Pontiac Presents The Bug and The Beetle

Back in the early 70's Pontiac made a video for their employees entitled "The Bug and The Beetle" in which they talked about the threat from imported vehicles. It basically tells Pontiac employees that they have to build higher quality, higher value cars or the imports will steal the market, just like the Japanese did with radios, textiles and motorcycles. I find it interesting that they recognized the threat way back then, and almost 40 years later many of the same issues still exist and Pontiac finally succumbed to them.

Anyways, it's a little slow moving (it's only about 13 minutes long), but I thought people here would find it interesting.

Youtube link

Bob

Build better vehicles means slather your car in plastic cladding for over a decade, apparently.

slathering in ribbed plastic cladding made them sporty.

It is a shame they never took the warning in that video to heart...

Makes me want to find a M/T G6. Hell, an M/T Milan is easier to find

Thanks for posting this. I really need to show that to some of the people I work with.

What sucks is, with the G6, G8 and Solstice, it seems as though someone within GM finally tried to take that film seriously. Unfortunately, it was to late.

Also, it wasn't just Pontiac that dropped the ball on this, it was the entire domestic auto industry. And while what used to be the "Big-3" have made great strides as far as closing the gap, they still haven't picked the damn ball back up.

Every day at work, I have to deal with people on both the company and the UAW side who still don't get it.

Interesting video. What I liked most was the contrast of the images.
Foreign vehicles shown: Beetles, Corollas, Mini-Pickups, 510, 240z.
Pontiacs shown: Full size Catalina, Mid sized Lemans, Ventura (Nova).
All this amid the 1972 fuel crisis.
At issue seems to be the films statements that these big Pontiacs would be perfect competitors and replacements for the foreign cars if the workers would just show up on time and work a little harder/smarter.

"Our" customers.
"Our" market.

BullE36 M3. Even in the warning video, they still are acting as if they are entitled to the US buying dollar.

I'm not convinced they get it now though.......

I think I actually SAW that Datsun pickup rusting.

jrw1621 wrote: Foreign vehicles shown: Beetles, Corollas, Mini-Pickups, 510, 240z.

Poor bastards never had a chance...

in for later--sounds interesting...

yea.. that "our" bit did seem like they were almost offended that somebody might buy a foreign car

DILYSI Dave wrote: "Our" customers. "Our" market. BullE36 M3. Even in the warning video, they still are acting as if they are entitled to the US buying dollar.

Well, don't forget that at that time, GM still had ~50% of the US market, so to a great extent it was their market.

Fascinating video. The main thrust of it seemed to be to get hourly workers to actually show up for work. It is amaing, however, that clearly someone saw the threat coming and knew what to do about it, but it still didn't happen. I think it had a lot to do with the hidebound culture at the domsetics during that era. If you are interested in the orgiins of the downfall of the US auto industry, I reccomend finding a copy of John Delorean's book "On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors". It's about his experiences as an exec there at that time.

DILYSI Dave wrote: "Our" customers. "Our" market. BullE36 M3. Even in the warning video, they still are acting as if they are entitled to the US buying dollar.

That's how we talk when another pizza place wants to open in "our" town. It's "our" area. They never seem to last either. We almost had a happys pizza, but I don't think my town has a rough enough neighboorhood.

Joey

I wonder how much viewing the video got within Pontiac, whether workers ever actually saw it or not. It's possible the video was made and someone decided they didn't like the message and squashed its distribution.

Sorry, GM/Pontiac, but showing this video (if they really did) in the EARLY-MID 70s, was already 10 to 15 years too late.

It's also unfortunate for the soon to be EX-Pontiac employees, that in typical GM fashion, ALL the blame was placed on assembly line workers. GM, when you have crappy designs...it won't matter how well assembled they are. Example? How about the '73 to 77 mid sized cars?

one of my favorite lines: "Should we worry?"

Appleseed wrote: Build better vehicles means slather your car in plastic cladding for over a decade, apparently.

While I basically agree with the sentiment, why is it that ONLY Pontiac gets blasted for that when so many automakers, Mercedes and Lexus included di that? No one ever says Sh!tbaru Outhouse when discussin g the plastic clad Outback sedans and wagons, for example...

Even ribbed:

integraguy wrote: Sorry, GM/Pontiac, but showing this video (if they really did) in the EARLY-MID 70s, was already 10 to 15 years too late. It's also unfortunate for the soon to be EX-Pontiac employees, that in typical GM fashion, ALL the blame was placed on assembly line workers. GM, when you have crappy designs...it won't matter how well assembled they are. Example? How about the '73 to 77 mid sized cars?

