(This was written in October 2009 at the time of Saturn’s death. Revised and updated in 2015 & 2016)
Friends, we are gathered together to pay our last respects to a fallen brother. Saturn was the love child of Roger Smith and Hal Riney; one was the Chairman of GM, a manufacturer of cars; the other, an ad man extraordinaire, a manufacturer of emotions and perceived needs. Let us savor their own words as we remember the brand that was Saturn, starting with these from brother Roger: (Saturn will be)“a quantum leap ahead of the Japanese, including what they have coming in the future. In Saturn we have GM’s answer – the American answer – to the Japanese challenge. It’s the clean-sheet approach to producing small cars that in time will have historic implications…(Saturn is) the key to GM’s long-term competitiveness, survival, and success.”
Ironically prophetic words, as it turned out.
So how exactly does a “clean-sheet” car end up sharing the same styling as a mid-size Oldsmobile that came out one year before the Saturn? I know there are explanations, but they don’t work. And the fact that it came out looking like a 9/10 Cutlass already predicts why Saturn was destined to fail. It’s not that the first Saturn’s styling was such a significant factor in itself, but it was profoundly symbolic of GM’s inability to escape itself, even when trying to hide deep in the green hills of Tennessee. Escape from stagnation and decline, and attempts at re-invention from the outside-in are as old as civilization itself. I’m not a historian, but finding a successful model for Roger’s folly eludes me. Weak organizations and civilizations get overrun by dynamic ones. Or actually fix what’s wrong at the core.
I do fancy myself a bit of an automotive historian though, but I’d almost forgotten this important tidbit: the Saturn was originally planned to be sold by Chevrolet. The early prototypes (above) even looked like a shrunken Chevy Cavalier. The whole concept of a completely separate division and dealer network came later in the Saturn’s protracted eight-year development. Now there’s some serious food for thought: how differently might things have turned out if it had been a Chevy. Because the decision to make the Saturn “A Different Kind of Car Company” not only reflected GM’s hubris and unrealistic expectations, it also directly created the mortal bind that Saturn inevitably found itself in.
Sure, in its heyday, the unique Saturn dealer experience and no-haggle pricing was a breath of fresh air. But these were both ephemeral; the pricing policy went out the window when small car sales weakened, and smart dealers of all persuasion began to improve aspects of the dealership experience.
The fact that GM thought that a key problem with losing the small car battle to the Japanese lay in the dealership experience rather than in the actual cars proves how delusional they really were. Especially so since Toyota and Honda dealers were notoriously rapacious at the time, often charging well above MSRP and forcing options on buyers who waited weeks to get their precious Accord or Corolla.
Saturn’s early days feel-good vibes had all the fervor of a quasi-religious cult. It was one of the great triumphs of advertising and marketing; a brilliant campaign engineered by San Francisco’s Hal Riney. GM did one thing right with its choice of Saturn’s agency.
Riney’s first big claim to fame was commissioning a song by Paul Williams for a Crocker bank commercial, “You’ve Only Just Begun”. It became the monster hit “We’ve Only Just Begun” by the Carpenters, perhaps the only song of its kind that started out as a commercial.
And he created the “It’s Morning Again in America” spot that helped get Ronald Reagan re-elected. Notice a recurring theme?
Yes, America loves re-inventions more than real inventions. But its attention span is short, and moves on to the next new thing pronto, especially so when the underlying product is less than memorable. Or when the next fad just around the corner is something different altogether, like trucks and SUVs. There you have it, a brief summation of Saturn’s woes. Now for the automotive details:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcO0YjTF-y4
The Saturn wasn’t a terrible car. There, that didn’t hurt so much. Obviously, a distinctive and fresh design rather than an old Olds hand-me-down shrunken tee-shirt might have been in order. If you’re going to plow $5 billion (back when billions were still impressive amounts) into a new car, at least buy it a new suit. Was the Saturn competitive?
That’s highly debatable. It definitely wasn’t as good as its clearly stated target, the Honda Civic. It might have been close in some metrics to the gen2 Civic when the Saturn project started. But by the time Saturns finally arrived in the summer of 1990, the Civic was already nearing the end of its brilliant fourth generation, and heading for its fifth. That probably wasn’t on Roger’s mind when he spoke the words “a quantum leap ahead of the Japanese, including what they have coming in the future”. Not.
The Civic and Corolla were on a roll in the eighties and nineties, with a new generation arriving like clockwork every four years. And it showed, in their relentless refinement. The Civic engine hummed like a Stradivarius (a Japanese brand of sewing machine). The Saturn engine growled like a coffee grinder. Saturn interiors were always obviously cheap. Corolla interiors (of the nineties) weren’t. Honda and Toyota might have been worried about Saturn initially, as they were briefly about the Neon a few years later, but needn’t have. It was GM, after all.
Granted, there were many happy Saturn owners out there. It handled quite decently (no better than the Civic though), was commendably light and toss-able, and owners loved the plastic body panels, especially in the rust belt. The Saturn got good fuel economy, although nothing near the ridiculous 45 city/60 mileage EPA numbers GM promised during the long gestation (they ended up at 27/37; 21/31 adjusted in today’s EPA numbers).
The really big problem with Roger’s big Saturn idea is this: where do we go from here? Was that even considered? Ok, by throwing enough billions at it, GM showed that it could make a half-way decent, reasonably-competitive small car. Does that make a viable car company/division? I don’t think so (and didn’t at the time, contrary to the popular thinking). And that’s where the whole Saturn experiment begins to take its inevitable ugly turn.
When the market soon shifted away from small cars to bigger cars and SUVs, Saturn, as a separate entity but dedicated only to building and selling one sub-compact car, suddenly looked like an answer to a question that never should have been asked. GM had failed to consider the inevitable: what to do after the S-Class loses its initial burst of luster and the market shifts? What do we do now? Honda doesn’t just sell Civics; they also sell Accords.
