Pontiac Sunfire: Its Name in Lights

Starting around the mid-1990s, General Motors styling went through a spell of soft, aerodynamically-influenced body shapes enhanced by having minimal ornamentation.  An example is the Pontiac Sunfire, a compact car in production for the 1995-2005 model years.  Its Wikipedia entry is here.  As Wikipedia indicates, the Sunfire shared its body with Chevrolet's third-generation Cavalier.

Seen from the side, it's hard to distinguish Sunfires and Cavaliers from one another.  Even their front "faces" are not greatly different, the most apparent distinction being the shape of their headlight assemblies.

But it is at the rear where the Sunfire shined -- literally.  Rather than having the Pontiac brand name spelled out in chrome-plated letters or appearing on a plaque of some sort, the name glowed because it was illuminated through translucent red cut-outs on a black-background plastic panel.

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1995 Pontiac Sunfire sedan
The grille opening is divided in the middle, a weak evocation of Pontiac's traditional (since 1959) two-part grille theme.  The glowing (when headlights were turned on) Pontiac name can be seen on the black panel separating the tail lights.

2000 Pontiac Sunfire coupe
The Pontiac name is more visible in this rear 3.4 view of a Sunfire coupe because the car's lights were turned on for the photographer.

Yes, the illuminated brand name is a small detail, yet it was highly noticeable when seen on the streets.  I don't know how most people reacted to it, but I found it bothersome and somehow in bad taste.

This form of brand signage is extremely rare; offhand, I can't think of any other major make doing the same thing in recent decades.  Someplace in the back of my mind I have the impression that some 1930s American cars did something similar.  For example, a glance at Google Images for the 1937 Buck suggests that the Buick name on chrome letters was placed over a small, centrally located brake indicator light.  Much more subtle, and not quite than same thing as the Sunfire's bold Pontiac proclamation.

General Motors Badge-Engineers a Sports Car

The 2002 Pontiac Solstice show car drew enough interest that General Motors placed it in production, perhaps as a corporate morale-builder in the mold of the original Dodge Viper.  (Bob Lutz was on the scene in both instances.)

The Solstice entered production in 2005 as a 2006 model, as described here.  A facelifted version was placed in production as the Saturn Sky, an effort to broaden interest and increase production.  Then the Sky was used as the basis for the Opel GT roadster and Daewoo G2X. All of these were assembled at GM's Wilmington, Delaware plant.

The 2008 financial crisis struck, sending General Motors into bankruptcy.  Side-effects of this were the killing of the Pontiac and Saturn brands along with the closure of the Wilmington facility.  Total production was about 108,000 vehicles, of which around 66,000 were Solstices, 34,000 were Skys and 7,500 were Opels.  I could find no data regarding G2X sales; apparently they were essentially nil.

Another thing I do not know is whether these sports cars were profitable.  My guess is that they were a money-loser.

As for styling, it was well-done, hewing to the classical 1950s sports car themes embodied by  Austin-Healey, Corvette, and such.  The Pontiac had a rather soft front end that, while being a reasonable styling solution for incorporating the marque's traditional grille theme, was lacking in "punch" or character.  I would have preferred something stronger, yet maintaining theme continuity.  In contrast, the Sky's front was crisp, bold, and altogether more purposeful.  Also conventional, not very distinctive.  The Opel and Daewoo versions are essentially Skys with different badges on the grille bar and a few other places.

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Pontiac Solstice - 2006

Saturn Sky - 2007

Opel GT - c. 2006

Daewoo G2X - 2007

BMW 328s Pure and Silly

In the years since around 1950, when automobile styling switched from evolution to fashion, stylists have become tempted to harken to previous themes for inspiration.  The buzz word for this is "Retro."  Sometimes Retro is found in production cars, but it might happen even more where concept cars are concerned.  A case in point is the BMW 328 series, a production sports car that sired some road racing variants around the end of the 1930s.

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Shown here are the 1937 Bügelfalte, 1939 328 Touring Coupe and 1940 328 Kamm Coupe.  They are of interest due to the use of serious streamlining (as opposed to superficial streamlining found on many passenger cars of that era).

The Touring Coupe.  It was created by the Italian coachbuilder Touring because BMW needed a closed car to better compete in road races outside Germany such as Italy's famed Mille Miglia (Thousand Mile) race through towns and countryside.  More information is here.

The Kamm Coupe.  Unlike the Touring coup, the Kamm Coupe's body was the result of wind tunnel testing by the noted aerodynamicist, Wunibald Kamm. See here for more details.

