Due to the financial struggles of General Motors, the automobile company announced recently that it planned to phase out the Pontiac brand by the end of 2010.

A look at Chattanooga’s history shows that apparently the first local Pontiac dealership was the Bryant Motor Company, which was opened by Carson H. Bryant in the late 1920s in a now-razed building at 311-315 Broad St.

Carson Bryant’s son, Wendell P. Bryant of Ooltewah, remembers the dealership well.

“it went all the way back from Broad through Chestnut,” recalled Mr.

Bryant, now 89 years old. “The front was on Broad and the back was on Chestnut. They had a mechanic shop in the back.”

According to a company history, GM first introduced the Pontiac in 1926, shortly before Bryant Motor Company started selling the line.

A Pontiac Spring & Wagon Works Company had been in existence since 1900, and the company had merged with the Oakland Motor Company in 1908 to produce the Oakland automobile. This was a year before the combined company became part of GM.

The Oakland name came from the Michigan county where the town of Pontiac is located and where the merged company was headquartered.

The Pontiac was designed as a companion car to the Oakland, which was slightly larger and which the Bryant Motor Company also sold before the line quit being manufactured in 1932.

“It (Pontiac) got to be a popular vehicle over the years,” said Mr. Bryant. “It was between Buick and Chevrolet in size and price.”

Company histories say the early Pontiac car was a six-cylinder vehicle designed to compete against more expensive four-cylinder cars.

Mr. Bryant remembered that various relatives drove Pontiacs, including a four-door convertible that had the familiar Native American head over the radiator but no windows.

He also recalled that his father did not receive the new automobiles on trucks as today.

“Some of the automobiles they shipped from Detroit to Chattanooga were in box cars, and he would go to the train station to get them,” he said.

The older Mr. Bryant had been a salesman with Duffy Auto Company at 408 Broad St. before starting his own dealership. According to his son, he had also been in business with Jack Trimble at one point.

By the early 1930s, Carson Bryant closed the dealership.

The younger Mr. Bryant said his parents divorced and his father later moved to Texas. His mother, Lavecha Bryant, was listed in a 1930s city directory as being a sales lady at Miller Bros.

A longtime resident of the Apison area, where some Bryant family members had moved from North Georgia, Mrs. Bryant died in 1994 at the age of 96.

Another place that started selling the Pontiac line about the time Bryant Motor Company closed was Community Motors Inc. at 304-308 Chestnut St. The president was W.E. Flory, and the firm also sold Buicks and GMC trucks.

A popular Chattanooga Pontiac dealership in the middle part of the 20th century was Freeman Pontiac at 237 Chestnut St. at Third Street.

A 1950 city directory said Charles Freeman Sr. was the president, Charles Freeman Jr. was the vice president, and Dorothy J. Stout was the secretary. Both of the Freemans lived in Riverview.

A familiar dealership a decade or two later was Andy Trotter Pontiac at 3150 S. Broad St.

It later became Long Pontiac and the firm is now known as Trotter-Long Pontiac Buick.

Pontiacs have long been seen on the roads of Chattanooga.

How many Chattanooga young people or the young at heart drove GTOs in the 1960s? Or how many parents or grandparents drove Bonnevilles?

I remember in the late 1960s, right after Pontiac came out with the Firebird, my father, Dr. Wayne Shearer, bought one.

In the late 1970s, we also bought a 1960s’ Le Mans convertible, which many people mistook for a GTO. I drove it often to Baylor School when I was a senior.

I also bought a 1989 Pontiac Grand Prix primarily on its looks. At the time, I had driven a 1976 Chevrolet Monte Carlo for 13 years – since I was in the 11th grade.

I could be mistaking, but I believe someone once told me that the late Coca-Cola bottling magnate Cartter Lupton liked to drive Pontiacs. Interested in cars since he was a teenager, he had his own gas tank and garage grease pit at his Riverview home.

The Pontiac line has been a part of America’s – and Chattanooga’s – psyche for decades.

Jcshearer2@comcast.net