{"id":2077992,"date":"2026-08-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2077992"},"modified":"2026-08-05T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T21:00:00","slug":"wouldnt-even-take-it-as-a-gift-why-the-pontiac-aztek-is-a-hall-of-fame-fail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2077992","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Wouldn&#8217;t even take it as a gift&#8217;: why the Pontiac Aztek is a Hall of Fame #Fail"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-testid=\"HtmlContent\" class=\"MarkUpWrapper-sc-t20i90-0 hQwWlJ\">\n<p>In its years gracing these pages with its trademark combination of industry insight and baseless slurs, FOTC has resisted tackling the Pontiac Aztek. Yes, the early Noughties SUV-thing was irredeemably, violently ugly: what more is there to say? It\u2019s the lowest of low-hanging fruits.<\/p>\n<p>But the thing about low-hanging fruit is, it\u2019s (a) delicious and (b) also literally right there, so let\u2019s tuck in. Here\u2019s something else to say about the repulsive Aztek: GM knew it was a snotter. It knew it was serving up a design that made onlookers physically queasy. During development, one appalled focus group attendee told company bosses, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t even take it as a gift&#8221;.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"HtmlContent\" class=\"MarkUpWrapper-sc-t20i90-0 hQwWlJ\">\n<p>Despite this, GM ploughed ahead with the Aztek, desperate to prove that, after years of beige anonymity, it could stand out from the crowd. Dudes! An elephant seal crossbred with a blobfish would stand out from the crowd! That\u2019s not a reason to do it!<\/p>\n<p>The Aztek also did for Pontiac: the company that had brought us such legendary nameplates as GTO, Firebird and Trans Am. OK, so it wasn\u2019t the only guilty party \u2013 pretty much every new Pontiac through the Nineties and Noughties helped stick the knife in \u2013 but the gruesome Aztek certainly inflicted one of the deepest blows. A minger and a murderer? All-time Hall of Fame #fail.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In its years gracing these pages with its trademark combination of industry insight and baseless slurs, FOTC has resisted tackling the Pontiac Aztek. Yes, the early Noughties SUV-thing was irredeemably, violently ugly: what more is there to say? It\u2019s the lowest of low-hanging fruits. But the thing about low-hanging fruit is, it\u2019s (a) delicious and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,237],"class_list":["post-2077992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-topgear-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2077992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077992\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2077992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2077992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2077992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}