So, Pontiac’s going away. Always sad to see a brand disappear, but Pontiac has been kind of off its game for years now.

I’ve never cared for Pontiac’s tall triangle logo, any more than I care for the trademark Pontiac double air intake device (which lately looks like a cheap take on a BMW). The sleek logomark is meant to invoke an arrowhead (which I didn’t realize until someone pointed it out). Pontiac has moved away from its more obvious original Native American imagery:

The cars themselves always seem to have bulbous protuberances and cheap textures (e.g. the oversized foglights you see on the Grand Prix, or the wacky black honeycomb meshes on the aforementioned air intakes). You can see it starting back in the day:

In the GM family, Pontiac was always supposed to be a step up from standard Chevys and a step down from Buicks and (now also defunct) Oldsmobiles, and they definitely used to be. Check some of their early models — “Wide-Track” wheels were differentiators for Pontiac; their cornering abilities were touted, which helped establish their performance pedigree that really took off later with the GTO:

Now when I think Pontiac, I think of Trans Am product placement — the late seventies brought us Smokey and the Bandit and the early eighties gave us K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider:

Pontiac has had some cool bird decals though:

And their “Judge” branding (from 1969) is rad:

The Pontiac name also reminds me of the recently released (then yanked) GTO (a re-badged Australian Holden Monaro), which looks utterly boring compared to the original (but is probably still fun to drive):

And then there’s the Fiero — the less said about it, the better, although it was a huge seller. Rock. On.

As ugly as it was, it doesn’t scrape the aesthetic depths of the Aztek (or “Ass-Tech,” as I call it). You couldn’t plan a vehicle that ugly — some theorize that two aesthetically challenged teams created it, each starting at one end, and met in the middle:

The Solstice convertible (and recently released hard-top) are interesting looking, although I think Saturn did a better execution with their Sky — it’s built on the same platform, but it looks less like something that’s melted in the sun:

The sub-brand logos all look firmly stuck in the 1980s - loaded with cheesy heavy-metal-band angles and chest-beating, fist-pumping bravado (okay, not so much the Bonneville). There’s little subtlety here:

Rest in peace, sweet Pontiac.