I’ve heard that the SATURN Div. of GM will no longer make its distinctive plastic body panel cars. From now on, SATURN will use body designs from OPEL, Chevrolet, etc., and all will be all-metal body shells (just like any GM car).
I find this sad–SATURN was to be GM’s technology leader…now it seems they will be just like BUICK or CHEVROLET.
No more engine development either…too bad!
Will we read one day that GM has ended the brand (like they did with Oldsmobile in 2004)? :rolleyes:
I really like my SATURN-and i can’t recall how many dents and damages i’ve been saved from (in the course of parking my car and exposing it to the parking lot morons)!
That’s too bad if true. My second favorite car, ever (right after my current Mini Cooper S) was my Saturn SL1 five speed.
[hijack]Why are you SHOUTING all the BRAND NAMES?[/hijack]
When I read the thread title, I was hoping for a planetary collision of epic proportions.
I agree with the OP, but we could see it coming. I’ve owned them from 1992. My first SL2 died to save my wife’s life, and my '97 is still going strong at 120K miles. My daughter’s boyfriend’s Saturn just turned 200K. Now it’s just a name. (My local dealer isn’t very big on the Saturn Way) so my next car will be something else. But I do like the one I have.
This has been coming for a while. The last round of cars are all very meh. They have devolved back into just another GM car. I’m on my second Saturn now, soon to be replaced, and I’m not even thinking about looking at another one.
There’s was really only one Saturn with plastic body panels. Nearly all of their cars have been conventional construction after the first S-series whch became the Ion. Right now they sell some excellent cars (Sky, Aura, Outlook, VUE, and Astra) that are all better then the first and second generation Saturns. I owned one, I liked it, but these models are all much better.
On the contrary, I think they’re finally coming into their own.
Saturn to crash into Uranus? It wouldn’t be pretty…
Aw.
When I went for my road test, my tester kept asking me questions when I’m trying to concentrate on driving well. After a question that determined I knew to swerve to the right (instead of into incoming traffic) if something came at me, he asked, “If you had to hit anything, what would you hit?”
What a stupid question, seriously. I’m panicking, trying to drive well, and blurt the first thing that came to mind:
“A Saturn!”
He said, “Uhh…?”
And I said, “They have plastic bodies! I’d rather hit plastic than metal!”
From what I’ve heard, the plastic panels had some unexpected drawbacks. They expand and contract more than traditional metal ones do, so GM had to leave gaps between them. This made the car look cheap and shoddily-built, or so many customers thought. Basically, they were giving the car a bad image.
I own a 2002 model SC2 and I like it, but it’s starting to show its age. I’m getting married this summer, so a more family-friendly car would be nice. If I had to get a new car soon, I’d seriously look at the new Chevy Malibu. I might even step up to the hybrid version.
At my old job, all the company cars were Saturns, and even the brand new ones felt and sounded like a bunch of plastic being held together with duct tape. Plus, Saturns are for girls, right? I mean, have you ever seen a guy driving a Saturn?
I’ve seen a pretty even mix of guys to girls driving Saturns.
Yep, whenever I looked in the rear-view mirror. You got a problem wid dat?
They make a cream for that.
I love my 3-doored 2001 manual SC2. First car I really ever enjoyed driving. And it’s so far away! sniff
Which was always a bit of joke anyway, in my view, as, plastic body panels notwithstanding, one could only consider Saturn a ‘technology leader’ in the context of GM’s atrociously engineered, antedeluvian designs of the period when Saturn was first launched. I’ve always understood it to be more of an experiment at a new business model for GM (the fixed pricing, a dedicated factory and parts system, etc.). Whatever the intention, although the brand clearly has a hard core of rabid fans (kind of like Subaru, another niche brand) it has for whatever reason never quite broken out into broad, Chevy-like popularity.
I don’t have any problems with Saturn turning to domestic versions of the current Opel lineup, as they seem to be pretty decent cars, although in Europe the sedans seem to have something of bad rap as boring, sales-rep type vehicles. I drove a Vectra (on which, I believe, the current Saturn Aura is based) from Paris to Geneva a couple of years ago, and quite liked it: smooth and comfortable on the motorway, excellent build quality and I could really get a roll on despite it having only a 1.8 liter engine. I likewise will look at the upcoming Astra with interest, although I’m a bit leery as I despise the Chevy Cobalt, which apparently was loosely based on the Astra mechanicals.
Ahem.
RIP = Acronym for the Latin phrase “Requiescat In Pace,” or for the English phrase “Rest In Peace.”
Rip = To tear.
These are different things and have different meanings. They are not interchangeable.
That is all, carry on!
I beg to differ-the original SATURN 1.9 liter engine was the first to be cast in aluminum, via the lost foam process. The automatic tranny was built on the same line as the manual. And the plastic panels proved their worth-no rust in 9 NE salty winters.
The AURA model I like very much-but it has all steel body panels.