Last week news broke that Saturn “could be dead within the week.” General Motors, who has received billions in federal loans for the U.S. government must report to the Administration tomorrow with a detailed business plan. Part of that business plan must include what GM plans to do with their buffet of brands. GM executives have made one thing quite clear in regards to their brand management plan: Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC and Buick are going to be their “core brands” that get most of the attention. Executives claim that Pontiac will be reduced to a “niche brand” and the rest of the North American fleet will up for grabs. It’s already well known that Hummer is for sale and GM would desperately like to unload Saab, but what about Saturn?
GMI has been told by sources very close to the situation that management and the Board of Directors have approved closing the Saturn brand as part of the plan for viability. Several options were considered for the brand, as evident with the influx of statements from various GM executives as of late about Saturn. One option was to merge the brand into the Pontiac, GMC, Buick sales channel (as GMI broke several months ago). GM also looked into selling the Saturn brand to their Chinese joint-venture in order to get the brand out of the GM umbrella.
Read Article