Pontiac spokesman Jim Hopson acknowledges that the company announced the death of the Australian import at a dealer meeting earlier today. "Even when we announced it in a good market, the ST was going to be a low runner, selling maybe 5,000-7,000 units at the most optimistic," said Hopson. "In today's market, it simply doesn't make financial sense to go ahead with the vehicle."
In the nine months that the G8 sedan has been on the market, it's sold only 15,000 units, in both V6 and V8 versions. That's only a little better than half of what GM had hoped for when the rear-drive sport sedan was announced.
In light of GM's stated intention, in its restructuring proposal to Congress, to turn Pontiac into a "niche" brand, the ST was considered an easy kill. Given the sad state of affairs in the market in general and at General Motors specifically, we're hearing that everything that's slated to debut after the first six months of 2009 is under serious review. In Pontiac's case, that means the Solstice Coupe is still on, as is the G8 GXP, of course. Beyond that, all bets are off.
Inside Line says: Meh. We weren't that excited about the quasi-pickup. This makes us worry about the Chevy Camaro convertible and the Cadillac CTS coupe, though. — Daniel Pund, Senior Editor, Detroit
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buick_lover says:
10:46 AM, 07/23/2011
Might have made a nice Buick pickup