It cracks me up the saying about Pontiac going bust.
GM closed the Division because Uncle Sam told them to do so.
What would you do if the one handing you a check tells you to downsize?
Actually in the US market, Pontiac was outselling Buick for more than 2 to 1.
On the US roads you can see more Pontiac than Buick any time of the day even after canning the division for few years.
The only thing that saved Buick's bacon was China.
For some odd reason the Chinese loves their Buick and the only market Pontiac had was the US alone, Buick has 2 at least.
When it came to bean counters on paper looked like Buick was selling more; so the US Gov told GM to lower the numbers of divisions and that is how Pontiac got shelved.
To be honest; Pontiac was going back in the way was supposed to be and thanks to the Aussies the division was aimed to its original roots.
The history of Pontiac is about been the GM rebels/bad-boys. The division created a lot of interesting designs like the 1st GM car with a rear transmission, rope drive, inline 6 with OHC, 4 cyl made form a V8 (weird design), etc. At one point the GM brass saw Pontiac as a thread to Chevrolet, specially the Corvette with the
Banhsee XP-833 concept car.