Her husband insisted she buy all-American, so she bought a Pontiac. He didn’t know it’s really a Toyota in disguise.
Low Miles, No Miles Facebook group member Anthony Guzzo shared photos of his Grandma’s 2005 Pontiac Vibe to the group because, not only does this Vibe have just 19,534 miles, it’s got an interesting origin story.
According to Guzzo’s caption, his Nana (Grandma) presumably needed a brand-new car around 2004 and wanted the practicality and reliability of a Toyota.
The only issue is, since most big marriage decisions are mutual, she needed to run this buy her husband first.
“Nana wanted a Toyota for its dependability but Pops said no foreign cars would ever be in his garage as long as he was alive,” Guzzo says in his caption.
Both (her husband included) are presumably of “The Greatest Generation” and understandably he probably prefers to buy all-American if he could (I’m not going to get into the nitty-gritty why, but you can figure it out.)
Nana had a genius workaround and sold her husband on them buying a Pontiac Vibe. Most people when they hear/see Pontiac automatically think it’s 100 percent all-American.
Not so.
Because Toyota and GM formed a joint venture back in the mid-’80s, producing Toyotas on American soil (NUMMI) for the first time, many GM cars, up until the mid-’00s, were just rebadged Toyotas, the Pontiac Vibe included.
The Pontiac Vibe is a badge engineered Toyota Matrix.
Embed from Getty Images“So Nana tricked him and bought a Pontiac Vibe! Three thick envelopes of carefully sorted service records since new. Only 19k miles on it! It drives and smells like a new car.”
As the photos below show, the Vibe remains in immaculate condition and might be the cleanest Vibe today.
Nana never drove that much, a little over a 1,000 miles a year.
“Nana defintiely got what she wanted. Only thing non-foreign is the badging,” Rah’Keem Parker commented.
“Don’t let him pop the hood,” said Doug Williamson.
You’ve got to hand it to Nana, despite the arguably harmless deceit, it’s a brilliant move.
What do you think of Nana’s cleverness?
Let me know in the comments below.
