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After more than two decades, the ghost of the El Camino has finally risen from the grave, at least for U.S. drivers. It never actually went away in Australia. Now that the Pontiac G8 has ushered in a new era of affordable rear-wheel-drive performance at General Motors, the car-based pickup truck, or Ute as they are called Down Under, is coming back. Rumors have been flying for months about a G8 Ute and GM even showed the GMC Denali XT concept at the Chicago Auto Show last month – a four-door ute with a two-mode hybrid power-train that may or...

A few weeks ago we, along with our friends at PickupTruck.com, were given exclusive access to a vehicle whose return we've been anticipating for what seems like forever. Today our prayers to the General have been answered -- the El Camino is back! In January we reported this re-bodied Holden Ute would be called the 2010 Pontiac G8 ST, and like a Phoenix rising screamin' from the ashes of a bygone era of car-platformed trucks, this new heir to the truck-car throne would emerge from the over-built and over-spec'd world of modern haulers. Just like the Phoenix, this business-up-front and...

A couple of weeks ago, I had a brake line fail, no big deal in itself, but when the car was on the hoist, you could clearly see the carpeting coming through the rusted floorboard. One seat bolt had already rusted away and I figured that someday soon I may wind up sitting on the street. On top of that, the driver's side door was getting real hard to close so I thought I better get something before the door falls off. So I started looking: one Camaro was a real dog, one was great but expensive, and there was...

General Motors has told Pontiac dealers that it will discontinue the GTO coupe at the end of this model year. GM will make the last deliveries of the vehicle to dealers by the end of September, sources close to Pontiac say. GM will produce 10,000 to 12,000 more GTOs before dropping the nameplate, one source close to the situation says. Last year, Pontiac sold 11,590 GTOs compared to 2004 when it sold 13,569. That's a 14.6 percent drop. When Pontiac launched the GTO in 2003, it projected 18,000 annual sales. The vehicle was criticized for bland styling, and some fans...

The company is bleeding billions, but management is beginning to see the light. There are a few bold steps -- including the scrapping of one of its brands -- GM execs should take to keep the auto giant running. According to some analysts on Wall Street, General Motors lost credibility last week when the company said that it would be restating 2001 earnings. That’s what it took for GM’s management to lose credibility? How about years of mismanaging its production effort? Or refusing to aggressively streamline its product offerings, recklessly pursuing incentive strategies, failing to address ballooning health-care and pension...

Title and link only. All GM vehicles except the Hummer H3 at GM employee discounts? Huge! Read about it, especially if you are in the market for a newer vehicle. http://www.freep.com/money/autonews/gm28e_20050528.htm

Special fund scrutinized Web-posted May 18, 2005 By DIANA DILLABER MURRAY Of The Oakland Press PONTIAC - In the heat of election politics and financial struggles, a special private checking account held by Mayor Willie Payne has become the center of controversy and is being scrutinized by the city council. Kevin Stewart, who campaigned for Payne in 2001 but has since become a critic of the mayor, brought the account to light. He is calling for an investigation of the account. Stewart, a former city employee, obtained a copy of a check from the "Mayor Paynes Events Fund LLC," to...

GM announced on Friday that it would pull its advertising from the LA Times, citing perpetual misrepresentation of its products – most recently, the Pontiac G6 midsize sedan.    It was, to those of us familiar with some of the LA Times' writing, a long-awaited move, if less than a foregone conclusion. Despite the potential for disingenuous relationships between a publisher and the advertisers that keep it alive, advertising in print – and the corollary practice of fitting articles around advertisements on a printed page – has become so prevalent as to be considered normal. In such a landscape, this...

As Pontiac fights to reestablish itself as a big-time car company, the G6 is its core product, a car that is supposed to lead people into the brand. So it’s no surprise that Pontiac has followed up its launch of the G6 sedan this past fall with two additional versions of this crucial model.

General Motors reportedly will stop making the Pontiac Bonneville this summer, saying declining sales and changing customer tastes no longer make the nearly half-century old sedan worthwhile. The Associated Press (AP) said no jobs will be lost because the Detroit-Hamtramck factory where the Bonneville is currently made will continue to produce other large cars, including the new Buick Lucerne and Cadillac DTS. The news agency noted that Pontiac has revamped its car lineup with products such as the G6, which replaced the Grand Am, and entered new segments with the Vibe hatchback and Torrent, a small SUV.

PONTIAC, Mich., Dec. 7, 2004 -- A former elementary school teacher accused of hacking her husband to death testified that the killing was committed in self-defense, despite prosecutors' claims that she bought the hatchet she used specifically to murder her husband of 31 years. Nancy Seaman, 52, is charged with first-degree, premeditated murder. Prosecutors say that on May 9, after a fight with her husband, she went to a store, bought a hatchet, then went home and savagely killed Robert Seaman by hitting him 15 times with the hatchet and stabbing him 21 times with a knife. Seaman, who taught...

Leave it to Uncle Sam to spoil the party. When Oprah Winfrey gave away 276 cars last week to the audience of her show, images of people laughing, jumping, crying -- some hysterically -- filled the airwaves and the giveaway became stuff of legend. Late night talk show hosts and newspaper columnists are still talking about it. But now some of those eager prizewinners have a choice: Fork over $7,000 or give up the car. According to a spokeswomen for Harpo Productions Inc., Oprah's company, the recipients must pay a tax on the winnings, just like any prize. For a...

