The Pontiac marque may be gone, but the San Diego Automotive Museum in Balboa Park is making sure it\u2019s not forgotten. Through Sept. 25, several of those dandy cars that met the fancy of the buying public for most of their 83 years will be featured, defining the carmaker in terms of style and performance.\u00a0 The end came in 2009. The decision reflected the decline of the brand over time as Pontiac lost its place as an industry leader. The story is not unlike that of any other manufacturer in industrialized\u00a0 America of the 20th century. Other carmakers that disappeared included Cord, Auburn, Hudson, Studebaker and American Motors Beauty and performance \u2014 once cherished by car buyers \u2014 faded and gave way to conservative design and adequate performance. Efforts were made to bring back the excitement by re-introducing popular models in the latter years \u2014 but the efforts fell short.\u00a0 \u00a0 On display at the museum are:\u00a0a 1932 Pontiac Six sedan, a 1941 Super Streamliner\u00a0 Torpedo, a 1952 Catalina, a 1955 Star Chief safari wagon, a 1959 Bonneville, a 1962 Tempest, a 1962 Grand Prix two-door hard-top sports coupe, a 1964 Tempest LeMans GTO, a 1968\u00a0 Firebird, a 1969 GTO Judge, a 1977 Ventura and a 2009 Solstice GXP coupe. \u00a0 The battle for No.1<\/b> Ford CEO Alan Mulally has outlined plans to boost the carmaker\u2019s worldwide sales volume by more than 50 percent by mid-decade, putting it close to parity with the industry\u2019s two 800-pound gorillas \u2014 GM and Toyota. Toyota continues to struggle to resume full production and is certain to slip behind longtime rival General Motors \u2014 at least for 2011. Volkswagen has long made it known it\u2019s in the hunt for the global sales crown.\u00a0 Ford is sniffing the chance to regain the lead it lost more than three-quarters of a century ago when it was still building the Model T. However, Ford needs to revive its long-struggling Lincoln brand and rebuild its European operations, which have been lagging behind Volkswagen for the last decade. Mulally agrees the global goal will require some real traction in Asia, which could account for at least one-third of Ford\u2019s volume. Yet,\u00a0Ford has had little success cracking the Chinese market, where GM holds a hefty 15 percent market share. Ford comes in at No. 4, All carmakers appear to view China as the world\u2019s largest automotive market. Ford has counted on sales in North America to generate the lion\u2019s share of its earnings to date, placing emphasis on big, profitable trucks like the full-size F-150 pickup. \u00a0 Only $1.1 million per<\/b> High-dollar lovers of British autos rejoice: Jaguar has announced plans to build a 200-mph hybrid super car. The C-X75 will go 0-60 mph in three seconds (0-100 mph in six seconds) and have an electric-only range of about 30 miles. It will be made in the U.K. in a partnership with Williams F1, a Formula One engineering and racing team. Only 250 will be made \u2014 with a price tag of $1.1 million. Jaguar has declined to say when it will start producing the C-X75 (it has\u00a0 begun a list for those interested in buying). But it\u2019s safe to say no one will be driving the C-X75 anytime soon.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Pontiac marque may be gone, but the San Diego Automotive Museum in Balboa Park is making sure it\u2019s not forgotten. Through Sept. 25, several of those dandy cars that met the fancy of the buying public for most of their 83 years will be featured, defining the carmaker in terms of style and performance.\u00a0 […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Museum recaptures Pontiac\u2019s glory years with classic displays","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551,11593],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-297552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news","category-no-images"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}