The Pontiac brand is now dead, and a little bit of American pop culture will be lost with it. Though the line fell out of favor with, well, pretty much the entire car-buying public in recent years, Pontiac had a good run as the maker of some of Detroit’s coolest muscle cars in its heyday.
My first Pontiac memory had to be from “Smokey and the Bandit.” Burt Reynolds zipping across the South in his black Firebird Trans Am, with a smokin’ Sally Field in tow and a thousand cops on his tail was just the coolest thing ever. And one of the first cars I ever wanted was a Pontiac Fiero (hey, I was a stupid little kid, and I thought it looked like a Ferrari).
Those classic cars are just memories now. So what better time than to reminisce over the five coolest Pontiacs ever to grace a TV screen?
5. “L’il Bandit” from “The Simpsons.” The ’68 Pontiac Firebird driven by Springfield’s resident career criminal, Snake. Besides being a boss getaway car, it fell into the possession of one Homer J. Simpson, who bought it at a police auction in one episode. Snake ended up repo-ing it himself. Don’t forget: “She needs premium dude . . . PREMIUM! . . . dude.”
4. Daniel Desario’s Firebird in “Freaks and Geeks.” The bad boy with the bad-ass car. His red Firebird was perfect for ditching school, and the chicks dug it. It went with his rocker/stoner persona much better than his ill-fated attempt at being punk.
3. Marshall’s Fiero on “How I Met Your Mother.” The trusty steed broke down just shy of 200,000 miles. Ahhh, the memories of that car: driving naked to buy 14 cups of coffee, almost freezing to death with Ted, the mysterious homeless-person-throwup-like smell, the “500 Miles” cassingle playing constantly for 15 years . . . . it was indeed a classic car. And the biggest joke? That a Fiero could make it to 200,000 miles.
2. Jim Rockford’s Firebird on “The Rockford Files.” The coolest private eye of the ’70s had a pretty sweet ride. The gold Firebird Esprit got our hero out of many a sticky situation. The car was particularly adept at spinning 180 degrees in reverse to escape bad guys, a maneuver I’ve never quite been able to repeat.
1. K.I.T.T. from “Knight Rider.” Come on, was there ever any doubt? The freakin car could talk! Does it get any cooler than that? This souped-up ’82 Pontiac Trans Am was sleek and had that Cylon-like scanning red “eye.” K.I.T.T.’s artificial intelligence was smarter than the average lifeguard, could drive itself, had super advanced communications and sensors, and could go like 200 mph. Pretty amazing technological achievement, considering the computers I was using at the time used cassette tapes for data storage.
