Curbside Classic: 2003 Saturn Ion – Ironing Out Our Differences

“Just be yourself.” “You do you girl.” “Never let anyone dull your sparkle.” “Be whoever the *expletive* you wanna be and screw the haters!!!” These are just a few of the many phrases I’ve heard in my life extolling the value of individuality. Some of them have even been told directly to me, as much as they mean in the real world.

Here in America, we love to venerate the individual: the rugged maverick who blazes their own trail and refuses to just follow the leader. However, as much as this is true, we also value conformity, and those that buck the norm are just as likely to be ostracized as they are to be celebrated. This is a paradox that has been documented to the point of cliche in innumerable movies, books, and other media, but it’s still true to this day. Different doesn’t always mean beloved, or successful.

And in the automotive world, it’s hard to find an example of a company that banked on being ‘different’ harder than Saturn. It was their entire brand image for their first decade. And like so many others, poor Saturn wound up trying to conform when their uniqueness wasn’t exactly what people wanted, to predictable results. But with this Ion, we can at least admire the effort.

The Saturn Corporation was the brainchild of General Motors CEO Roger Smith, who reigned over the company from 1981 to 1990. Smith, seen here catching a Saturn prototype as it tries to escape its computer prison, correctly saw that the Big Three’s compact offerings were coming up short against imported cars, and that a new approach needed to be taken to compete with the Japanese. This lead to the formation of Saturn, whose stated goal was to create a new, American small car from the ground up that could lure customers back to the loving arms of GM. It would be, as the later ads would tout, “A Different Kind of Car.”

Saturn began operations in 1985, and quickly got to work on its mission. Though a subsidiary of GM, Saturn operated largely independently from its parent company and its other brands. This was highly unusual for the time, as the GM of the 1980s was busy combining divisions to cut costs, and was cranking out badge-engineered cars like there was no tomorrow. The vehicle Saturn developed would share no major components with other GM vehicles, and likewise would show off some advanced engineering – such as space frame construction and dent-resistant plastic body panels. GM even built an entirely new factory in Spring Hill, Tennessee to assemble Saturns and nothing else.

 

However, like many other projects of the Roger Smith era of GM, Saturn didn’t quite work out as intended. Though the prototypes were shown shortly after Saturn’s founding in the mid 80s, the first production cars – the S-Series – weren’t ready until 1990. Extensive redesigns were needed due to delays, and costs ballooned out of control. As GM was building an entirely new car and the infrastructure for building and selling it without utilizing any of their existing assets, the Saturn Corporation cost an eye-watering $5 Billion to get off the ground. So it had to be an astronomical success to see any return on Papa GM’s investment.

And in the automotive industry, shooting for the moon and missing doesn’t mean you’ll land among the stars. It usually means you’ll burn up reentering the atmosphere.

 

A lot of hay was made about how different Saturn was from other car companies when it launched – it was literally their advertising tagline. Saturn touted the aforementioned engineering of their vehicles, and how different their dealership experience was from their competitors, specifically highlighting their “no-haggle” sales policy. Saturn did alright after its introduction, but it wasn’t the smash hit that GM needed it to be. The new car company managed to move about 2 million units of the S-Series in its first decade, but considering how much money GM dumped into Saturn before production started, it didn’t meet sales expectations.

The problem Saturn faced was that their cars were different from other vehicles that GM and their competitors offered, but they weren’t particularly unique. The S-Series had its own engines, transmissions, and platform, but they were nothing revolutionary. Saturn’s first cars were powered by an inline-four engine that drove the front wheels of the car, and was mated to either a 5-speed manual or 4-speed automatic. Just like all of the other cars in its market segment. And that wasn’t enough to draw buyers away from Toyota or Honda, as 41% of Saturn customers already owned a GM car.

But again, Saturn didn’t fail, either. Their cars were quirky enough to be recognizable, their dealerships had good customer service, and they had a number of loyal customers. Saturn held ‘Homecoming’ events at its Tennessee factory every year, and the Saturn faithful attended with their beloved plastic cars. Saturn still wasn’t turning much of a profit, but GM wasn’t ready to pull the plug on the endeavor. At least, not yet.