So Saturn needed an Accord fighter too, and it got one, in the form of a plasticized Opel Vectra, dubbed the L Series. Well, if the S Series was several generations behind the Civic, the L Series was even further behind the class-leading Accord. Things were not going well at Saturn. The solution?
GM felt it had no choice but to develop a whole line of cars, SUVs, mini-vans, and even a sports car to try to back-stop Saturn’s decline – right during a time when development dollars at GM were getting scarce. In the meantime, the S Series soldiered along on the same platform for some ten years. It became an endless robbing Peter to pay Paul nightmare.
As well as a colossal joke: why was Saturn selling that rebadged mini-van piece of crap, the Relay? Or a gigantic seven seater SUV, the Outlook? Mission statement ADD at its worst.
If GM had stuck to their original plan of selling the Saturn as an entry level Japanese-fighter at Chevy dealers, the whole disaster could have been avoided. GM would have had an import fighter where it belonged: in its biggest dealer network. Yes, we might have missed out on the Spring Hill “Homecoming”, and the rest of Hal Riney’s hokey feel-good BS. But the warm and fuzzy memories of it were worth paying for with our tax dollars, no? It’s been estimated that the whole Saturn fiasco lost as much as $12 billion. One of the biggest industrial blunders and losses ever; the Edsel of the modern era.
Saturn’s inauspicious beginning reminds me of the song that made Hal Riney famous:
We’ve only just begun to live,
White lace and promises…
We’ll find a place where there’s room to grow,
And yes, We’ve just begun.
Yes, friends, it really is Mourning again in America.
The original Saturn’s were ok basic transportation. In some ways quite decent and others they fell way short. The body proved to be quit durable. I had expected them to crumble like Cadillac fender extensions. The noisy 1.9 engine was quite durable if you kept dumping oil into it.. the list one had the rings too high up for proper oil control. The body in my opinion was ugly and looked like the headlights and tail lights were on the wrong end. They were cramped and the interiors were very plasticity and cheap. The ride sucked and so did the steering. For what it cost it was a dud. Not a pleasant car but a reasonably reliable one. Biggest issues mount and oil burning. The styling was awful as was the Oldsmobile it resembled. Some how that ugly.look became the Saturn look and then the question is where do you go from there? I never got the no haggle thing. I like haggling with idiot salesmen. Instead of improving the car the opel shit boxes ruined what was left of Saturn. It is amazing so much was spent to accomplish so little. Money should have been spent to fix Oldsmobile and Pontiac. Only decision gm basically got right was Buick back then. By brother in law has one and it serves him well. Its reliable and takes abuse and neglect well. Once he flipped it on its side and only damage was the passenger side mirror broke off. I hit it with my f 150 sliding in the mud and did no damage. So I guess it has good points. I still don’t like them but I prefer big Lincolns so this kind of car don’t do it for me.
One other thing that Saturn symbol emblem is awful looking too. Did it remind anyone of that commercial for flea treatments where the cartoon fleas are walking on a dog between the hairs??? The planet and rings look like hairs on that dog and like the fleas are waiting to appear.
I owned a 1992 Saturn SC for about 3 years. Paid $675.00 for it. It still looked nice, no dents or dings due to the plastic panels. Interior was a bit worn but not torn up. It ran and drove nice, also very dependable. Never had much oil consumption, 1qt every 2,000 miles or motor mount problems. Liked the performance button for the auto transmission. The only thing I had to replace was the starter. I got $300.00 when I sold it. The car cost me a little under $200.00 a year in capital cost and repairs. Not bad if I do say so myself. Since my son & daughter were still living at home, we had 4 cars in the driveway, all early 90’s models. The others were a Chevrolet Cavalier, a Dodge Lancer and a Ford Escort. In a ranking of these cars in my opinion the Saturn is first, then the Escort, then the Caviler and last the Lancer. This is just my opinion based on my experiences with these cars.
I can only agree. If Saturn would have stuck with making quirky little plastic cars that run 300,000 miles, they would still be in business. And I would probably own one. Why in the world would they try to sell re-branded German Opel cars like the Astra and the Aura that didn’t sell in Germany? Luckily there are millions of used quirky plastic Saturns out there that will keep us happy for the near future.
True, last versions of the S series [1997-2002] are still chugging along salty Chicago’s potholed streets. But, all the L series are crushed. Ions are dying off quick. Again, if only were made to replace the J cars.
Millions? I rather doubt that.
According to Wikipedia, there were roughly 2.5 million Saturn S series sold between 1990 to 2002. So at one point there were millions out there. It is hard to say how many remained in 2016. All I found was sources like this asking why so many of these old beaters are still around
https://www.quora.com/As-Saturn-vehicles-have-not-been-manufactured-for-13-years-why-are-there-still-so-many-seen-on-the-road-Is-it-because-they-re-such-good-cars-or-because-their-polymer-bodies-don-t-rust
Yes. I really liked the early plastic bodied models. Came very very close to buying one…until my uncle talked me out of it.
The important point is that GM understood accurately, for the first time, WHY people were buying Toyotas and Hondas. It wasn’t size or fuel economy or price or technical advancement, it was just plain old quality. And GM answered the question properly with non-union labor. A lot of those first-gen Saturns are still driving around, looking and sounding good.
A very expensive lesson that could have been learned by just focusing on the quality of their existing cars. Like they do now, with union labor too.
Line workers at the Saturn plant were members of the UAW. They worked, however, under a contract that was different from the standard UAW contract.
In the mid-1990s, I spoke with the man who was on the UAW team that negotiated that unique contract, which emphasized worker participation and union-management cooperation. He was an interesting fellow.
He said that, by the mid-1990s, both UAW leadership and GM leadership hated Saturn and that unique labor contract.
“… the Edsel of the modern era…”
To be fair, Edsel only lasted 2 calendar years, 3 model years. While Saturn could have cleared 20, if not for bankruptcy and redundancy. I can imagine a Saturn-GMC division still going, but then Buick is viable. Olds was down for the count.
