Saturn is Dead

http://investors.penskeautomotive.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=412840

Sounds like a good move on Penske's part due to the whole manufacturing issue. At least there's still some common sense in the automotive sector.

Old White Men at a Big Desk said: however, that agreement was rejected by that manufacturer's board of directors

Wanted to see what Penske was going to do with the brand. Way to go...

too bad. i generally like Opels.

What if Magna starts selling Opels directly to Saturn and burning GMs ass?

I don't think this means it is dead??

isn't it still possible that another will chose to purchase saturn?

Penske says it will not do the deal. GM will not keep the brand. Saturn is dead.

John Brown wrote: What if Magna starts selling Opels directly to Saturn and burning GMs ass?

oh dear god lets hope that would be friggin hilarious...and awesome that we can still buy opels

andrave wrote: I don't think this means it is dead?? isn't it still possible that another will chose to purchase saturn?

Rusty_Rabbit84 wrote:

Old White Men at a Big Desk said: however, that agreement was rejected by that manufacturer's board of directors

Wanted to see what Penske was going to do with the brand. Way to go...

You wanted to see Penske buy assembled cars from China and re-badge them as Saturns??? That was his stated direction. Seems kinda lame to me- once I heard that, Saturn was over for me.

E-

Saturn went from selling cost - effective cars that were like nothing else around to just re-badged stuff that was like everything else. They weren't bad, but just didn't keep with the Saurn identity. The "real" Saturns (91-02) were good little cars, GM just didn't give them enough money to evolve. The cars got stale and rebadging finished the job. Sad. Better this than cars from China though.

Saturn had the EV1. I owned a SL2 (1993) baught in Saturn of Honolulu. I currenly have a 2005 Relay.

Now, after seeing wht GM did to them, and what Penske wanted to do to them, I am glad they are dead, instead of living out in shame.

May they rest in peace.

I shall always have a special place in my heart for my girlfriend's 1st gen SL auto. Having that car lended to me has saved my butt a few times, but it is still the worst car I have ever driven.

In a former life I sold Saturns for about a year. This was back when the brand was really different from the other GM offerings. They had a great idea (treating buyers and employees with respect) and changed the way cars are sold with the no-dicker sticker. It is a shame GM gobbled them up, and destroyed the individual nature that made them special.

I still like the early cars. They were light, safe, inexpensive, and pretty fun to drive for what they were. They had a ton of good ideas (ease of regular maintenance, manual trans dipsticks, auto trans screw-off oil filters, regular car clinics, picnics, and outings) that went by the wayside in the quest for parts-bin engineering.

Hopefully they will rise from the ashes. The owners were extremely loyal.

saturn's been dead since 2002 imo.

alfadriver wrote:

Rusty_Rabbit84 wrote:

Old White Men at a Big Desk said: however, that agreement was rejected by that manufacturer's board of directors

Wanted to see what Penske was going to do with the brand. Way to go...

You wanted to see Penske buy assembled cars from China and re-badge them as Saturns??? That was his stated direction. Seems kinda lame to me- once I heard that, Saturn was over for me. E-

I agree. It sounded like a bad branding idea gone overdrive nightmare.

I was interviewed today by a local news reporter about Saturn. My verdict? GM starved the brand for product in the '90s, and starved it of advertising in the '00s.

Joe Gearin wrote: Hopefully they will rise from the ashes. The owners were extremely loyal.

Agreed. I have a couple of friends who loved their Saturns (and still have the last one as back-up/truckster wagon).

Seems like there is an opportunity here... but the risks? those are tough to calculate...

I was part of the team that, in 2004, took a 1994 SL2, stripped it, threw on some parts and tires, and brought it to the $2004 Challenge. Original motor, even. We placed in the top half, far beyond our wildest dreams considering what sort of monsters come to the Challenge. And that was before a rules change that made the drag race, our weakest event, count for less. The car's got potential.

The original S series was The One True Saturn, in my book. It was the result of the brand being created and spun off from the GM bureaucracy to go beat the Japanese at their own small car game. And they did well at it.

Unfortunately, GM wouldn't allow Saturn to evolve. They weren't allowed to expand their product line beyond the single small car model, at a time when SUVs were all the rage. The S series design itself lasted 11 years - an eternity in car model years. It was refined, but never sufficiently updated to keep up with the Joneses. 124hp was pretty impressive in 1991, but pretty pathetic by 2002. And when Saturn was finally allowed to move beyond the S series, GM completely discarded the lessons they should've learned from Saturn's initial success and instead introduced the same old badge engineered cars. The L series was an Opel Vectra. The ION was just a rebadged Cobalt. And even the SKY, which is a very nice car, is really a Solstice clone.

I like Saturns. I've owned 3 of them in various states of modification. I've enjoyed the looks of surprise I get from people when I drive them fast at various motorsport events. And yet, I'm forced to admit that if GM refused to learn the lessons that Saturn should've taught them, and turned Saturn into yet another badge engineered brand, then Saturn deserved to die.

Here's my interview :My Interview

I dunno. I went along with my uncle when he test drove a Saturn in the early 90's or late 80's. The windshield was distorted so everything looked like a funhouse mirror. The side mirror came off in his hand when he tried to adjust it. The drive was underwhelming. I never took the cars seriously after that.

He bought a Volvo 240 that then proceeded to last, well, like a Volvo 240.

yeah, its a good brand, I have a 04 saturn vue v6 awd, that has 98k on it and runs great, I've only had minor brake problems. Funny thing being that the engine for the 03/04 model years came from honda, its the 3.5 v6 from the Acura CL i believe. But yeah...

Keith, you want to talk about windshield distortion? Try a Saab 900. An older one, not the later GM-isized version.

I dunno, the distortion in the early Saturn windshields never bothered me. The back window bothered me more. And those were all fixed in the mid-90s refresh of the S series.

It might have been fixed later, but nobody in my family ever considered Saturns anything but cheap and nasty after that. Sure, you could bounce things off the fenders (the cars in the showroom had a big sign that said "THE ROOF IS STEEL, DO NOT BONK IT" or something like that - there was a story there for sure) but the car didn't have a whole lot of other redeeming features that we could spot.

I was talking to Mom and Dad on the phone last week about Saturn going away, and Mom brought up that test drive. You never get a second chance for a first impression!

my wife had a 97 saturn sl2. We called it the Satard. In retrospect, it really wasn't a bad car; cheap, but fairly reliable.

Friend of mine just killed his SL2. It took a torrential downpour, slippery cold roads, and a tree to do it. Tough little car.

Who would want to "own", more like be a shareholder, in a company that is run by a union?