Pontiac had some great looking cars in the 70s. I have a 72 Firebird and original 78 Trans Am SE. Both still get compliments everywhere I take them.

integraguy wrote: Sorry, GM/Pontiac, but showing this video (if they really did) in the EARLY-MID 70s, was already 10 to 15 years too late. It's also unfortunate for the soon to be EX-Pontiac employees, that in typical GM fashion, ALL the blame was placed on assembly line workers. GM, when you have crappy designs...it won't matter how well assembled they are. Example? How about the '73 to 77 mid sized cars?

Like My '76 Grand LeMans? Well built, solid, reliable, fast car.

I'd take another right now, if I could find another with the black velour interior...

My wife owned a Pontiac Grand Am. NO, Not one of these........

ONE of these.......Nice car except for the 24 trips back to the dealer for warranty work.

Chris_V - I don't think anyone used the plastic cladding as comprehensively or for as long as Pontiac did. Sure, it was almost a statement in the early 90's. And it made a lot of sense to have unpainted plastic panels where they'd bump things or get shot up with rocks. That's the idea on the Cherokee, and that's what the Outback was alluding to in the original iteration.

But then they started getting painted, and nothing's dumber than a painted plastic bumper. And in 2005, Pontiac still hadn't caught on...

Keith wrote: Chris_V - I don't think anyone used the plastic cladding as comprehensively or for as long as Pontiac did. Sure, it was almost a statement in the early 90's. And it made a lot of sense to have unpainted plastic panels where they'd bump things or get shot up with rocks. That's the idea on the Cherokee, and that's what the Outback was alluding to in the original iteration. But then they started getting painted, and nothing's dumber than a painted plastic bumper. And in 2005, Pontiac still hadn't caught on...

And yet Mercedes, Lexus, and numerous others have had painted plastic lower cladding for years and NO ONE EVER calls them stupid for painted bumpers. BTW, most urethane bumpers are painted and have been since the Enduraflex ones of the '70s. Maybe you didn't mean painted bumpers were dumb... Hell, even my 740iL has painted bumpers. And the Sport version of 2001 had painted bumpers and painted plastic lowers. Would you dare call this car dumb?

If it's good enough for dozens of other models, then why can't it be good enough for some GM models without people making a retarded stink about it? I don't even OWN those Pontiacs and I think the logic behind the bashing of the cladding is borderline brain dead, ESPECIALLY from enthusiasts who should KNOW better.

The whole bottom of this favorite is painted plastic cladding. How DUMB of them.

Now whether some of the cladding used on Pontiacs was way overstyled and ugly, that's a different story... ;) But just bashing them for painted plastic cladding? That's stupid.

Mr. Pedantic strikes again....

Yes, that is what is being said, the poorly styled cladding used on GM cars was not attractive to many of the people posting in this thread. The cladding used on your examples (I noticed you didn't try to find a GM with cladding to try and prove your point) were seemingly well done and looked attractive to many.

Good grief, now that you're all caught up, can we get back to bitching about GM and their self-produced "snuff" film?

Nothings dumber than a painted plastic bumper. I don't care what kind of badge is on the car. It's a stupid way to build something whose primary purpose is impact protection. One little scuff and you're repainting.

Unpainted plastic bumpers make perfect sense. If one needs replacing, you don't need to go through the expense of having it repainted. The BMW pictured makes a small attempt at protection by providing scuff strips at the usual parallel parking bump spots, but it won't protect you from, say, backing into a small rock. I was quoted $500 to repair the paint on the rear bumper of my BMW after doing that exact thing.

I'd love to know how many of those machines from the late 80's actually had painted bumpers. I'm pretty sure the Element bumpers are bare (or were for a long time) and I thought the original Outback was as well. The plastic bumpers and cladding on my 2000 Grand Cherokee are definitely raw plastic. I'm pretty sure the original CRX was also raw plastic on the lower half.

Even better are solid metal chrome bumpers like the one on my 2000 Tundra. You bump something, they're fine. Scuff something, they're fine.

But yes, what pisses people off about the Pontiac stuff was totally overstyled and such an obvious part of the car.

Keith wrote: But yes, what pisses people off about the Pontiac stuff was totally overstyled and such an obvious part of the car.

Whatever do you mean?