Can say Scion is ‘modern Edsel’ in that it was merely rebadged Toyotas. But it’s all subjective.
OTOH: Saturn project should have been the J car replacement for Chevy and Pontiac, or maybe a companion to Buick?
Some did believe the hype of “not GM”, but when outgrew the SL’s what then? The LS [horrid name] was 7 years too late.
I compared it to Edsel because of the massive losses, which were big in both cases, but much bigger for Saturn.
You can imagine Saturn still going? Selling what? At the huge losses that it was operating at perpetually? It had to go; it was a colossal money hole.
Scion is not comparable in any way, as Toyota made plenty of profits selling Scions. There was essentially no investment in Scion, as they were just re-badged Toyotas sold as Toyotas elsewhere.
“Toyota made plenty of profits selling Scions.”
That’s kind of misleading. It’s true Scion was theoretically profitable because of the rampant rebadging, especially towards the end when they were slapping Scion badges on anything with 4 wheels, including Mazdas and Subarus.
Saturn lasted 20 years, from 1990-2010. Scion only 13, from 2003-2016. If Scion was such a success why was it discontinued so quickly? Most likely due to plunging sales. In 2006 Scion sold over 170,000 cars, however only four years later, sales had fallen massively to 45,678 for the 2010 model year.
With that kind of sales drop off, it’s hard to make an argument that Scion was a success. I think Scion had fallen same trap as Mitsubishi and ironically GM. Marketing cars to young buyers, many of whom had sub prime credit, thinking this would increase sales. In reality it seemed to have an opposite effect.
It’s apples and oranges. GM spent billions creating a completely new car company, factory, and a unique car. And that undertaking ended up costing well over $10 billion in losses.
Toyota spent peanuts in rebadging cars they were already building elsewhere. Scion wasn’t a unique “brand’, and certainly not a division. All Scions were legally Toyotas (that’s how they’re titled); it was just a different set of Toyotas being sold in a Toyota showroom, serviced by the same Toyota dealers, but carrying a different badge. So yes, Scions were profitable; there was no additional expense. Sure, it wound down, but the Scions were just rebranded as Toyotas. No real expense in winding down a sub brand whose purpose had passed.
The market had changed, smaller cars were not selling as well, and it simply made no more sense to sell these cars as Scions.
Sure, you could say that they should have just sold the xB and such as Toyotas. But what difference would it have made? Not much, in the big picture.
I can assure you that Toyota made a nice profit on most/all the Scions they ever sold.
If Scion failed because nobody wanted small cars anymore then how come the Kia Soul, which is the closest modern car to a Scion, has increased sales from 2009-2016. If Kia could increase sales during the time Scion was alive, why couldn’t Scion?
In 2009 31,621 were sold. Four years later in 2013 the number jumped to 118,079, by the time of Scion’s demise in 2016 the number rose again to 145,768 cars.
If you’re going to misrepresent what I wrote, I’m not going to respond anymore. I wrote “smaller cars were not selling well”, not “nobody wanted small cars”. There’s a world of difference between the two.
I’m not defending certain product decisions Toyota made; I’ve already lambasted the gen2 xB, which was their biggest product flop, and directly led to the Soul becoming so popular.
My point was not to defend Scion, but simply to point out that Scion didn’t cost Toyota some $10-12 billion in losses; Toyota made money on selling these cars.
Frankly, Scion was kind of dumb; they should have just sold the original xB as a Toyota. But it didn’t make much difference in the end.
I test drove an SL model back in the day for my radio feature. It was okay but certainly not on par with any Japanese car. I had a friend who owned a Civic drive it for a few minutes. He was somewhat impressed, but not enough he said that he would ever buy a Saturn.
Years later there are still Saturns driving around. I have a co-worker whose noisy little SL provides basic transportation to and from work.
Five billion dollars. Let me repeat that figure cited by this article, FIVE BILLION DOLLARS. Five billion ultimately flushed down the toilet by GM. Toyota had reportedly committed one billion dollars in its development of the excellent Lexus LS400, introduced in autumn of 1989 as a 1990 model, a product and investment that has paid non arguable, incredibly positive financial, technical, and managerial benefits for Toyota to this very day. The ultimate reason for the incredible number of successive, cascading deadly sins of GM, as Paul alludes to, was the inept central management of GN epitomized by the likes of the disastrous and misguided leadership of Roger Smith.
Interestingly, I can report that currently GM appears to have in recent past turned a corner in terms of product quality. The most reliable car that I have ever owned, and that I owned for twenty years, was a 1992 Lexus LS400 which I traded in for a 2012 Generation 1 Chevy Volt, purchased January 2012, for, soon to be, 5 years of flawless, enjoyable ownership. So after decades of inept product development, my Volt experience suggests that GM seems to have finally escaped from the Deadly Sin Managerial Trap. The Volt, like the initial LS400, was over engineered, built for quality, and has delivered product excellence probably at a financial loss or barely at a breakeven point for GM. This is a different GM mindset from the bean counter times of the Vega, X cars, etc leading to the multiple documented product deadly sins. I hope that this excellence model persists in the GM resurrected since the bankruptcy.
Great post. I owned an LS400 too and had a great (if shorter) experience with the car. I’m always interested by people who want so badly to see a resurgence from GM. Why is that?
Ultimately the US needs to have a successful manufacturing base to contribute to employment, so a successful GM, and for that matter a successful FoMoCo and their supplier chain have a material effect on North American prosperity. Additionally more successful competitors in the market place give consumers, us, ultimately more market place choices. Who can reasonably complain about that?
For years I and my family have been loyal Honda and Toyota Fanboys, so I was really surprised by what I found in the Volt in 2012, my first domestic toe-in -the-water purchase in years. After almost 5 years of ownership, rarely seeing the dealership–only returning for the biyearly required service, I am heartened by a possible real GM turn around. As a plus, I have actually enjoyed my Volt ownership.
My wife initially was scared of the technology it contained calling it “my starship” with a “Star Wars” dash display but now she enjoys the effortless silence of electric driving.
