earth to saturn

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123981487857121709.html#mod=rss_whats_news_us

An investor group that includes a number of Saturn dealers said it has approached struggling auto maker General Motors Corp. to acquire and operate the principal assets of Saturn, adding the division would benefit as an independent entity.

interesting.

See the bottom line of the Buick - China debate. This could help GM immensely as well.

Interesting (again).

I was always wondering how Saturn got bunched in with the "bad" GM, since they are supposed to be good products. I could never figure what made them such a bad brand as part of GM.

OTOH, I sure hope that this investment group looks LONG and hard at what Cerberus did, or rather didn't, WRT Chrysler. Profits are razor thin in the auto industry, but you can support probably 100k people (all sources) with Saturn pretty easily. Not too shabby. And even when profits are only 1%, if they manage $100B in sales, that's $1B. All for a company that's already in place with plants and products.

Hmm.

E-

alfadriver wrote: Interesting (again). I was always wondering how Saturn got bunched in with the "bad" GM, since they are supposed to be good products. I could never figure what made them such a bad brand as part of GM. OTOH, I sure hope that this investment group looks LONG and hard at what Cerberus did, or rather didn't, WRT Chrysler. Profits are razor thin in the auto industry, but you can support probably 100k people (all sources) with Saturn pretty easily. Not too shabby. And even when profits are only 1%, if they manage $100B in sales, that's $1B. All for a company that's already in place with plants and products AND A GOOD CUSTOMER BASE. Hmm. E-

John Brown wrote: AND A GOOD CUSTOMER BASE.

Which, again, makes the whole Saturn = Bad GM thing such a big question.

Eric

Saturn started out as GM's answer to the imports and all the engineering etc was done in house, it was intended to show how GM could compete with the imports when they started with a clean sheet.

Now their stuff is rebadged GM products from other divisions and partner companies, they've lost their identity. In short, GM did wrong with Saturn exactly what they've done wrong all along: badge engineering.

The scuttlebut from the Saturn GM next door is that Saturn will, as noted above, buy themselves from GM. Then they will contract with GM (and here's the interesting part) 'other manufacturers world wide' to produce cars for them.

the problem here is that Saturn is so much a part of GM that it is impossible to separate them with a scalpel. Saturn's brand engineered cars are built in existing GM plants, therefore Saturn has no Plants of thier own...what are they buying from GM? the name? the marketing rights?

They still have Spring Hill and two other communities of facilites.

really?

I am pretty positive that they are just idled.

Sure, GM still has Spring Hill which was the original Saturn assembly plant but what do they produce there now? How about the Chevy Traverse? Spring Hill Saturn production ended in 2007 when the last Ion was built.

Current lineup and assembly plant:

Vue- started at Spring Hill, moved to Mexico. BTW, the Spring Hill produced V6 versions had Honda engines.

Astra- Antwerp, Belgium.

Aura- Kansas City Fairfax plant along with the Chevy Malibu

Sky- Wilmington, Delaware

Outlook- Lansing, Michigan

This seems timely ...

http://www.newsweek.com/id/192458

Jensenman wrote: Sure, GM still has Spring Hill which was the original Saturn assembly plant but what do they produce there now? How about the Chevy Traverse? Spring Hill Saturn production ended in 2007 when the last Ion was built. Current lineup and assembly plant: Vue- started at Spring Hill, moved to Mexico. BTW, the Spring Hill produced V6 versions had Honda engines. Astra- Antwerp, Belgium. Aura- Kansas City Fairfax plant along with the Chevy Malibu Sky- Wilmington, Delaware Outlook- Lansing, Michigan

that's what I thought.

Maybe some private investors can convince the company to be the company that made my first three cars. One that was different from GM, and made quality cars that could compete with everything from Honda and Toyota.

Though I doubt it will work out that way, unfortunately.

I have said it many times; GM killed Oldsmobile then promptly turned Saturn into the new Oldsmobile.

I really LOVE my girlfriends Gen 2 SL2, I have to imagine that it would be 5000% better with a manual...

Wife owned a Saturn, I was not that impressed with the car.

jrw1621 wrote: I have said it many times; GM killed Oldsmobile then promptly turned Saturn into the new Oldsmobile.

no, the turned saab into oldsmobile

Saturn was intended from the start to battle the import transportation appliances which were properly seen as the #1 threat to the domestic car manufacturers.

We on this board are car nuts and we look for more than the average person so many times we are not impressed with what the average Joe or Jill are perfectly happy with. All they want are: comfort, reliability, decent mileage and toys in the dash. From that viewpoint, yes Saturn did a pretty good job, even though they were not truly up to the production standards of the imports.

The unfortunate thing was that GM 'GM-ized' Saturn and thus did their level best to strangle it. It's not the first time that has happened; for instance the Oldsmobile developed Quad 4 would have been a perfect match for the Fiero (in fact, Pontiac's 'skunk works' built two running Q4 powered cars which were very impressive to the journalists who were allowed to drive them) but infighting at the executive level killed that idea quick. So the car was left with the less than impressive 2.5 pushrod 4 and the 60 degree V6 both of which which were too heavy and way underpowered. (ducks rocks and bottles flung by Fiero nuts).

