Retro Pontiac 6000 commercial might be the worst car commercial ever made
If you need reminding why the moribund and innovation bereft Detroit auto industry is teetering on the brink of collapse, here's a primer from the 1980s courtesy of General Motors and the Pontiac 6000. It just sums it all up perfectly, doesn't it?
Fade in: A hideous, gas guzzling car, driven through the desert of American ingenuity by two ugly losers. The driver — his face drained of all expression or pleasure, and with the complexion and greasy hair of a chronic alcoholic — notes without enthusiasm that the Pontiac 6000 is "probably one of the finest road sedans of all time."
His companion stifles a yawn, checks his watch, and then scoffs, "Come on."
Caught out in his lie, the driver gets defensive. "I said probably. I did say probably."
The commercial cuts out just as he drags a hand across his face in self-loathing and mutters "Oh, what the fuck ever."
Cue a small chorus jingle singers: "PON-TI-AC!"
Now that's the kind of enthusiasm that sells cars!
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6000 SUX
"An American tradition"
How does this car compare to the "non-road" sedans?
Aww come on, that feels like a bit of a cheap shot.
Would we like the commercial better if it said "Best midsized sedan EVAR!"?
I think its kind of cool that they hedged on their own commercial.
Just my $.02
-Z
Uh. Yes. When you advertise, you're supposed to extol your product's virtues, not its mediocrity. You're also supposed to show enthusiasm. It's what sells products. If you can't get excited about your product, how can your customers?
Mr. Brownlee,
I don't expect agreement on the style of these cars, but the fact you think in the 1980's getting 30+ MPG from a mid-sized car is gas guzzling seems odd. The engines these cars came with can easily make it to a quarter million miles maintaining a 28-32 MPG consumption.
A little history, because I don't expect you to research every post topic.
The 6000 was the Pontiac incarnation of GM's A-Body line of FWD cars. It included The Chevrolet Celebrity, Buick Century, Oldsmobile Ciera.
The A-Body cars began in model-year 1982 as an alternative to the real gas guzzling V8s of the 1970's. They were driven by either a 2.5L 4cyl (the "Iron Duke"), a 2.8L V6, a 3.1L V6, a 3.8L V6 and even a 4.3L Diesel (short-lived). Only the Buick and Olds made it past 1990, and ended in 1996.
These cars are not gas guzzlers nor the downfall of GM, these were glory days for GM. The cars were well made and affordable. They had their hayday in the 1980's due to fuel economy and price. The Chevrolet Celebrity was America's #1 seller for many years, replaced by the Ford Taurus in the late 80's.
GM did many small-production special cars for each line. The 6000 in particular was sold in what they called an STE-AWD. Yes, All-Wheel Drive on a GM 1980's car. I suggest looking to the Chevrolet Celebrity Eurosport VR for 1980's style.
I loathe GM for groveling for tax dollars, but to state that the 6000 or any GM A-Body was the problem, is incorrect. This commercial, which I doubt is direct-from-GM is pretty lame though.
Well, when a car is that bad (and trust me, they were terrible compared to Toyota's and Honda's offerings), it's hard for even the advertising people to make claims like that.
It's only recently that the US automakers have come out with stuff that strongly competes with their Japanese counterparts. And even now, that's not true across the board. Compare a Fit or Yaris to an Aveo, for example. Still some work to go, and hopefully Americans haven't given up in the mean time.
I would love to drive an American car, but I always buy my cars well used and cheap. That means that the "good" models aren't available to me yet. There aren't many American cars from 1995 that I would consider excellent. Especially compared to the amazing bargain that a 1995 Lexus LS400 represents, for example. I had a Buick Roadmaster and it was a joke compared to the Lexus. (Plastichrome switches, rattles galore, but lordy was it fast!)
Maybe in a few years I can pick up a $3500 Cadillac CTS.
You're not reading the subtext of the ad. What they're saying that if you buy that car that people who find you boring and obnoxious and make no secret of it will be forced to rely on you for transportation and that you'll be able to be as boring and obnoxious as you want and they won't be able to do a thing about it. Truly, being able to sit in the drivers seat and make vague, non-comittal statements is the best revenge.
This doesn't FEEL like a cheap shot, it *IS* a cheap shot, and a pretty sad one at that.
And for those who think that this *ISN'T* a cheap shot?
"Fade in: A hideous, gas guzzling car, driven through the desert of American ingenuity by two ugly losers."
No, not a cheap shot at all. Sheesh, why all the vitriol?
My mother in law just replaced her '89 Pontiac 6000 this year. It was still running pretty well but she just wanted an upgrade.
This is something we all do, whether we realize it or not. An entity, be it an individual or an institution, engages in behavior we disapprove of, and thus we find ourselves turning against everything associated with them regardless of its individual merit.
I really like how this post attracted the teamsters.
This is why most car commercials don't feature drivers anymore. Just a car with smoked windows tooling around in the desert.
Mr. Brownlee this has nothing about being teamsters but more about the vitriol you are currently spewing. I mean what, we Democrats don't have Bush to complain about so something new needs to be targeted?