Two views of the 2006 BMW Mille Miglia Concept Coupe.  This was inspired by the streamlined racing cars pictured above.  I think it is very nicely done.  Well, I have a few quibbles such as the lack of doors, but this is a show car, after all, so details that do not affect the overall design can be excused.  The front seems to be mostly inspired by the Touring Coupe, while the rest of the design is derived from the Kamm Coupe.

A production BMW 328 roadster is pictured with the 2011 "328 Hommage" concept car in conjuction with the 2011 Villa d'Este concours.

Closer views of the 328 Hommage.  Some background regarding it can be found here.  Unlike the Mille Miglia Concept Coupe, the styling of the Hommage is a hash of unrelated or marginally related details.  The design would have held together better if doors were present, but the cut-out entries serve to break it into chunks.  Yes, there are continuation lines (the top of the fenders and the upper side character line), but these are overwhelmed by the cut-outs.  I would have honored the original 328 by having the door cut-outs terminating along that character line, rather that dropping through it.  This would have unified the design and better reflected the 1930s 328's styling.

Does Good Styling Sell?: The Oldsmobile Case

Aesthetic judgments are just that: opinions based on subjective reactions to the appearance of something.   So there is little possibility of doing research to conclusively demonstrate an objective relationship between a car model's appearance and success in the marketplace.  About the best one can do is to take a survey to come up with the average opinion regarding a car's looks.  Another possibility is to collect judgments from supposed experts.

That said, there are cases where automobiles with designs that are considered outstanding by consensus proved to sell poorly.  Examples include the 1936-37 Cord and 1953 Studebaker Starlight Coupe.  But even here, marketplace weakness can be explained by factors not related to styling (radical engineering and an underfunded company for Cord, and quality defects and sales pressure from GM and Ford for Studebaker).

Financial weakness is often the culprit, a fading company gambling on flashy new styling to save the firm.  Instances here (besides Cord) include the 1963 Studebaker Avanti and the 1951-54 Kaiser.

Now consider a counter-example, where nondescript design correlates to strong sales.  Today's exhibit is shown below:

1984 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera
According to this Wikipedia entry, during its long (1982-1996) run, "the Cutlass Ciera was consistently Oldsmobile's best-selling model."  Moreover, as another entry states, "Oldsmobile sales soared in the 1970s and 1980s (for an all-time high of 1,066,122 in 1985)," implying that the Cutlass Ciera was a popular car indeed.

The Cutlass Ciera design is not bad.  I might characterize it as being competently mainstream with nothing to excite an automobile fan.  It's the sort of appliance-on-wheels that a consumer advice magazine of that time might have approved of.

Let's put the Ciera design in Oldsmobile-historical context:

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1941 Oldsmobile
From the 1920s into the 1960s, General Motors marketing policy held to a continuum of car brands from low-priced to luxury.  By 1941, the sequence from low-price to high was Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac.  There was price overlap between brands, but nevertheless it was a clear system whereby a satisfied buyer of, say, a Pontiac could "move up" to an Oldsmobile for his next purchase if he could afford to.  The sales result was comparative stability amongst GM's brands during those times.  The 1941 Oldsmobile shown above has fussy trim, but it sold well.

1948 Oldsmobile 98
During the late 1940s Oldsmobile styling featured less ornamentation.  The 98 pictured here was part of the top of the Oldsmobile line.  I think it is an attractive design for its time.

1954 Oldsmobile 88
Another clean design is this two-door hardtop from GM's portfolio of futuristic cars for the 1954 model year.  The excitement dissipated in 1955 and 1956 as competitors launched their own versions of panoramic windshield styling.  By the 1958 model year, Oldsmobiles featured Rococo styling in a misguided attempt to appear new and exciting.  This was quickly reversed when Bill Mitchell replaced Harley Earl as GM's styling boss.

2000 Oldsmobile Intrigue
General Motors killed the Oldsmobile brand in 2004 because its declining market share could not support six different makes (GM introduced the Saturn brand for the 1990 model year).  In the years leading up to this, GM marketers and brand managers agreed that Oldsmobile styling should be clean, with not much ornamentation.  In the late 1990s, GM styling in general featured soft shapes and reduced trim, so Oldsmobiles became amongst the blandest of the bland, as this Intrigue demonstrates.  It isn't a bad looking car, but it offers little visual excitement.

My answer to the question in this post's title must be inconclusive, so far as Oldsmobile is concerned.  A stylistically unexciting Ciera was a good seller and the bland Intrigue marks the brand's dying days.