Saturn soldiered on into the 2000s. The company began to expand their model range past compact cars with the midsize L-Series in 1999, and the VUE SUV in 2001. And then, for model year 2003, the venerable S-Series was put out to pasture and replaced by the new Ion as Saturn’s entry-level car. The Ion was available as a sedan or as a ‘Quad Coupe’ with a set of small suicide doors, but the SW wagon had no direct replacement. Even beyond replacing the original car, though, the Ion represented the end of the original product philosophy for Saturn.

Gone were the unique engines and transmissions; the Ion shared its drivetrain components with other GM products. Likewise, the Ion sat atop the new Delta platform, which it shared with the Chevy Cobalt and HHR. Sure, the Ion was the first car to use the Delta platform, but it wasn’t unique to Saturn like the old space frame was.

Saturn had to share toys with the rest of GM’s kids now; a result of its parent company trying to cut costs at its once-darling brand. I’m sure the decision helped profit margins, but in doing so Saturn lost most of the individuality that it once enjoyed.

So, now that Saturn was just one of many brands in the GM stable, why buy an Ion over a comparable – and related – Chevrolet or Pontiac? Sure, the dealership experience was better than average, but what set their cars apart from all the others now? Saturn tried to keep their polygonal design language intact when migrating to the company’s shared architecture, and it kept the trademark plastic body panels as well. But if you squint hard enough you can see the Cobalt DNA in the Ion’s profile.

Saturn’s original mission – to build a new, “different kind of car” – was canceled, but GM had new plans for the brand. Shortly after the Ion debuted, Saturn was directed to rocket upmarket to replace the outgoing Oldsmobile as General Motors’s semi-premium brand. In doing so, Saturn got its most complete model line ever, with the midsize Aura, Relay minivan, Outlook crossover, and even a sports car with the Sky Roadster. Just like the Ion, though, all these cars had siblings at other GM makes, and Saturn struggled to build its new identity.

This left the Ion as an enigma at its own company – too cheap to be premium, but too samey to be like the original Saturn. The market responded, and the Ion didn’t sell nearly as well as its predecessor. Even the red-hot Red Line edition couldn’t light a fire in the hearts of the public, and the Ion was discontinued after the 2007 model year.

 

Afterward, Saturn became a depository for rebadged Opel vehicles in the US. The second generation Vue was a rebadged Opel Antara, and the Ion’s replacement, the Astra, didn’t even get a new model name when it emigrated to America. At least it kind of fit with the space theme, though.

But this case of muddled identity didn’t do Saturn any favors, and we all know how the story ends. In 2009 GM faced bankruptcy, and poor Saturn was one of the brands on the chopping block when its parent company had to cut costs to the bone. It had been a drain on GM’s finances for long enough, and Saturn ended operations in 2010. So ended the two decade long experiment. However, Saturn’s former plant in Tennessee still remains; it just cranks out Cadillacs now. The Ion wound up being the last Saturn model built at the former flagship factory.

Saturns in general are getting rare on the ground here, so finding this one was a pleasant surprise. Like so many cars of this era, this Ion is a little worse for wear, but still in better knick than many other 20-year-old cars I see clattering around. Another nice feature of plastic body panels, beyond being immune to shopping carts, is that they don’t rust. So this Ion is also immune to the red pox that plagues so many other cars in the Rust Belt.

And hopefully, that means this little weirdo will stay on the road for a while longer. The cars from orphan brands that were once common are vanishing faster than we’d like to admit, and seeing something like a Saturn or a Mercury or a Pontiac is now a treat rather than unremarkable. The Ion was off the mark in its mission, and had little hope of living up to the car it replaced – or digging its parent company out of the hole it made itself. But it tried and gave it its all, and that too is an American virtue.

See you, Space Cowboy.

 

Related CC reading:

Automotive History: Saturn’s Early Years – Corporate Camelot

Automotive History: The Sad Final Years Of Saturn

Curbside Classic: 1993 Saturn SL – GM’s Deadly Sin #4 – The Eulogy

COAL: 2004 Saturn Ion Quad Coupe – Bummerland