I hope GM keeps it up and remains on track.
Five billion dollars. Let me repeat that figure cited by this article, FIVE BILLION DOLLARS. Five billion ultimately flushed down the toilet by GM.
No, it was estimated to be at least $10 billion, more likely $12 billion, in total accumulated losses by Saturn.
And I hope your Volt continues to be good for you. It’s starting to develop a rather nasty reputation; CR has dropped its reliability rankings to the bottom of its class.I had a tenant who bought a used one from a Chevy dealer, and it never worked right, and eventually had to get the dealer to take it back. There have been class-action lawsuits on Volt issues.
Two replies:
1. Regarding the Five Billion figure, I just quoted your figure in the initial article. I agree that with the later close down expenses could have inflated total costs to 10+ or even 12+ billion. Ultimately all of that capital literally being flushed down the toilet.
The prior bankruptcy losses of GM, as I have been told, have actually been reducing GM’s taxable liabilities for the past few years and has helped GM be more than competitive vis-a vis Ford which didn’t go through actual bankruptcy.
2. Regarding the 2012 Volt, my car was not a first year production model, and it has been remarkably trouble free without any effort on my part except routine servicing, so I can’t comment about the problems of others. The current generation 2 Volt first year production models have been described as troublesome by Consumers Reports. This could be due to the change over to a new model, or could be a harbinger of recurrent beancounter induced cheapening which plagued GM in the past. We will see as time goes on. Hopefully my car will remain trouble free.
3. It has been my habit of keeping cars happily running for decades,( i.e my 1973 914 2.0 that you drove last May and that I have owned for 37 years), by immediately attending to issues that that develop. BTW since your drove the 914 we rebuilt the transaxle replacing worn synchros and shifting collars making the shifting much improved from what you experienced.
My wife still has a 2001 Jag XJ8 that has been a great reliable car which we have owned for 13 years. Likely non abusive owners immediately attentive to resolving minor flaws before they become major issues keep cars on the road virtually forever, like DC3’s flying forever.
Cheers.
Not often reported is Toyota’s ability to develop new models quickly and efficiently.
I wonder how many Volts would sell without Federal or State rebates.
These are the GM cars I grew up with. I guess I never understood the GM mystique or peoples’ love affair with the general. The GM cars of the 80s and 90s peppered my thoughts of their later AND earlier cars. Other than from a styling and marketing standpoint, when was the last time GM cars were leading the competition? 1950?
GM was great at making indifferent products look good and their marketing organization made people feel good about them, but ultimately people who bought GM cars were left with a GM car.
It didn’t hit me originally, but that early promo picture for Saturn shows a smiling Roger Smith and . . . F. James McDonald. McDonald is the guy who followed Delorean to run both Pontiac (1969) and Chevrolet (1973). The fact that instead of quitting in frustration he went on to become the President of GM under Roger Smith’s chairmanship tells us all we need to know about his management philosophy.
Ahh I can finally comment. Had a 98 SW1. Burned some oil — engine coarse and noisy but we were rear ended and totalled on I-95 and the crumple zones worked really well and we walked away with one bloody nose and bent glasses from the driver’s airbag.
So, considering that our now adult but then 3 year old was in the back seat, not a bad car!
Back in my high school/college days I would occasionally detail cars for extra cash and I detailed one of these owned by a doctor strangely enough. The drive in it back to his office was enough to turn me off of these completely. I remember the HVAC switchgear on par with Fisher Price with regards to fluidity of movement and tactile feel. Not to mention the buzzing coming from the dash.
And this was the result of 5 billion dollars ?!
I’m a big fan of classic GM cars but man what happened?
I had a ’93 SL2 with a stick. I think you’re wrong about the styling. Yes, it looked very superficially like an Olds, but at a deeper level it looked totally different. It was also much cleaner, and very sporty-looking. They hadn’t shown the Saturns in the original ads, and so the first time I saw one, I had no way of knowing it was a Saturn (and I certainly wouldn’t have mistaken it for an Olds). But I knew instantly what it was. Women would compliment me for the car. It also handled beautifully. A friend of mine who had raced loved to drive it.
But there was that damn engine growl like a coffee grinder, and the damn thing quickly began using a lot of oil. It also was pretty weak.
but had Saturn simply consistently improved the original, without changing the styling, I’d still be driving one. But instead, they dumbed it down. The first time I saw a second gen Saturn, I didn’t know whether I was looking at a Hyundai, a Tercel, or an Olds. And the handling was gone (I test drove one when I was getting an oil change). More details here: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/the-truth-about-saturn/
They must have big plans for Saturn, Ive seen two in person and another for sale on trademe all RHD they most likely got here via Japan so GM obviouly figured they were good enough to export to make RHD versions, mind you they thought that of the Cavalier and even convinced Toyota to put their brand on them we have those too in both flavours Chevrolet and Toyota and both leave a sour taste, we expect Chevrolets to have a healthy V8 motor out here and Toyotas to be at least reliable, its just what we’re used to.
I have a 97 SL2 in southern Wisconsin. Runs great. Twenty year old Civics and Corollas are scarce around here, but twenty year old Saturns are common. That has to be worth something.
Where I used to live in DC, there was a road with a sharp but shallow angle. The stones in the pavement were pretty smooth, and after I got my ’93 SL2, I discovered that when the road was wet, I could yank the wheel a bit hard going into that curve, and the car would drift very evenly and predictably. Just one of the aspects of driving dynamics that made that first gen saturn a joy to drive
Hands down, the Saturn Division was started because GM believed they could extract more profit margin from a small car by selling it no-haggle. When a customer bought a Saturn @ full sticker retail and went to trade it some years later @ wholesale, especially at a competing brand, they were not very happy.
On the one hand, when I bought my ’93 (new), I’d looked at late model used saturns and the depreciation was so tiny that it didn’t make sense to get one used. On the other hand, in inflation-adjusted dollars, the price I paid was $24,200 (with ABS, AC, Cruise)–which seems like a hell of a lot for that car. So I suspect you’re correct.
