Pontiac dead... Holden export crisis looms

   The Holden Commodore's export to North America is under a cloud following an announcement overnight that General Motors would close the Pontiac brand by the end of 2010.

The recently appointed president and CEO of General Motors, Fritz Henderson, announced via a webcast video conference last night (between 11pm and midnight Australian time Monday, April 27) that the Hummer, Saab and Saturn brands would be sold or closed by the end of this year, and Pontiac would be "phased out by no later than 2010".

However, the Commodore-based Pontiac G8 sedan is expected to be phased out by the end of this year.

"Our decision on Pontiac would result in the phase out of the G8 from the Australian operation," Henderson said. "It is actually in many ways a very fine car but we're just not able to put the marketing resources behind it. And we will work with dealers to sell down the inventory and phase out production, and we would anticipate that by the end of this year."

But industry insiders claim the Commodore's export to the US is not necessarily dead, hinting that the Holden could be sold there with a Chevrolet badge.

Holden is expected to make an announcement to Australian media later today (Tuesday) regarding the impact of the closure of the Pontiac brand.

As first broken here at the Carsales network in February (more here) it's understood Holden had been working on a lucrative contract to export special police pack versions of the Commodore-based Pontiac to the US. Ford is due to phase out the Crown Victoria sedan and there is currently no direct replacement. Ford sells about 60,000 Crown Victoria sedans a year, primarily to police agencies.

Export deals are seen as crucial to the viability of local production of the Commodore, sales of which have been in decline for the past decade, from a peak of almost 95,000 sales in 1998, to a low of about 51,000 last year.

Almost half of all Commodores made locally are exported to the US as Pontiacs, and five times as many Statesmans sold here are exported to the Middle East as Chevrolets.

Holden already has a Chevrolet grille and badging ready for the Commodore because it sells a Chevy badged Commodore to the Middle East (and South Africa) as a Lumina.

Holden began selling a Pontiac version of the Commodore in March 2008 and more than 22,000 vehicles have been sold in North America in the 12 months since then. This is shy of the original target of 30,000 cars per annum, but a strong performance nonetheless, given that the US new car market has almost halved in that time.

Last night's announcement was part of a broader public update about GM's revised future viability plans, due to be submitted to the US Congress on June 1.

Mr Henderson said GM planned to "pull forward" its restructuring plans and implement "deeper and faster" cuts to make the business more viable.

He announced GM would cut the number of factories in North America from 47 to 34 by 2010 -- a 28 per cent reduction, and three fewer factories than GM's recovery plan had outlined in February.

He said the workforce would be cut from 62,000 to 40,000 by the end of 2010, 7000 less than the original recovery plan outlined in February.

GM will also cut the number of dealers by almost half, from 6246 to 3605 by the end of 2010. The corporation said it would notify all affected dealers by the end of next month (May).

GM will focus on four core brands in North America: Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC.

The biggest restructure in the company's history will almost certainly confirm this is the end of GM's reign as the world's biggest carmaker.

GM was overtaken last year by Toyota with a lead of 620,000 sales (8.35 million sales versus 8.97 million respectively) but the Japanese maker said it was a hollow victory because of the global financial crisis.

It now appears certain that GM will be overtaken by both Toyota and Volkswagen in the global automotive sales race before the end of 2009.

GM had been the world's biggest car maker since 1931, two years before Toyota began making cars.

Stay tuned for more information following Holden's press conference later today.