The Sanvoy

Mooseman

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Dec 4, 2011
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Ottawa, ON
Here's a goofy mash up of a Saab and Envoy. Guess he couldn't find parts.

https://www.kijiji.ca/v-view-detail..._ACTIVEADS&utm_medium=email&utm_source=alerts

rare short wheel base aluminum 5.3 ls awd 3.73 gear combo this suv is a fast reliable comfortable daily driver. has dod active fuel management. 330 hp 340 tq, air bags with auto compressor that has external air hose built in to hatch. custom fit denali front clip with custom grill, k&n cold air intake, custom exhaust with factory tip replaced. has a custom ecu tune, heated champagne leather interior dvd nav bose stereo pioneer 7 inch head unit 4 way climate control good rubber. call 780 232 4320 if you have and questions trades welcome

This is the second one I've seen. Someone a long time ago posted a true SaaBlazer (or would that be a TrailBlaab?). A Saab with a TB front end. Looked even goofier.

Sanvoy1.JPGSanvoy2.JPGSanvoy3.JPG
 
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Sparky

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Dec 4, 2011
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The mismatched wheel wells kill it.
 
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northcreek

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Jan 15, 2012
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WNY
Pontiac should have thought of this.....they missed out on the whole "360 rebadge frenzy". :duh:
 

Mooseman

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Dec 4, 2011
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What would it have been called? The G10?

What about Cadillac? Saturn?
 

Sparky

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Dec 4, 2011
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Saturn did smaller FWD stuff.
Probably for the best that GM didn't let Pontiac and Cadillac get in on it lol.
 

Reprise

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The mismatched wheel wells kill it.

I was thinking it didn't look half bad, from the '30 footer' view. Then I saw your post and, in turn, the wheel wells. D'oh! :duh:

I think Mooseman's right - he probably lost his OEM hood to rust, and found out it was easier (?) / cheaper to find a front clip from another 360.
I had wondered some time ago if this could be done - looks like I'm not the only one who was wondering. LOL

Pontiac should have thought of this.....they missed out on the whole "360 rebadge frenzy". :duh:

Can you imagine how hard the Pontiac version would've been to work on? We'd have needed to start up our own suicide prevention hotline.

GM brass probably told the division... "No. We're STILL writing off tooling costs on that Aztek." :nono:
Either that, or the designers ran screaming out of the room when the brass told them to do yet another badge engineering job for Pontiac.

If Pontiac had gotten one of their own, I bet there never would've been a TBSS.
Wonder what the Pontiac version would've been called, had they gotten a 360 for themselves?


As for Cadillac - the Cimarron was probably still too fresh in everyone's minds. Would've gotten a hopped up 5.3, or a 6.0 LS2, but what about the rest of the truck? You can only stick so much lipstick on the pig...LOL

(doing a badge job on the Tahoe / Burb was probably a no-brainer in comparison, considering how solid those platforms are)
 
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Mooseman

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Dec 4, 2011
25,260
Ottawa, ON
The biggest rebadging job, I think, was on the mini vans. Here we go:
Chevy Venture/Uplander
Pontiac Montana/SV6
Saturn Relay
Buick Terraza
Olds Silhouette

I'm surprised they didn't come out with a Saab version. Would have had the same crappy cup holders and wacky light and wiper controls. GMT360 is a close second, missing only a Saturn.

Funny thing though, Saab is now considered a zombie car maker. It's dead but somebody keeps trying to bring it back to life and dies again.
 
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northcreek

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Jan 15, 2012
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Pontiac gave themselves little chance to survive by not cashing in on the growing SUV market. I bet that their closeness to Chevy in the corporate pecking order forbade them from doing anything truck like other than a few hideous mini vans.
If they had done a 360 it would have been a TrailBlazer with a split grille and cost $ 5.00 more.
 

Reprise

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I often wondered why Pontiac got the axe, instead of, say Buick (I always liked Pontiacs, from both a performance / styling angle.) So I looked it up.

(Since we have a sizeable percentage of members north of the 49th parallel, I'll note that while Pontiacs were marketed in the US as the 'performance' brand, they were marketed in Canada for the longest time as a 'value' offering (think: Plymouth <> Dodge)

- Back in 2008/2009, when GM had to be bailed out, being unprofitable in the aggregate, Pontiac was in the middle of a series of unprofitable years - so they were a prime candidate to get dropped, being a boat anchor, of sorts.

(Meanwhile, since I mentioned Buick, that brand was turning a nice profit, and getting a lot of conquest sales at the time. To top it off, those Buick buyers were skewing the average owner age of the brand LOWER (something Cadillac desperately needed to do, and was eventually successful with in their own right.) With several new vehicles in the pipeline, the future looked bright for Buick. It was probably GM's most profitable division (based on profit avg / vehicle, not on total sales volume - Chevy dwarfs Buick from a volume standpoint, but sells much closer to the margins). Finally, it also turns out that the Chinese were (and still are) buying a lot of Buicks - it's an aspirational brand for them. )

(personally, I haven't been too enthused about Buick's offerings / styling the last several years outside of the Enclave, and then only in one particular paint color, which I forget the name of.)

- During these unprofitable years mentioned above, Pontiac had been selling their rebadged Chevys for LESS than the price of the equivalent Chevy - which not only ensured a loss for them - but also undercut the Chevrolet division. So they were actually helping to kill TWO divisions at once.

- There was a third big reason that Lutz alluded to, which was that the US Government told GM - "If you keep Pontiac on life support, we will not provide the funding for a bailout." Since the alternative was the death of GM itself, which was a scenario neither GM nor the government wanted, GM agreed that the Pontiac division had to be killed in order for GM to survive.

There was a group at GM that did try to save Pontiac, but they couldn't come up with any plan that was financially viable. And so,in April 2009, GM announced that Pontiac would follow the same fate as Oldsmobile.

- Another reason I'll mention, since it was suggested that Pontiac might have survived with more SUVs in their product line - remember how many Pontiac dealers were also GMC dealerships? I'm guessing that had Pontiac gotten versions of the Yukon / XL, they would've cannibalized sales from GMC, which was another (marginally) profitable division. So outside of the Denali trims, you'd have Pontiac 'Yukons' being sold in place of the GMC versions - at a lower profit margin.

In retrospect, GM probably made the best decision, from a business standpoint. I wish they could've kept Pontiac going, but look at it this way - Ponchos are going up in value at the collector auctions, at least. And they still have a lot of aftermarket support, at least for the 'golden' years, of, say the mid- to late-'50s, through the early '80s (IMHO)

Long live Pontiac, at least in our hearts & minds... :Lager Louts::wooot:
 

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