But I would have paid probably around the same for an Integra, which is what I shopped it against. On the other hand, an Integra would have lasted a lot longer.
You know, we can see this automotive historian is clearly biased to focus on all the failures of Saturn, in the writing of this article.
Allow me to put some very positive successes of Saturn S-Series, as it was the only “true” Saturn model, with all succeeding models being “cross-platform” from other GM-Divisions.
1. Used Car Market: Saturn S-Series, despite having ended production 15 years ago, still are very plentiful at used car dealerships and often sought out for their great fuel economy and corrosion-free bodies.
2. Dent/Corrosion resistant body: Once again, despite being a model that is nearly 30 years old, a well-cared for amd maintained Saturn S-Series can retain its showroom quality, even today.
3. Easy Repairs: While most newer, “technological advanced” scrap heaps from the Japanese can still last as many miles as any S-Series, try to work on one. Try to find cheap parts for one. When something does break, on an S-Series, MOST(not all) repairs can be made with hand tools, while in your driveway. I know, because I just restored a 1995 SC2. The rear suspension, fuel tank, brakes, valve cover, transmission valve body and cooling lines, plugs, wires, cooling fan, fender and headlamp, and even my emergency brake cables were all serviceable with a $40 tool kit purchased at Target. No fancy code scanners, no laptop needed to “tune” the PCM. Just a couple of driving ramps, and a couple of jack stands.
3. Reliability: Saturn 1.9L engines are known for “stuck oil control rings”, which eventually lead to excessive oil consumption. Despite this design flaw, keeping up on your oil changes and adding oil as needed can keep these engines running well over 300,000-400,000 miles, with some Saturn owners still on the road at over 600,000 miles, on a factory-installed timing chain. Ask any mechanic, and they will likely tell you that Saturns are “good cars”.
4. Styling: This applies to the SC packages, moreso than the SL packages. The SC packages were sharp and sporty, to which GM hit their mark, as the SC literally stands for “Sport Coupe”.
5. Performance: When someone thinks a Saturn is a slug, they are commonly referring to the 8-valve, SOHC 1.9L engines, which featured a very low 85hp, until MPFI was added in 1995. This brought the HP up to 100hp. But, let’s talk “Twin Cam” for a minute. While all years are rated for 124hp and that seems a tad low, remember this: That is 124hp in a car that only weighs between 2,200-2,300 lbs. STOCK SC2 models, with a 5-speed, could achieve mid 15s in the ¼-mile. That would decimate ANY Japanese imploding, timing belt, fart-can mufflered import of the 1990s by a full 1.5-2.0 secs in the ¼-mile. It even rivaled the V-8 Ford Mustangs of that day. Even still today, the power-to-weight ratio of the S-Series rivals and competes with many offering from the automakers across the board. I would say that was quite a success, for an econobox that averaged anywhere between 30-40mpg in the 1990s. I sure didn’t see any Civics doing that, back then, and not when I was smoking them left and right with a mildly built Quad OHC/5-Speed in my 2,900lbs 1993 Pontiac Grand Am. I also owned a 1992 Honda Accord. My 1995 SC2 would gut that thing, in a ¼-mile, out corner it, and last just as long as it did, AND it had a 5-speed. My Saturn has an automatic.(I sold the Honda, with 225,000+ miles and only ever replaced the clutch @ 191,000).
6. Brand Loyalty: If you check the history of Saturn, what caused it to fail/succeed, you will find that many Saturn owners would not buy other brands. Part of researching how the Japanese were kicking our American asses in market share, was actually studying Toyota and how they built cars in Japan. Saturn tried to emulate that, and they succeeded. The 1991 models were on backorder at most dealerships. 70% of trade-in vehicles, during a new Saturn S-Series purchase, were foreign imports such as the Honda Civic. Much of Saturn’s failures are attributed to internal GM/UAW politics. The UAW HATED the fact that Saturns were produced by workers that were willing to work with the management. A little known fact showing that Saturn workers loved making their cars: The Spring Hill, TN facility had an absentee rate of only 2.5%, as compared to the 14% corporate average at all other GM plants across the US. And the Saturn employees were paid only 80% of the wages that other GM workers get paid, as per the Master Contract the UAW has with them. Does anyone else find it strange that the S-Series production workers made 20% less money, yet they hardly ever missed work? It should also be known, that the Spring Hill, TN plant NEVER had a strike during the S-Series production years. The UAW authorized a strike, but it never happened. GM and the UAW killed Saturn. The technology of those radically advanced cars proves, everytime one drives off a used car dealership, that Saturn overall was a success for what an automobile in its class should be.
I will take my discontinued GM product, with 95% parts content coming from the USA(Another Saturn fact), that I can maintain and repair myself, over any of that new “advanced” junk that rolls off the assembly lines today.
Would anyone like me post an update, after I flip my odometer back to 000,000?
Replying to an old post, but why not?
Unions screwed up a lot but it is not better in the work force with none.
And we’re getting there.
Ask anyone who used to be middle class who now gets $10 an hour. Or $7.25.
And wouldn’t even get that if many companies had their way because apparently being free market means you can treat people horribly because, you know, people are just little piles of money to exploit to no end.
Because they can. In the movie Wall Street Gordon Gekko was supposed to be the bad guy. Not a template for the future.
And companies always need more. And more. And more. And more. And more.
They REALLY don’t like to share. Sharing is for socialists and dirty hippies.
Sharing and caring is bad and you’re supposed to think it’s the unions fault.
Or teachers. Or firemen. Or anyone but who is ruining this country with endless greed.
Pay attention and quit falling for the distractions.
People need to be treated like human beings. That isn’t political.
It’s the difference between a decent life and a dystopian nightmare, which is where we’re headed now.
Some people won’t see that until it happens to them.
And it will. When there’s no meat left on the worker’s bones they will come for you too.
Unions made the middle class and they need to return.
