DETROIT -- General Motors will announce a restructuring plan at 9 a.m. EDT today, according to The Associated Press.

The storied Pontiac brand is dead and more car factories and jobs are about to disappear - the latest casualties of a plan that GM is counting on to help it stave off bankruptcy protection.

The plan is being announced as GM makes an offer to its bondholders to swap debt for company stock. GM owes $28 billion to large and small bondholders, and under Securities and Exchange Commission rules, it must disclose its operational plans when it makes an exchange offer.

Two people briefed on GM's plan confirmed that it includes the demise of Trans Am sports car brand Pontiac, 83 years after the first Pontiac car was introduced. Within three years, half a million Pontiacs were sold, and the brand quickly grew in popularity, from early models like the Chief and the Master Six Coupe, to the Bonneville convertible, to the GTO - one of America's first muscle cars and so popular it inspired Ronny and the Daytonas to immortalize it in song.