Start with what the Pontiac 6 is: a 2-door roadster (automobile) / roadster / 2-door coupe / 4-door sedan (automobile) / sedan / 4-door tourer with 186.7 CID Pontiac straight-6 engine, built from 1926, the vintage years, when coachbuilders still shaped most of what was sold. What it meant takes a little longer.
Where it came from
The Pontiac 6 was a six-cylinder automobile produced by the Pontiac division of General Motors between 1926 and 1932, then again between 1935 and 1940. A more affordable version of its predecessor Oakland Six that had been introduced in 1926 and sold through GM's Oakland dealerships, it established Pontiac as a viable automaker for GM. Pontiac was the first of General Motors companion make program where brands were introduced to fill in pricing gaps that had developed between Cadillac, Buick, Oldsmobile, Oakland and Chevrolet.
The original marketing approach began when GM was incorporated in 1908 was to offer a range of vehicles in various body styles based on affordable to extravagant, and the customer base would gradually trade up every few years to the next hierarchy brand. Pontiac was introduced as an affordable Oakland, followed by LaSalle for Cadillac, Marquette for Buick and Viking for Oldsmobile. Pontiac's introduction was a sales success while customers shied away from the more expensive Oakland, and once the Wall Street crash of 1929 and the Great Depression followed, both Pontiac and Oakland were being considered for cancellation but the decision was made to keep Pontiac as the economy began to recover.
Under the skin
The engine is 186.7 CID Pontiac straight-6 engine; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. On the scales it comes to 2342 -. The layout matters: a front engine drives the rear wheels, the classic proportion — long bonnet, cabin set back — that most people picture when they picture a sports saloon or a grand tourer. The wheelbase is 110 in (1926-1930) / 112 in (1931) / 114 in (1932). These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
In context
In the Pontiac line-up the Pontiac 6 has a clear place: it replaced the Oakland Six; it handed the line to the Pontiac Torpedo & / Pontiac Streamliner; the factory was Pontiac Assembly, Pontiac, Michigan, United States. The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Mercedes-Benz Mercedes-Benz, the Fiat 503, the Bugatti Type 41 Royale. Nearby in the Pontiac catalogue sit the Pontiac 2+2 and the Pontiac 6000.
Owning one today
MotorJury scores cars on the United States complaint and recall record, and the Pontiac 6 has none: too old, too rare, or never sold there. Its value today is a collector's question, decided by provenance and condition rather than by a class average.