Or do working people really think it’s better now?
Well I sure was in a mood there wasn’t I😀?
My neighbour has a c.2001 Saturn SC1 3 door coupe, which she has always spoken highly of. This winter it managed a 3500 mile return trip from Vancouver to San Diego with apparently no problems. The body and paint job look very good for a car its age.
And the best thing about the third gen(2000-2002) S-Series 1.9L SOHC, they had a different casting design from the 1991-1998 models years.
The first and second gen Sx1 trims were prone to head cracks, at the #5 cam journal(right above the coolant outlet to the upper radiator hose). This caused the oil and coolant to mix, inevitably blowing the engine..
Saturn responded by extending the warranty, from 60,000 miles, to 6 years/100,000 miles, and would replace the cylinder heads at no charge for customers under the free extended warranty.
There was one major issue, that could be rectified in about 4 hours, with the 2000-2002 Sx1 trims: The Intake Manifold Gasket
Blamed on robots erroneously torqueing the manifold bolts, the gasket would shrink(more likely a result of Death-Kill Orange “Extended Junk” coolant), causing high idle and a DTC P0301, for #1 cylinder misfire.
No matter what anyone says, about the benefits that Saturn brought to the table, as you read Paul’s stories, you will see he clearly has a strong bias against GM(Probably had an N-Body, with the 3400 SFI and its Death-Kill Orange eating head gasket/intake gasket problems, at some point in his life).
Not saying that Saturn was the panacea, that Roger Smith thought it would be, but it certainly wasn’t a failure in all aspects, and certainly not a Deadly Sin..
The rebadged Saturns were the real deadly sins, at GMs 14th floor.
The original gen 1 Saturns were sporty both in appearance and in the way they drove, but with big flaws in the engines. They dumbed them down in ’96, when GM pulled Saturn back into the Mother Ship–alas.
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/the-truth-about-saturn/
Just wanted all you to know I am still driving a 2005 Saturn Relay which I love. My daughter purchased it new when her two boys were small and I bought it from her . It now has 240,000 miles on it and the only things that have been replaced are batteries, tires, wind shield wipers and one water hose in 14 years. Yes, it is old, but it is easy to drive, has plenty of space and storage room. The paint has held up, the upholstery is in good shape (driver seat a little worn) and gas mileage is reasonable. Would love to have one just like it with updated gadgets such as GPS, etc.
Interesting reading about the smugness of the buyers never paying list. My how things have changed, heh?
Exactly what I was thinking. “You think you can buy a car for sticker? Not at THIS dealership, kid.”
But admittedly, when we’re taking about how long ago 11 years was, the distance from 2011-2018 sure doesn’t seem as long as that from 2019-2022.
Saturn SL development cash should have went bringing the Astra platform to US to replace J cars. And even if they did build the SL, why not have had a “Geo Saturn”?
Sure, Saturn built loyal buyers, but then the SUV/truck market took over. Thinking those buyers would go to GM brands was folly. Also, they rebadged GM vehicles for Saturn dealers, becoming another brand competing for same buyers. We all know what happened next.
Gearheads should run car companies. Period. Sure, they’ll need a marketing and finance background too. First, be a car guy though. GM painted itself into a corner in several important ways on the Saturn program. A car guy would have known better. Where are people like Walter P. Chrysler, Lee Iacocca and John Z. DeLorean today? I think somebody like Jay Leno would be the right type of person to run a car company. Most of us here on this site could get the same results or even better for less money than these big corporations. Thing is, enthusiasts like us are the ones putting our thoughts into the car business from our unique perspective.
Old enough to remember when “Saturn” was the emblem on the Oldsmobile. 1948, I think.
Jay Leno is a retired actor-talk show host who is rich enough to be able to afford a very fine personal collection of collectible cars. With a resume such as this, what car company would even give him a job interview? For any job? Seriously? He has no qualifications. None!
Rode in “countless” ones. Drove a 2000 “SL” sdn once. Was my brother/sister in law’s.
Kinda reminded me of driving an “80 Chev Monza”. Saturn seemed to have more plastic feel though.
It was reasonably new when I drove it though.
As a foreigner, American GM has always seemed odd to me. All those brands treading on one another’s toes – yes, I know it wasn’t originally like that. Pontiac seemed a better-styled (usually) Chevy alternative, and I could never get the hang of why you’d buy an Oldsmobile rather than a Buick. Cadillac, yeah, you need a halo car for folk to aspire too. GMC seemed pointless too. Then GM brings out yet another division – what??? Where was this supposed to fit in?
I remember thinking at the time it was weird for GM to create another division with all of that personnel overload to build what seemed to be an alternative to its own J-car. Was that admitting the J was wrong and the new Saturn was right? Hmm. Yet they kept the J in production (and never extended the Saturn technology). Shooting themselves in the foot?
And I also remember thinking there had to be a reason nobody else used this form of construction in a mass-market car. Would people trust another innovation from GM, after the Vega et. al.? Then ask, Would people have trusted this sort of constructional innovation from Toyota or Honda?
Was the creation of Saturn an admission that GM’s reputation with the buying public was – let’s be diplomatic – somewhat shaky? You can try to manipulate public perception of a company through advertising, sure, but for a more permanent effect, you need to implement lasting quality in the product, not just advertise.
And nowadays I wonder what all that money spent on Saturn could have achieved for the other divisions.
Score points for trying to improve the dealership experience though – but I gather that wasn’t permanent either.
Well, Honda (to name one) made rather extensive use of plastic outer panels on the EA Civic and CRX, including fenders, rocker panel covers, and the like. They didn’t try to make it a unique selling point in the same way, and so it wasn’t much remarked upon.
In a word, yes. By the time the SL debuted, there were quite a few American buyers who were extremely wary of GM cars in this class, and who were rather prejudiced against small domestic cars in general. There were a variety of reasons: past product disasters (the Chevrolet Citation left a bad taste for many), poor dealer service, and the fact that the domestic automakers had a tendency to allow mediocre small(er) cars linger well past the point where they were competitive except on price.
