2009 Pontiac G5 Coupe 2-door 2.2l Silver In Great Condition, Only 52k Miles on 2040-cars

Auto blog

The last Pontiac Fiero sold for $90,000 at auction

On August 16, 1988 the last Pontiac Fiero, a red GT model, rolled off the assembly line at GM's Pontiac Assembly plant located in Pontiac, Michigan. It wasn't just the final Fiero, but the final car to be built at that site. The car was raffled off to one of 1,400 plant employees that would soon have to find jobs elsewhere. Whoever that employee was, they remained faithful to the Fiero and kept it in mint condition for 32 years. Last month, it was finally time to move on. It crossed the block at GAA Auctions in Greensboro, North Carolina where it sold for an astounding $90,000. According to the auction house, that's a new world record. The price no doubt reflected the car's place in history as the last example of GM's 1980s mid-engined sports car. However, it was also showroom-new, with just 582 miles clocked on its 2.8-liter V6. 1988 models were also fitted with an upgraded, Lotus-esque suspension produced for just that one year. In addition, this car, serial number 226402, came with its original build sheet, photos from the assembly line, and a collection of news articles and books. It still wore its pre-delivery plastic on the interior and was fully loaded with automatic transmission. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. The car's custodian for the past 32 years must be pleased. Bidding started at $25,000 but soon rocketed past the $65,000 reserve. You can see the action starting at the 2:50:13 mark in the video above. The Fiero was symbolic of the 1980s and stood out from the standard GM passenger car fare for its mid-engine layout and plastic body panels. In an era when GM often rebadged cars with minimal differences, the Fiero rode on its own unique chassis. It was positioned as one of the defining products for Pontiac, GM's "excitement" brand, but actual performance never quite lived up to its striking looks.  Nevertheless, it garnered a cult following. It's often the basis for (questionable) custom builds mimicking more exotic models like Ferraris and Lamborghinis, thanks to a steel space-frame design that allows body panels to be easily removed. Thankfully, this significant example escaped such a fate and will live on as a reminder of an interesting chapter of automotive history.

Junkyard Gem: 1989 Pontiac 6000 STE AWD

During the middle to late 1980s, General Motors made a big push to grab back some of the sales swiped by makers of European luxury machinery during the previous decade. Around the top of the prestige pyramid, there was the Turin/Hamtramck-built Cadillac Allante taking aim at the Mercedes-Benz 560SEC and the super high-tech Buick Reatta trying to seduce away BMW and Jaguar shoppers; even the Riviera offered a futuristic touchscreen computer sorely lacking in anything out of Stuttgart or Bavaria. The General had a plan to take on the smaller German sporty sedans, too, and Pontiac of the "We Build Excitement" era offered a midsize sedan packed with modern hardware at a great price: the 6000 STE. Here's one of the rarest 6000 STEs of them all, an all-wheel-drive-equipped '89 found in a Denver-area yard last week. Any 6000 STE is extremely hard to find today; when I wrote about a front-wheel-drive 1987 6000 STE back in 2018, desperate owners of these cars filled my inbox with requests — sometimes demands —  for parts that continue to this day. Many of them pleaded with me to help them find an all-wheel-drive version, and now I have managed to find one at Colorado Auto & Parts in Englewood, just south of Denver (in fact, the same yard at which I shot the '87). You may recall CAP as the old-school yard whose owners built the amazing airplane-engined 1939 Plymouth pickup a few years back.  The all-wheel-drive system on the 6000 STE was introduced for the 1988 model year, and it became standard equipment on the 1989 STE. At this time, the automotive industry had taken note of the success of the idiot-proof all-wheel-drive systems offered by AMC and Audi/Volkswagen; Toyota began selling Americans all-wheel-drive Camrys, Celicas, and Corollas, while Ford offered the Tempo and Topaz with optional AWD and Subaru was just beginning to make the switch from manually-selected four-wheel-drive to genuine all-wheel-drive around that time (it took a few more years for everyone to standardize on the 4WD/AWD terminology we use today, though). The 6000 STE AWD was intended to compete with such all-wheel-drive-equipped sedans as the Audi 80 ($23,610), Audi 90 ($28,840), and BMW 325iX ($30,750); its $22,599 price tag (about $50,700 in 2021 dollars) certainly made it seem like a bargain compared to those cars. In addition to the all-wheel-drive system, 1989 6000 STE owners got a digital instrument panel and more switches and buttons than the Space Shuttle.

Junkyard Gem: 2010 Pontiac G6

What makes a discarded car a gem? Sometimes it's a car we all agree is very cool, and other times it's a car that tells us something about automotive history. Today's Junkyard Gem is the latter type: one of the very last Pontiacs sold, before The General shut out the lights forever on the storied marque after 84 years. The G6 was Pontiac's Epsilon-platform-based car, sibling to the Chevy Malibu, Saturn Aura, and Saab 9-3 (plus a bunch of Europe-only machinery). The very last Pontiac ever built was a white 2010 G6 sedan like this one (all '10 G6s were sedans, the coupe and convertible having been nixed in 2009), though that car was built in January of 2010 and this one came off the line in July of 2009. They build Bolts at the Orion Assembly plant these days. The higher-zoot G6s came with V6s or even V8s, but this car has "fleet machine" written all over it and has the base 2.4-liter Ecotec four-banger making 164 horsepower. Pontiac shoppers in the United States could buy the Vibe as a 2010 model as well, while Mexican Pontiac dealerships also sold new G2s (known as the Spark here) that year. The G6 was The Final Pontiac, though, bookending a run that began with the 1926 Pontiac Six. This one will go to its grave with the original owner's manual still inside. Even the cheapest 2010 G6s came with an AUX jack for the radio, a feature that was still maddeningly hard to find in rental cars a decade ago. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Before the bankruptcy and the gloom, optimism surrounded the G6. Related Video: Featured Gallery Junked 2010 Pontiac G6 View 19 Photos Auto News Pontiac Automotive History Sedan pontiac g6 Junkyard Gems