‘Nothing will ever replace the pride we had in our American cars.’ minxky
The story: Struggling GM will shutter its Pontiac division, which leads columnist Chuck Raasch to mourn the end of a era. For men and women of a certain age (well, for men), one of Pontiac’s signature cars, the GTO, was the symbol of “wind-it-up-blow-it-out risk-taking freedom,” Raasch writes.
Your take: The Citizen’s online community laments the end of the road for Pontiac, and especially for the Goat. (“Goat” was the nickname youths of the 1960s and 1970s gave the GTO, despite the efforts of Pontiac to market the car as a “Tiger.”) Some representative comments:
• “My favorite Pontiac that I owned was a 1975 Grand Prix.” Towken1
• “Seems the U.S. corporate capitalist machine is having difficulty with perpetual adolescence.” Red Star
• “The new Camaro, Charger and Mustang (are) all selling well; so what if it is perpetual adolescence, at least it shows class.” 1469
• “Had a ’69 and a ’72 Goat. Always loved Pontiac. Lots room under the hood. My ’79 Trans Am was my favorite, though. There is nothing like the sound and feel of horsepower.” Radcock
• “I had a ’69 Goat, velocity stack, hijackers, purple hornies, Craig (stereo), a real tail-hopper. Jammin’ Skynyd, Foghat, BOC, livin’ the dream. Dime bags the size of newspapers, strawberry Zigzags, everybody got along. If there was a problem you would duke it out, when it was over you shook hands and everything was cool. No guns, no killings. Our biggest fear was signing up for the draft. . . .Kids have so much more now to worry about, economy, terrorism. . . . What I wouldn’t give to return to my time. . . . Life seemed so much simpler then.” BigE50
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