All these years I had it that De Soto was GM ,don't know why . Sorry 'bout that .
Re Pontiac . I was surprised to find that one of Ford's long term affiliates in the U.S. , Mercury , didn't go until 2010 , the same year as Pontiac closed it's doors .
A really good friend runs Cranks and Tinkerers Museum here that features a lot of car enthusiast stuff . Ian , the curator has shown me several reference books about now defunct car and motor cycle manufacturers and it's quite phenomenal how many there have been . Here's some from the past 20 years just in the USA . Plymouth (Chrysler) went west in 2001 among them .
http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2...to-brands.html.
World scale Fiat is a huge player . Gee they are tied up with a good number of other brands .