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In 1968 Time magazine reported that the first thing Knudsen did at Pontiac was head to the design studio to review the 1957 models that were weeks away from production. According to Time, he knew that Pontiac's problem was its "grandma image." What he wanted was an image so that "teenagers would shout, 'Cool man, real cool.'"

"It was unbelievable, everything was so old-fashioned," the late John Z. DeLorean told Sports Illustrated in 1969 about how he was recruited to Pontiac from Packard to work alongside the newly installed Knudsen.

Known to all by his nickname of Bunkie, he was car-obsessed, held an engineering degree from M.I.T. His father, William, had been president of G.M. and was industry royalty. in 1937-40.

"Bunkie persuaded me to interview for the job, and I drove out to Pontiac and talked with the man who was going to be my boss," DeLorean told the magazine. "There he was sitting behind the desk, wearing a pair of those old high-top leather shoes and packing a big wad of cigars in his shirt pocket -- the prototype old-fashioned auto man. I called Bunkie back and said, 'No, thanks.'"

Knudsen told DeLorean that changes were coming and talked him into taking the job. "When I went to work, the old guy in the high shoes was gone," DeLorean said.

SEMON E. KNUDSEN was born to be president of General Motors.

Pontiac, which built its first car in 1926 but traced its roots to the 1890s, was G.M.'s also-ran division in the mid-1950s. Its cars were indistinct and boring, fussier than Chevrolets and less substantial than Buicks or Oldsmobiles. Pontiac was sixth in sales -- and stuck there, with its buyers growing older.

With the 31-year old DeLorean as his assistant and 40-year-old Elliot M. Before the end of the '57 model year that focus paid off with a run of 630 Star Chief Custom Bonneville convertibles equipped with Rochester fuel injection atop their 315-horsepower V-8s. Estes, known as Pete, as his chief engineer, Knudsen concentrated on high style and high performance. The car was a rush job, but its co-mingling of power and glamour was what Knudsen wanted for all of Pontiac.

On July 1, 1956, at the age of 43, Bunkie became one of the youngest general managers of a car division in G.M.'s history. All he would have to do was turn Pontiac around, then make an obligatory pit stop running Chevrolet and, based on the corporate pattern, he would ascend to the presidency.

It turned out, though, that Knudsen's achievements peaked at Pontiac. During his tenure, he and his team developed the big, confident cars that defined the division through the 1960s. Bonneville, Catalina, Grand Prix and 2+2: the names still resonate with collectors as cars that projected an unlimited future, certainly not one that anticipated the division's shutdown last month.

Knudsen told the designers to remove silver streaks of chrome trim from the cars' hoods, ending a tired tradition. It was about as much as he could do on short notice.

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