Your post was a cheap shot, your response here was just sad.
You don't get handjobs from women you barely know while driving a Pontiac 6000/Celebrity (ex-Celeb owner here..great little car and put it through hell).
You do get stuck driving across Death Valley though with a co-worker you secretly imagine with his head on a pike.
(sung to the tune of "Panama")
Vitriol! Vitriol-ol-ol-ol!!! Vitriol!
Pontiac's "We build excitement" tagline at the end is the high point of the commercial. But I doubt the irony was intentional.
It reminded me of Get Your War On.
I find it funny BoingBoing thinks the worst car commercial ever made and one of the best car commercials ever made were both by Pontiac: http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/03/14/video-pontiac-ad-giv.html
The fact the G8, the current incarnation of full-size sedans at Pontiac, is one helluva car, appears to be lost on many. But what should I expect? It's so much easier to cater to stereotypes about what one thinks a company is making than to actually know the products the company is making. However, I wonder how often people equate Apple's current product lineup with the product lineup of the early 90s?
But, back to Pontiac. I always like to point to the Pontiac Vibe as an example of how perception molds reality -- and how easy it is for journalists to fall into the trap of following conventional wisdom. The Vibe's the same size, form factor and price range as the Toyota Matrix, yet the Matrix outsells the Vibe handily. When I ask non-auto journalists to tell me which of the two cars is better, I'm almost uniformly told "the Matrix." When I ask non-auto journalists to tell me why the Matrix is better, I get the same answer almost every time -- "quality."
I then get to tell these same people the Toyota Matrix and the Pontiac Vibe (along with the Toyota Corolla) are the same car, made by the same UAW workers and built in the same place -- the NUMMI plant in Fremont, CA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI
Perception and conventional wisdom are the crutches of the modern-day journalist.
Ray, are you drunk? (Also: Hi!)
My best friend mike drove his mom's 6000 around for years as his primary ride. It was a piece, but that doesn't mean much. It had already been put through the ringer by the time he got it. His Sunfire, however...now that thing was a piece of junk.
Isn't the G8 a Holden, though? I don't know if you can count that as Pontiac being on point. Same with the...Solstice, isn't it? That's, like, an Opel, right? I mean, I don't have any particular like or dislike of Pontiac, but it doesn't seem fair to say they are on point these days when their best cars are imports from allied manufacturers. (Maybe that's not what you're saying, though.)
#19 - I see your point about the Vibe/Matrix pair, though the newest models are no longer exact twins and aren't built together. (They also both get only so-so writeups in car mags).
But I think what that perception really tells us is just how badly Detroit lost to Japanese carmakers. Yes, *any* Toyota is more likely to be perceived as higher quality -- because most Toyotas are in fact higher quality.
That the perception of quality carried over to one of the rare exceptions shouldn't be surprising. And that perception+reality leads to higher resale values, so it's not stupid for customers to buy the Matrix even if it's for the wrong reasons. Plus, I believe the Vibe is slightly less expensive and has a longer warranty; that Pontiac feels they have to offer those incentives and still can't match sales is another example of how the Detroit carmakers have damaged their own reputation, I'd say.
The new G8 is a really good effort (mostly developed in Australia by Holden), as are the CTS and the Malibu. I give GM (Holden/Cadillac/Chevy) a lot credit for creating them. But these have been recent exceptions. Heck, even the Corvette, a great value for a sports car, still needs to make excuses for its longstanding lousy cost-cut interior.
Besides, I maintain that every commercial from the 80s makes the product being hawked look bad.
#5 ok, sure it doesn't guzzle gas, but it sho' is ugly
#19 I love stories of how multiple cars are the same base but are different "manufacturers". It's like finding out all the generic food in the grocery store is the same as the other kind.
Ps I used to drive a hand-me-down Mercury Villager that's the same as a Nissan Quest, and my mom drives a Mercury Mariner which is the same as the ford escape and Mazda Tribute.
Joel: Nope, not drunk, just tired of seeing people lazily ignore the good product coming out of at least two of the not-so-Big Three, because they're following the conventional wisdom claiming U.S. automakers are the same failures they were in the past.
Opel and Holden aren't so much "allied" automakers as they are brands of GM (GM bought Holden and made it a subsidiary in 1931; Opel was bought and made into a subsidiary in 1929). GM (as well as Ford) shares platforms, designs, parts and powertrains across all brands. So the Pontiac G8 is on the same platform as the Holden Commodore which is also the same platform that the new Camaro's built on. It's all one big happy family. As for the Pontiac Solstice, it was actually the first car built on GM's Kappa platform, so it's not really an Opel. In fact, it's probably more correct to say the Opel GT is built on the Solstice platform (although that's not REALLY correct either).
