What U.S. State Has the Most Pontiacs Per Capita?
The last Pontiac automobile rolled off the line nearly 15 years ago, in January of 2010. It was a white G6 sedan, a bland end for a company that had produced some of the spiciest offerings in the portfolio of its corporate parent, GM. Enthusiasm for Pontiacs, though, is still very much alive. Of all the car brands Hagerty insures, Pontiac is the third most popular by number of policies.
This stat got us wondering. Where in the U.S. are Pontiacs most popular? The result was this map, which we assembled using U.S. vehicle registration data for classics (vehicles 25 years old or older) and modern collector vehicles. Hover over it to see which U.S. counties have the most Pontiacs per capita.
Technically, the county with the most Pontiacs per capita is Loving, Texas. But while you might think that those Texans really love their Pontiacs, with 1 Pontiac for every 22 people, it’s worth pointing out that Loving County has a population of just 64. It’s the least populous county in the United States, in fact; so we can probably call that one an outlier. Meanwhile, the county that’s home to the city of Pontiac—Oakland County, Michigan—isn’t even in the top 1500. Where the Pontiacs really seem to be concentrated is in Montana. Eight of the 10 counties with the most Pontiacs per capita are in The Treasure State.
Now, if you read our breakdown of the Montana license plate loophole last week, you might assume that the state’s loose registration rules are throwing the numbers off; perhaps Californians with Montana-plated GTOs are skewing things toward Big Sky Country. A closer look at the data, however, shows that this isn’t the case.
While ’79 Firebirds are particularly popular in Montana’s three largest counties (Yellowstone, Missoula, and Gallatin), so are Grands Prix and Grand Ams from the 1990s and early 2000s. In Big Horn County, which has the most Pontiacs per capita in the state, the five most popular Pontiacs are all ’90s Grand Ams. It’s hard to imagine out-of-staters using the Montana LLC loophole on a car like that.
On one hand, it makes sense why these more ordinary mass-produced cars from the brand’s catalog would be the most popular, but compare Montana to a state like California, where the five most popular Pontiacs by make and model are the considerably more exciting 1979 Firebird, 1978 Firebird, 1968 Firebird, 2009 G8, and 1977 Firebird. In Florida, the most popular Pontiacs are Solstices and Firebirds.
The reasons why Montana is so Pontiac-crazy, and why its residents own so many of even the brand’s more generic models, aren’t entirely clear. One may be frugality. If you rank the states in terms of the average model year of vehicles on their road, Montana is seventh oldest in the nation. In other words, it’s more common for someone to still be rocking a 30-year-old Grand Prix in Montana than it is in, say, New York. Another reason may be availability. Montana is a huge, sparsely populated state (its population density is the third lowest in the country), so maybe Pontiac just had more of a dealership presence than the other brands in this not-very-competitive part of the country—but we’re just speculating. Or maybe the reason is just plain old loyalty—Pontiac did, after all, give the state its very own model, the 1997–2009 Montana minivan.
Whatever the reason for Montana’s Pontiac predominance, we’re surprised and happy to see this gone-too-soon brand get some love.
Just had to smash the comment button to say that the almighty Montana minivan began assembly in 1997, not 2007 as written.
I am not gonna even fact check someone with that name. Thank you for the correction, 1997 it is!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZxzdNXy_iQ
You would have expected Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio.
When Pontiac was with us these states were always sales leaders. Pontiac was always designated to intro their new models at the Chicago Auto Show.
Even the biggest club Memberships revolve Illinois and Michigan.
Yup I agree with. I had to take statistics when I went back to college. I found you can make the results almost come out the way you want. LOL
I would have thought so also. When I was a kid, my dad had a Pontiac Grand Prix in the 70’s. I still see more Pontiacs when I visit Chicagoland than I do today in Texas.
I agree, Can’t even remember how many cars and parts I had. Loved the brand.
Interesting that the ’67 GTO shown in the piece is registered in Alberta which borders Montana. Would be interesting to find out how many Pontiacs per capita up there.
’67 tailpanel. ’66 grill. ???
I’m thinking that the two pictures in the article are not of the same car…
I don’t have the number but there are many up in Canada. Pontiac was a very popular car up North.
The trouble is many of the older cars were not the same Pontiacs we had. Many had Chevy engines in Pontiac bodies and some had Chevy bodies with Pontiac trim like a Acadia and Beaumont.
The full size cars had Pontiac bodies but Chevy platforms.
We se emany of these at the Pontiac Nationals and here in Ohio being a border state.
Even my car was a Canadian Pontiac shipped to Toronto. It still has the metric dash in it.
Pontiacs were the best designed and had the performance to back up the looks.
Too bad Mary, Mark and Fritz Henderson came along to dump them in favour of Buick.
True. But they were just puppets. Blame Obama!
The reason that Pontiac was killed over Buick is due to Buick’s cultish following in China.
Montana is the capital because of zero sales taxes on automobiles. It’s easy to create an LLC in Montana, register your expensive classic car there and pay zero sales, zero use, and zero property tax on automobiles…..
The most significant reason Pontiac was killed was the ‘heads up their …’ GM management, and we’re still suffering from that Mismanagement these many years later. Maybe that just proves that a company CAN get so big they can’t make proper decisiions?
I couldn’t help but notice the total lack of statistics in this article (a token mention would have been nice) about Canada’s Pontiac following and the type of cars purchased. We have a passion in the Great White North too!
“Moving to Montana soon, going to be a dental floss tycoon”. Frank must have liked Pontiac Super Duty’s.
Let us remember that famous quote from Mark Twain
There are lies, damn lies, and statistics !
I also think it’s not entirely representative to use only Hagerty’s insurance statistics to draw broad conclusions, although I give you they do insure a lot of classic cars. To wit, I own 5 Pontiacs and none of them are in Hagerty’s database. And surely I’m one of many that could skew these “numbers” one way or the other were you to actually know where all the millions of other Pontiacs not insured by Hagerty lie.
Sure, but who has more data? Certainly not anyone that’s going to share. So it’s not a count of every Pontiac ever, it’s still fun to think about.
I work in the department that did the analysis behind this article, and these conclusions are based off of registration data. If it were insurance data, I would wholeheartedly agree that the methodology in that would be flawed. Granted, registration data only covers vehilces registered in the US, and not evey Pontiac is registered, but it covers a wider swath of vehicles in existence. Hope this sets you at ease a bit.
I have been loyal to Pontiac since 1965. Among the forty-seven that I have enjoyed are over 23 GTOs, and a lot of Firebirds, GrandAms, and everything from a bubble top ’61Catalina 4spd to a 1950 Funeral Hearse Straight 8 with a 3 spd manual trans. And now at 75 years of age, I still have four Pontiacs, 3 of which are insured by Hagerty, and a G6 GTP that is a low mile one Owner that is a daily driver.
There was never a time that I did not have a reason to stay dedicated to my favorite brand.