While many think GM'ized means a major political battle that results in a less than pefect item- it may not be all that clear.

Yes, probably a good portion of decisions are heavily related to political problems (trust me, I've seen my frustrating share of them). But some of it is pure economics, in a bad way. It's part of the death spiral all 3 of us has gotten ourselves into. Starts with a product that makes good money at a specific price, next the UAW and top execs take advantage of said proft to take more of it themselves, which 1) reduces margins 2) reduces development $$, and 3) starts to drift customer expectations.

This leads to a cheapening of the product- from powertrain to trim.

And now the customers won't pay the money for the car, so incentive city.

And further cheapening of product.

All this time, Execs and UAW are still swimming in the past.

In the end, you end up with a product that SUPER cheap to build- if you check finanicals from 2008, you'll see GM spent somewhere close to $60B less than Toyota building the same number of cars. But also you sell them at a loss- in the same time fram, GM's revenues were $80B less than Toyota.

Once the money train to development starts, then the train goes toward incentives, just to sell the cars. That's the death spiral that all 3 need to get out of.

Thankfully, it appears that at least we (F) has figured that out, and our cars are now selling at more of a premium than most of this board would ever think of (we sell something like 60-70% of Focuses with Sync- a high $$ premium).

So, it's partially political, but part of that political is about $$. Personal $$.

Oh, and oddly enough, there's some contracts that say each company MUST buy certain number of product X from plant Y. So it's possible that the Fiero got caught up in that- where GM HAD to put the I4 and V6 into something- anything.

None the less, there are enough idle plants in the right areas that after a period of development, I can see a group re-starting Saturn plants and making their own cars. They did say they would contract GM to build their cars- which would let them dictate what materials and whatnot goes into it.

It will be interesting, for sure.

E-

I think it's a great idea. I agree with the previous posters in that GM killed Saturn right when the idea was starting to take hold.

An Ex-g/f of mine bought a slightly used SC2 years ago. It was a nice car. Sporty, fun, reliable. The most impressive thing about it was what happened when the warranty ended. She took the car into the dealership for an oil change and asked that they look over it for any issues before the warranty expired. They found something like $1400 worth of work on the transmission as well as the sunroof. They fixed it all gratis. That, alone, will draw me back into the Saturn show room once they're free from GM.

Another great thing about the Saturn experience was the no haggle pricing. I think that was a major factor that appealed to most everyone. Most folks I know hate with white hot fury the negotiating process that is so thoroughly entrenched in the car buying process for some god forsaken reason.

The car was also designed really, really well. Decent power on regular unleaded. A timing chain instead of a belt on a twin cam 4 cylinder. The interior was obviously made from inexpensive materials but it held up well and wasn't horrendous. Also, that car would get 30+ mpg pretty easily. The current g/f's Scion TC struggles into the low 30's and usually gets high 20's. I know some of that is weight related but the early Saturn's were great on gas.

Jensenman wrote: Vue- started at Spring Hill, moved to Mexico. BTW, the Spring Hill produced V6 versions had Honda engines.

I had heard something that the 3.5L in the malibu maxx was also honda sourced. That was in, IIRC, Auto Week(?)

Nope. The 3.5l Malibu engine (Maxx or otherwise) is in the same 60 degree family as the 2.8l, 3.1l, 3.4l, 3.9l, etc.

Before becoming a car guy, I rode in a friend's Saturn. I didn't drive it, I just rode in it for a few miles, with one 60mph stint on the freeway down one exit. It scared me.

The car rattled and shook and generally made noises and sensations that made me feel like the car was going to disintegrate if it went any faster. Apparently this car was only about a year or two old.

As I understand, that car died before too much longer. Her parents got her another one, and that didn't fair any better.

I vowed never to buy a Saturn.

In 1992 I believed.

I ordered a 1993 Model year SL2 Blue Black with a 5 speed. You could only order cars then as the Dealer only ahd two on the lot for Demos, they were selling that fast.

The expiernce was great! NO PRESSURE, I visited the dealership about 4 times before ordering. The car came and was everything I expected.

though I lived in Hawaii at the time, I paid the shame shipping as everyone else. I thought that was fair.

Fast forwad to 2005. I baught my 05 Minivan The RElay 9a rebadged GM van) adn the Dealer ship was nothing like it was in 1992/1993. LOTS of pressure and they upset my wife.

After calling the Saturn Dealer in Bloomington (another city) and talking to GM coorporate we got the deal straightend out and I baught the van locally.

that is the last one I will buy from them. They have berkeleyed up the fomula, and are rebadging crap.

On motor week in 1992 they reviewed the then new saturns and loved them and praised their inovations and way of doing buisness. reciently on motorweek they taked about the Saturns coming from Europe "something we would like to see more of" they said. that just leads me to believe that motorweek says whatever the manufacture wants them to about the car they are reviewing.

berkeley saturn and berkeley motorweek.