The point is there's no doubt the not-so-Big Three screwed the pooch big time in the 80s and 90s, but the U.S. automakers have some damn fine product out right now and coming out in the next 18 months thanks to restructuring plans that were working just fine until the credit crunch hit. I'm talking about the next generation of vehicles like the Ford Fusion hybrid (it's hitting showroom floors in two months) we just drove this week with an expected EPA fuel economy of about 40 MPG, 6 MPG higher than the Camry Hybrid, or the Chevy Cruze (coming in 11 months), a hot little econobox with a turbo 1.4-liter and an expected fuel economy of over 40 MPG for the same price as a Corolla. These are some damn good cars, and I'd hate to see people unwilling to look at them because of some fallacious decision to pay more attention to the past than to the present.
/rant
Its always a surprise to me which posts on BB Gadgets get a lot of comments. Who'd a thunk that this plainly heinous ad, which might have been the inspiration for the Microsoft/Seinfeld collaboration, would have so many defenders?
And come on guys, whether you like the Pontiac 6000 or not, you have to admit that was some hilarious writing describing the ad, to say nothing of the hilarious ad itself.
I rented one of these on a small island off the coast of Venezuela in the late 1980s and it was perfectly fine. The paint had worn off the corners but it was quiet and reasonably smooth. From a European perspective the main impression is the tacky interior and poor quality finishes and materials.
Road Sedan? Is there any other kind?
I had one of these. A 6000 LE. It was my first car.
It was the biggest pile of HORSESHIT on the road.
Did you know the fools who designed this made it so you had to take apart half the damn engine bay just to remove the ALTERNATOR? THAT ALWAYS BREAKS ON THESE?? And that doing so takes nearly 16 HOURS even when you know what you're doing? You know it's a bad car when the mechanic won't even take it anymore, looking at it with scorn.
I spent most of my teens learning to fix cars, chop bodywork, wet sand, you name it, on one of these. I will give them this- even at 16 years old, it rode alright, was semi-comfortable. But so many simple mechanical problems and paint peeling from the infamously shitty VanNuys paint plants, I cursed this car for years.
I hear my family drove it off a cliff into a scrapyard. Thank god. Worst designed car EVER MADE.
This is all without saying anything about the looks. Ugliest damn car ever made, too!
Ray, you have to remember that if someone cut their teeth on a GM product, and got screwed big time, they aren't going to instantly warm up to a good new car from the same people.
More to the point, though, is that Brownlee was saying that this is how GM, et al, GOT to where they are. Hopefully their current strides are signs of how they're going to get OUT of where they are. I agree 100% that they have several stand-out vehicles in their current lineup, but it took a long time and it's had a few mis-steps. When you're competing against the Civic and Accord and Camry it's difficult and takes time to recover from a mis-step.
Now hopefully the Cruze is a good car. GM has boned the compact car segment for so long. Metro, Aveo, Cavalier, Cobalt, those are all really horrid cars.
This commercial reminds me of the current (or maybe just recent?) Mercury commercials where the best they can muster is "You've got to put Mercury on your list." They won't even claim that you must buy their product, merely consider it.
Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3t1ZuVuoKg
for some reason, the first thought that popped into my mind when I saw the interior was, "which of these two will be found a week later with their brains splattered over the rear seat?" Maybe it's the pattern and boxy look of the seats that makes me think 'gunshot decapitation'. Or maybe that was just Pulp Fiction seeping into through from unconscious. Or maybe it's just me.
I actually found the ad a little funny. It's clear to me at least that they're just poking fun at themselves. The role of the advertisement isn't to tell people that it's the best car ever, but to get the product in peoples' heads. I'd say that the fact that we're talking about it 20 years later is a decent sign that they succeeded. That said, I think this post wouldn't have been made with such animosity and exaggeration if this bailout business hadn't gone through. Don't get me wrong, I'm angry about it, too, it just seems like finding an ad from 20 years ago and twisting it out of context is probably not the most effective way of expressing that.
"I'm angry about the bailout too... [but] it just seems like finding an ad from 20 years ago and twisting it out of context is probably not the most effective way of expressing that."
Why not? Seems like pointing out that they've been making shitty cars for years is pretty appropriate after their business fails....
#27 - I think you may be mistaken, with the 2.5L the Alternator could not be easier to access right up front top. And with with the V6's it is tucked neatly top rear. Perhaps you are thinking of a GM FWD car with their Quad4 engine, because I think that had the alternator in a difficult location, but not to justify 16 hours.
The ad is a little weird, I admit that. But I've gotta jump in as another supporter of this generation of the GM A-Body. I owned a celebrity and a ciera (well, a cutlass cruiser wagon, but the same car) and they were WONDERFUL cars. Both of mine had 6-cylinder engines, but neither got less than 22mpg while driving around town and close to 30mpg on long highway trips. The celebrity got wrecked, but the Olds was still going strong at 211k miles, when I gave it to a friend. I think he said the transmission started slipping at 275k or so. Treated with a little care, these cars last forever... if you decide to race riceburners from stoplights, like I did, the transmission goes after 275k miles (nothing like the look of shame on the driver at the next light after a honda civic gets blown away by a white station wagon with wood trim).
The Pontiac 6000 is a very nice car! I own a 6000 2.8 Estate (Safari, 8 places, from 1990) with 320'000km (200'000miles). I never had any problems with the engine and gear box!!! This is quality!!!
(Sorry for my english...)
PM, Switzerland