The writing’s been on the wall for months. Hang down your head sweet Pontiac, poor boy was going to die. Then it became official. RIP Pontiac. Now, we commence the healing. Pontiac is dead. Finished. While it doesn’t come as a shock or a surprise, it does instill within us a certain sadness that wasn’t felt for the demise of say Saturn. However, we can now focus on the future — the aftermath of the demise if you will. Hit the jump for a hopeful vision of the future.

The immediate future result, the one GM hopes will come true and the reason why they killed the brand in the first place, is that GM will return to profitability by slimming down. Maybe. Cutting brands that don’t pull their weight, and reducing the number of models produced 9and the dealerships that sell them) along with increasing the quality of those that remain is a sound theory and a breath of fresh air for a company that has seen it’s market share erode from a high of near 50% in the 1950s to below 20% today. But for the moment, let’s not focus on the future of GM. Lets focus on the future of Pontiac.

But… Pontiac is dead right? Well like zombies and Jesus, I’m holding out that Pontiac will rise again. I’m of the opinion that the nameplate is only taking a temporary hiatus, and that when GM is back to being profitable they will resurrect the brand to thunderous applause. My reasoning? It’s simply too historically important to let it die. Our brethren in the of the auto blogosphere were knocking themselves over coming up with “Ten Greatest Pontiac” lists (here’s Autoblog’s), and what you see in all of them is GM at its finest. The Screaming Chicken, the G8 GXP, the Solstice, the Bonneville SSE, and of course the GTO.

Who amongst you wouldn’t want to see an all new Trans AM or GTO take it axle to axle against a Ford Mustang or a Dodge Challenger? (Dare I suggest a resurgent Barracuda?) Now I agree– those kinds of cars are of a bygone age that, no matter how cheap gas gets again, will probably never return. Except that it did — hello Camaro! I can see Pontiac resurrecting its creme de la creme nameplates with a slick combination of Chevy Volt architecture and the handling chops found in products like the Corvette.

Think about it now, do we want to live in a world without Trans Ams and GTOs? Put another way, can General Motors afford to throw away that much name equity? While old timers might decry electric muscle cars, they’ll be dead soon. And CAFE standards aren’t going anywhere. I for one pray that Pontiac does indeed return — but understand if you insert Aztek jokes here.