When you compared GM or other domestic small cars, there was a definite sense that they were products the manufacturer would just as soon not have built, offered solely to compete in a market they didn’t really want to have to be in and considered beneath them. This extended to products like the late ’80s Chevrolet Nova, which was a Corolla clone built in California, with a Toyota powertrain. The Chevrolet badge was a turnoff to people whose past experience was with the Citation and Vega, or the dismal U.S. Chevette, and if you were willing to look past that, perhaps on knowledge that the Nova was a Toyota under the skin, it was still no fun dealing with resentful Chevrolet dealers who would obviously rather you bought a REAL (read: more profitable) car.
The promise of Saturn was that it was a NEW division with NEW products, so there was at least a chance that it wouldn’t be another GM small car pratfall, and it had new dealerships offering a different kind of customer service, so if you went for a test drive, there was a chance it might not just be the salesman trying to browbeat you into buying a Lumina or Cutlass Supreme instead.
Had the SL been a Chevrolet or Oldsmobile, I certainly wouldn’t have given it the benefit of the doubt in 1990–1991, and it’s clear a fair number of other American buyers felt similarly.
To add to AUWM’s comment, there is a point to be made about GM’s Divisions. In the old days, they were quite independent, with their own engines and even unique frames. All that was shared was a common body shell (or two). Otherwise, for the most part they ran their own engineering, manufacturing and sales operations independently of the others. From the late 60s those Divisions began ceding more and more responsibility to the GM mother ship. The Vega was not a product of Chevrolet Engineering, but by GM Engineering. GM Assembly Division took over all of the factories. By the 80s GM’s Divisions had been reduced to marketing operations.
Saturn, for a brief time, marked a return of an actual, genuine, full-strength GM Division. It built its own design in its own plant and displayed something unique, but with a GM flavor (like all GM cars used to be). But within a very short time the GM borg swallowed up Saturn (the Division) just as it had swallowed up the others, until the product became just another GM vehicle with slightly different styling.
Yes, that was the rationale for creating Saturn. But it was a highly flawed one, for two reasons:
1. GM’s market share had been dropping rapidly, so they already had too many divisions as it was.
2. If you want to convince the GM skeptics that GM can build a good small car, the solution is to build it and sell it as a Chevy, and accept the fact that it might take a few years for its reputation to be established and heal Chevy’s image. As it was, Saturn just weakened Chevy. You don’t fix a bad rep by starting a new (fully owned) company. Saturn likely brought in some GM-skeptic buyers, but that’s not a long-range solution. But then GM and a lot of American cars don’t think long range.
When Toyota’s Crown bombed here in 1958, they didn’t start a new company/brand; the took a break and figured out what the US market wanted and made it.
The Big Three HAD to figure out how to make better cars, and they did eventually. There’s little or no quality gap between them and the Japanese anymore. How was Saturn supposed to fit into the long-term picture when GM was having to downsize and cull brands?
I will say, I (and quite a few people I knew) would never have considered a Chevrolet, especially a C-segment Chevrolet, in that time period. The brand would have been an absolute dealbreaker. If Chevrolet had released a very decent, competitive small car at that point, it would have taken until the middle of a subsequent generation reviews said was equally good or better before I would have been willing to contemplate even test-driving it. In my view at the time, Chevrolet made NO desirable cars in 1990, in any price class — every single model seemed cheaply made and badly compromised — and hadn’t in my lifetime.
However, I did look at the Saturn SL and SC when they came out and compared them to other cars in that class as something at least worth a look. They had a couple of interesting features (the twin-cam engine and the availability of four-wheel discs with ABS, which the U.S. Civic and Corolla didn’t offer at that point), and the plastic body panels seemed like a usefully practical feature, even though I didn’t love the styling. There were too many “Yeah, buts” to put it in the first rank, but it seemed like a decent effort. If they had kept building on that, I thought they would have had something, but they didn’t and after a while it became painfully obvious that they weren’t going to.
Agreed, in that some folks who wouldn’t have looked at a Chevy might look at a Saturn. But a healthy number of folks were looking and buying Geos at Chevy dealers. Maybe they should have branded it a Geo. 🙂
My overarching point is this: losing $10-12 billion in an effort to get GM-skeptics to look and buy your new small car is simply not a good business proposition.
I was a strong Saturn skeptic when they came out. Not because the cars were bad, but I thought the whole concept was flawed, and that GM was destined to screw it up eventually, which they did.
If you’re going to spend that kind of money, spend it on serious efforts to improve your existing brands and cars.
If GM had to wait a few years to convince skeptics that this was a good car, that would have been both a whole lot cheaper, plus it would have repaired Chevy’s image. That alone would have been worth a few billion.
Ford in the late 70s had a rep for mediocre quality, but the Job #1 effort really did pay off for them. Not that they were suddenly in Toyota’s league, but it really did make them more palatable. I’m convinced that’s why Ford did so vastly better in CA at the time than Chevy (along with some more advanced-looking product). But if Ford’s rep had still been in the cellar, I doubt they would have done as well as they did with their cars in CA at the time.
Chevy/GM needed a serious “Job #1” commitment; not just lip service, but the real thing.
I can take this one step further: that the existence of Saturn actually tarnished Chevy’s/GM’s image even further. If all their effort to make “good” cars were going into Saturn, why would I as a consumer think they were putting any effort into their other brands, and more realistically, letting them languish.
If your product is not up to snuff, the solution is to bring it up to snuff, not spend insane amounts of money starting a competing new brand.
Dealing with a Chevrolet dealership in buying a Geo or having it serviced was not at all a pleasant experience, as I recall it, and was certainly not a recommendation. This isn’t to say Toyota and Honda dealers were or are necessarily any great model of dealership experience, but the Geo brand brought with it an additional layer of obvious resentment from salespeople and service departments at having to deal with a car they didn’t seem very happy to be offering. (I imagine the experience of buying an Opel from a Buick dealer was often similar.) The main selling point, at least for the Prizm, was the prospect of getting a car related to and nearly as good as a contemporary Corolla for a bunch less money.
