflector holes.<\/p>\n For 1992, Pontiac was somehow able to install legal flush lamps, and amber signals replaced the American version\u2019s under-bumper front foglights.<\/p>\n Things got strange for 1994. The American market got a mid-cycle facelift with a slightly longer hood, ostensibly to \u201cnormalize\u201d the looks (it didn\u2019t work):<\/p>\n 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\u2019s:<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n They sure got tricky with the lights in back, featuring amber signals and rear fog lights on the tailgate.<\/p>\n Even more strange, under the sort-of hood (really the ultra-long dashboard), GM made the \u201cQuad 4\u201d 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.<\/a><\/p>\n In case you\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n![\"Grand](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/grand-prix-germany-6-15.jpg\")
<\/a>source: General Motors<\/p>\n<\/a>source: General Motors<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nsource: General Motors<\/p>\n<\/a>source: General Motors<\/p>\n<\/a>source: General Motors<\/p>\n<\/a>source: General Motors<\/p>\n<\/a>source: General Motors<\/p>\n<\/a>source: General Motors<\/p>\n<\/a>source: Artcurial (car for sale)<\/p>\n<\/a>source: Artcurial (car for sale)<\/p>\n<\/a>source: Artcurial (car for sale)<\/p>\n<\/a>source: General Motors<\/p>\n<\/a>source: General Motors<\/p>\n<\/a>source: General Motors<\/p>\n<\/a>source: General Motors<\/p>\n<\/a>source: General Motors<\/p>\n<\/a>source: Annuncki al Volante (car for sale)<\/p>\n