Oprah called the show part of her "wildest dreams" season. But for many of the 276 recipients of the new Pontiac cars that the talk-show queen gave away last week, there was a bit of reality to come with that dream -- they are going to have to fork over thousands of dollars in taxes. It turns out that free car wasn't so free. That's because while Pontiac agreed to pay for most of the local charges -- things like state sales tax and licensing fees -- the recipients have to report the cars as income once tax time comes....

General Motors gave away $7.7 million worth of Pontiac G6s -- 276 of them -- Monday during the season-opening Oprah Winfrey show. The public relations value for the automaker may be incalculable. The G6 giveaway introduced a "Wildest Dreams Come True" theme for the 19th season of "The Oprah Winfrey Show," the top daytime talk program in U.S. syndication since its debut in 1986. The show is seen in 212 U.S. markets and 109 other markets. Said Mark-Hans Richter, Pontiac's director of marketing: "It's incalculable. The power of this is not in how many minutes of airtime we received. It's...

Chat show queen Oprah Winfrey celebrated the opening of her 19th season on US TV today by surprising each of her 276 audience members with a new car. We’re calling this our wildest dream season, because this year on the Oprah show, no dream is too wild, no surprise too impossible to pull off,” Winfrey said. Making sure the audience was kept in suspense, Winfrey opened the show by calling 11 audience members onto the stage. She gave each of them a car – a Pontiac G6. She then had gift boxes distributed to the rest of the audience and...

Prison could close in 6 months By Kurt Erickson SPRINGFIELD -- Gov. Rod Blagojevich left no doubt Wednesday that Pontiac Correctional Center is a bargaining chip in the state's ongoing budget stalemate. In an interview with The Pantagraph, the governor said the institution could be closed in six months and its inmates moved to a new, unused maximum-security facility in Thomson if lawmakers don't sign on to a budget plan he supports. The total estimated savings to the state's $54 billion budget: $2 million. "Yes, it's in play," Blagojevich said of the 132-year-old prison. "We're willing to listen to other...

Dispute at UAW local in Pontiac spawns recall campaign, libel lawsuit The Associated Press 5/9/2004, 10:55 a.m. ET PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — A power struggle at one of Michigan's largest union chapters has spawned a recall campaign and a libel lawsuit. The internal strife is taking place at United Auto Workers Local 594, which represents 5,361 workers at the General Motors Corp.'s Pontiac truck factory and its nearby engineering and design complex. Critics say shop chairman Gene Austin failed to oppose GM plans to transfer 900 union jobs from Pontiac to its Warren technical center, The Detroit News reported Sunday,...

Internet meeting leads 12-year-old to cross-state abduction The Associated Press 2/16/2004, 2:52 a.m. ET PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — A 12-year-old Pontiac girl who police say left her home with a man she met on the Internet will return from West Virginia this week. Pontiac Police Sgt. Kevin Harris said the girl met the 40-year-old man in an Internet chat room, leaving with him Thursday. They drove to West Virginia, where she contacted her family Sunday from Morganstown, the Detroit Free Press reported Monday. The girl's family called Pontiac police, and officers from the Monongalia County Sheriff's Department took the man...

The iconic Pontiac GTO muscle car has waited a long time to make a comeback. It's been 40 years since the first GTO was introduced and 30 years since the last one was made -- after more than half a million were sold. "I agree with car magazines, which say the new GTO is a worthy successor to the old GTO,'' said auto analyst Jim Wangers. He was presented with the first GTO off the line in a recent Pontiac ceremony near Detroit on Woodward Avenue -- the 1960s' street racing capital of America, where GTOs trounced rivals. "Chicago was...

The head of a Washington, DC based media watchdog group is asking that advertisers demand to preview a planned CBS mini series on former President Ronald Reagan before sponsoring the program. Media Reasearch Center President L. Brent Bozell Tuesday sent a letter to each of the nations top 100 advertisers urging them to preview the movie before making a sponsorship decision because it is what Bozell called 'a partisan attack against one of Americas most beloved Presidents.'A review of the script by New York Times writer Jim Reutenberg noted the two part mini series, scheduled for later this month, makes...

BY THE TIME MARK REUSS reached the age of 36, people were criticizing his work with gusto. Why not? He, a GM vehicle line executive, was given the task of shepherding into production one of the ugliest, most misconceived vehicles to ever see an assembly line: the Pontiac Aztek. The rest is history. Literally. Expect to see Aztek buried next fall or soon after. First, though, Reuss—now holding the enviable reigns of GM’s Performance Division—gets a Bob Lutz-mandated shot at redemption using the ill-fated SUV as inspiration. We can think of plenty of better ways for the General to spend...

Richmond International RacewayPontiac Excitement 400 Saturday Night - May 3, 2003 on FX - 4pm PT / 7pm ET The present facility was built on the site of a half-mile track that first hosted dirt auto races in the 1940s. The original track was paved in 1968. RIR was redesigned in 1988 between the spring and fall races. Recent renovations have made it one of the most modern speedways on the tour. God Bless Our Country, Troops, Leaders and Allies. We Will Never Forget the price that others have paid for our FReedom.