My point here is that there was no real reason to expect that pouring a bunch of money into new Chevrolet (or Pontiac, or Oldsmobile) products would have had any great chance of winning over people who had given up on GM brands in this class. From a product standpoint, as soon as it became a Chevrolet (or a Pontiac, or an Oldsmobile), it would almost certainly have ended up becoming a parts-bin special, with a new body shell and a lot of the same running gear that made it hard to take the latter-day Cavalier seriously as anything other than a rental car. If miraculously it didn’t, existing Chevrolet (or Pontiac, or Oldsmobile) dealers would likely have greeted it with the same resentment as they did Geo: a different car that wasn’t a big cash cow and that required a bunch of new parts and new tools and new training to service and fix, even if it was still an official divisional product and not a hand-me-down.
There was no practical way GM could have pushed any major changes in dealership experience across its thousands of existing franchises without disaster and probably lawsuits. Even if they had, the impact of the new product would have been diluted by sharing floor space with a bunch of carryover models in other classes, leaving buyers with choices like whether to pay no-haggle list for the new model or look for a massive markdown on the Corsica gathering dust on the other side of the showroom. It would have been mixed messages up and down the line, and a real obstacle even if the new product had been both class-leading and nearly flawless.
I’m not saying that Saturn wasn’t a massive financial black hole — it was — or that starting a new division in hopes of teaching your existing six disappointing ones a lesson was a sound business strategy — it wasn’t. I don’t at all dispute that it was a Deadly Sin, since that much is plain.
However, I don’t think it was a Deadly Sin because they should have just poured all that money into the existing divisions, or that they should have consolidated divisions and poured money into those (and into the inevitable class action suits from dealers) instead. I think the central lesson of Saturn was that by the late ’80s, GM had so many deep, serious organizational problems, at so many levels and resulting from so many different bad decisions over the years that it seemed the only way to get out from under seemed to be starting a new division from scratch — and even that didn’t work.
A related issue, which would have been harder to reconcile, is that aside from all of the existing divisions, GM had many, many existing products. Within the existing divisional and dealer structures, there were always going to be mixed messages for buyers, compounded by the fact that it would have been difficult to avoid price overlap.
GM tended to exacerbate this problem by keeping older models around for as long as they could continue to squeeze a few more dollars out of them. For instance, keeping the A-body Cutlass Ciera around for 14 years didn’t do Oldsmobile’s image any favors, but it was obviously profitable (and the late A-bodies were decent cars if you liked that sort of thing); killing it earlier might have helped sell the Achieva, but the cost of doing that would also have added to the real cost of new products.
This wasn’t a problem that Toyota, Honda, and Nissan really had in the U.S. market, at least not to nearly the same extent. (Toyota had issues with it in the home market, especially when they started switching to FWD, although they dealt with it better than GM did here.)
Saturn avoided that problem initially, although they then managed to recreate it in the opposite direction, demonstrating that they didn’t have any kind of long-term product plan (or at least none they actually implemented). To your point, that was obviously a major factor in the folly of the idea — developing a complete second product portfolio was not financially sustainable — but it illustrates the depth of the problem. Saturn was an attempt to paper over not just one but many mistakes and missteps.
Saturn was an attempt to paper over not just one but many mistakes and missteps.
That’s a perfect summation, and exactly how I saw it at the time.
I remember I got a flyer in the mail, in the early Saturn days. Probably a couple of them. have to admit they looked pretty promising. At least interesting. But that’s as far as I went.
I had a coworker for a time. I swear it seemed like she was following me as I had to deal with her from 3 different departments, including finally mine. And oh, what a wit** she was. I once warned her, if I ever get to that middle office… Anyway, she was not a car person. She oft stated she hated to drive, and just as often smugly said, “I drive a Saturn” Gee, I wonder if there could be a connection.
I’ve also heard of interviews with other GM division managers who said, if you gave me XXX billion I could have done…
I’ve also heard as many cars grew to have an expected lifespan of over 200K, Saturns were oil gluttons at 100K.
My now-wife had a 1996 SL with a manual when we met. Cool points because she could and did drive a stick. I think other than a cassette player that thing didn’t have a single option, but “They had one that was purple and looked really good, but it had a leather interior and every option. I’m not paying for leather in a ~Saturn~.” Was her first car after being totalled by a drunk driver so the space frame construction and airbags sold her – and in more than one parking lot the plastic panels did as advertised and showed no damage.
From what others have reported, it seems like by 96 the worst bugs had been worked out. The only two major issues to crop up were a cracked head (fully covered under a recall well past the car’s warranty) and a shifter cable decided to serve up only the odd-numbered gears.
The updated interior at least didn’t seem to scream “cheap” at the very top of its lungs and was free of the motorized belts and easily maintained. I was always curious if the DOHC drivetrain was more friendly, the SOHC was a bit raucous but didn’t seem to hate being revved, and turned shockingly good gas mileage. I don’t think our garage has hit numbers that high since. I can’t imagine it was as good as a comparable Civic – but it wasn’t the s***box so many were looking down at.
If parts availability hadn’t started to become an issue, I’d found some SW2s that looked attainable – knowing full well the plastic panels made skin-deep beauty a risk on Saturns, who knows what dark secrets lay in 25-year-old mechanicals and electrics?
Now between the article and the comments it’s almost 100% “How stupid, what was GM thinking?” but all with the benefit of hindsight. Equally with the benefit of hindsight, we all know at that point the writing appeared to be on the wall for Oldsmobile. I’d be curious to see an alternate timeline where Saturn was primed from the get-go with plans for a larger car and not need to phone it in later with the L-Series, AND with the Aurora– which looked NOTHING like any Olds product at the time– as the top-dog Saturn as we begin winding down Oldsmobile.
Now you’re aiming for the import intenders Saturn was looking for at the bottom AND top-end.