I agree-I have a 1997 SC-2 great car! If you bought an ASTRA, I think you are SOL-there will be little factory support, and when Opel ceases to sell to GM, resale will plummet.
I wonder if you can buy them dirt cheap now? At a firesale price, they might be worth it!
dropzone, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Penske quit the deal because Renault dropped out as his supplier: he had no intention of being anywhere or anything related to GM if he’d been able to take over Saturn. For some ungodly reason, Renault’s Board nixed the deal, even though it basically had almost no downsides for them. (The CEO, who was all for it, reportedly responded by saying, “What. The. Fuck?” in a French accent.)
Really, Penske was buying a dealer network, not the Saturn brand, but the cars he wanted to import/make would have been fairly similar in concept: a solid midmarket car with high quality.
Saturn as a brand as it exists now was really shot in the foot by a lukewarm GM management and the hostile union. Actually, the UAW was working both sides of the aisle on this. One particular union chief lobbied hard for the Spring Hill plant and for Saturn to have a place in GM. It worked well, and Saturn was growing. Everybody gets old, though, and he retired eventually. This was not surprisingly followed by other union leaders slowly squeezing Saturn down to nothing. They did not like the idea of a plant where union workers were cross-trained in different roles and could do mroe than one job. (Horrors!) Actually, they probably were right in a way. They avoided losing any union jobs by killing it, as the Spring Hill plant model didn’t need so many peeps, and then got Congress to bail them out.
Anyway, Saturn might still have stayed and grown into a strong brand had GM’s management been competent, but wishes and horses and beggars and all.
I think it’s pretty understood what you say is true about Saturn (reliable car, loyal following, etc.), the problem is if you look at overall sales; the number of Saturns sold is way less that mainstream GM brands.
One website says Saturn sales
for 2008: 188,004
for 2007: 240,091
The number I found for Chevy Impala sales alone (for 2006) was: 289,868.
I realize I’m not comparing numbers from the same year, but I’m also comparing an entire product line of Saturn to a single model of Chevrolet. When I see that it’s not surprising that the Saturn line is getting dropped. My wife’s last 3 or 4 cars have been new Saturns. She’s beyond disappointed.
GM could have gone back and produced a couple of the origial Saturn style cars under the Chevy banner and retained those customers. The space frame idea is still valid as is the ability to be towed without burning up the transmission. I don’t know why all cars aren’t built like Saturns but it just seems logical to use steel timing changes and make parts easy to get to. There is no reason to bury a heater core when it’s nothing more than an an access panel and a good design location.
And lost money on every one they sold. The features that made Saturn special were the plastic panels and the dealer network. Timing chains are really overkill on a 4-banger and they’re noisy. With a non-interference engine you’re not gaining much of anything over the typical lifespan of the car. The plastic panels were nice, but I still managed to scratch mine a few times. The dealer network was nice, but it wasn’t really tied to the brand. Any dealer network could be made to be like that.
What Smiling Bandit said. Saturn has always been the red-headed stepchild of GM, opposed by a lot of GM management and opposed by the UAW. The UAW didn’t like the Saturn Union’s compliant culture, their flexible rules, etc. They saw it as a threat to the UAW’s bargaining position, and eventually forced Saturn’s workers into rejoining the UAW main contract. But the animosity remained, from what I can tell.
The sad thing is that after decades of mediocre product, Saturn finally had some good cars. The Aura is an excellent vehicle. Saturn’s new lineup was very competitive in terms of quality and features. But once GM knew it had to kill off some brands, Saturn was in everyone’s crosshairs.
A steel timing chain is not noisy and not having to replace it is hardly overkill. It’s one less expense that won’t leave you on the side of the road to boot.
And I think you misunderstood my original suggestion was to sell them under the chevy banner. The Saturn dealerships would be gone.
What made the Saturns different (to me) was that they were designed to be sturdy and easy to work on. What a concept.
My Saturn SW2 timing chain was noisy. The engine also burned oil, thrashed under load, and really didn’t have much power. It never left me stranded on the side of the road (a broken transmission did that) but neither did my two cars with timing belts. In the 130,000 miles I put on my Honda I had to replace the timing belt once, which cost about $600 I think.
Look, I liked my Saturn, but it was a sturdy economy car that didn’t have the refinement of some other cars offered at the same price. It was solid transportation, but mostly uninspired. If they had continually improved the car after the initial release it would have been one thing, but the car basically stood still while others improved.
Fair enough assessment. They weren’t refining their cars. They were headed in the right direction with a suicide door and other niche items (like the towable transmission). They should have been the first to introduce a turbo-diesel as part of their niche status.
Buick has Tiger Woods and I wonder if that fact alone killed Pontiac. The Pontiac label, for all its mistakes, still has more panache. But Buick has Tiger.
Back in the haydays, Pontiac and Oldsmobile were doing some interesting things. Delorian with the muscle cars, John Beltz with the front wheel drive Toronodo. GM let them put those cars out there as teasers but never let them extend the technology to turn them into cutting edge cars. They just got wattered down.
Now Pontiac and Olds are both gone and we are left with Chevy bilge. "Do you want the Impala, the Bel-Air or the Del-Ray? Back to the Future. It’s available in Neptune Green Poly or white.
Do you know if the Buicks sold in China are the same cars that are sold in the US? Or different cars with a Buick badge?
edit:
Found an answer: http://carscoop.blogspot.com/2008/04/2009-buick-excelle-this-ones-for-china.html
At least the Excelle is a rebadged Chevrolet / Daewoo Lacetti. They could keep the Buick brand in China even if they killed Buick in the US.