Breaking: Saturn "Reportedly Dead"

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.
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0to60 - 2/16/2009 12:50:42 PM

+4 Boost

saw plenty of Saturn Sky's on the rd when it was warmer! I also see quite a few saturn SUV's

holmstar - 2/16/2009 12:52:19 PM

+3 Boost

I assume you are sarcastically implying that the new saturns are just a badge re-engineering of opel models... which they are. But they are still new to the US market, and are pretty decent cars, just not stand-out enough.

monster - 2/16/2009 12:59:45 PM

+2 Boost

Give me a good reason to buy the saturn when there are plenty of good chevy cars. However not all chevy cars are great. I had the opportunity to rent a chevy cobalt and I was just wondering why they bother making cars like that. The accelerator was hard...you really have to put some weight to get it moving. The cabin was noisy, the heater fan was making noise as if you put some paper in the fan. I have a 97 nissan with 180K on it and my car drives much much better than this new car.

Now if you take a malibu, that is a better car. It is a decent ride. It still has a hard accelerator but acceptable. why not learn from the cars that successful?

inspirion7 - 2/17/2009 3:35:15 AM

+1 Boost

who are you 204E60 and where do you live?

mini22 - 2/16/2009 1:02:08 PM

+5 Boost

Excuse me. Saturn was the brain child of Roger Smith back in the late 80's and early 90's. It has been around for almost 20 yrs. The Opel connection occured about 8 yrs ago.They are good cars but GM has simply too many brands. In a robust economy it could still work. However in today's economy There is little point to Saturn. Further the only reason Buick is still alive is that it has done so well in China. If that had not happened Buick would have gone the way of Oldsmobile.

91z4me - 2/16/2009 2:45:19 PM

+2 Boost

It would cost more to buy out the Saturn dealers than any cost savings to 'simply bring Opels over'. Basically Saturn is a marketing channel only (as all GM divisions are) and selling the Opels there allows GM to not have to pay out they money to close dealerships.

But if the bankruptcy occurs expect to see Saturn gone VERY quickly. At this point it seems like GM will pull a Mercury and just starve dealers of new product, just faster than what Ford has been doing with Mercury.

downtoearth - 2/16/2009 1:55:52 PM

+1 Boost

Can you prove somehow Saturn indeed was doing well? Can you provide any sales figures, especially when compared to competitive brands, including those under GM?

I think they shut Saturn down not for fun but for a reason. And the only one I can think of are poor sales. It would mean those who suggested that bringing European commodity cars to U.S market will result in a significant success were rather wrong.

91z4me - 2/16/2009 2:47:26 PM

+2 Boost

Saturn sales (despite having more, new and better product) have fallen. The crappy little Ion killed the Astra in sales, the L series dominates the numbers put up by the Aura. Saturn has more models now than ever and yet they aren't making much if any money. Sorry but GM needs to cut its losses at some point. And at this time GM just can't afford anything that isn't profitable.

vwrules - 2/16/2009 8:27:02 PM

0 Boost

Its gonna be Chevy and Cadillac lean mean trim the herd transfer G8 and G6 to chevy maybe a couple other rides kill cobalt take astra do rename.Tell UAW you gotta take a cut for now within 3 or 4 years you will get most of it back ,all would be good down the road gotta play in the real world now.ORRRR DIE

91z4me - 2/16/2009 10:47:51 PM

+2 Boost

Why transfer the G6 to Chevy they already have an Epsilon car the Malibu which is gaining praise and conquest sales? As for the Astra it simply isn't doing well in the states, the upcoming Cruze is likely poised to do VERY well though! Anything the UAW gives back, it will likely not get again. These are tough times and the UAW is just something that is becoming less and less important as time goes on. The writing has been on the wall since the 80s (Roger Smith's robo plant ideas) and it is finally coming to fruition.

Jordanski - 2/17/2009 1:49:15 AM

0 Boost

gm. its time to relearn that little lesson on brand engineering. funny how toyota manages to compete squarely with gm while only offering 2 mainstream brands.

91z4me - 2/17/2009 9:43:16 AM

+3 Boost

3 Scion is a separate Toyota brand just like Lexus.

GM needs to pare down its brands, everyone can see it but the loss of volume combined with the cost to close those brands it just cannot afford at this time, unless bankruptcy filing allows them to.

inspirion7 - 2/17/2009 1:39:59 PM

+2 Boost

Great point.

Jordanski - 2/17/2009 7:30:53 PM

+1 Boost

91z4me: Scion is more of a niche marque; currently remaining exclusive to the United States (2010 Canada Launch).

May I recall stating "...while only offering 2 mainstream brands". Due to the limited availability to certain markets; I excluded Scion, and Daihatsu. However, Daihatsu and Hino manage to fairly compete with many global subsidiaries of General Motors e.g.; Diahatsu>GM-Daewoo, or Hino>GM light duty trucks.

91z4me - 2/17/2009 11:10:00 PM

+1 Boost

Jordan: While Scion may be appearing to market itself to young, hip individuals they aren't. They are marketing themselves squarely at the older generation of empty nesters. But they are doing it quite well by applying an old adage from I believe Harley Earl (the grandfather of car styling) "You can sell a young persons car to an old person but you can't sell an old man's car to a young man." Something like that.

Seriously I know of exactly 1 young person with a Scion (Tc), which she loves, but who do you see in the Xb, Xd, and Xa's: old people. Theoretically Honda did the same thing with their Element and it worked there also.

BTW I just went to Scion's website and darn the Tc is awefully expensive for its class. The Cobalt coupe, Civic coupe, and VW Rabbit all start cheaper and offer better fuel economy. Heck the Camaro V8 will likely get the same fuel economy rating on the highway as the Tc and it is an overweight, high powered muscle car!

S4cabriofoxone - 2/17/2009 11:16:34 PM

+1 Boost

Jordanski, Scions are sold in Asia as Toyotas and Daihatsus. If I'm not mistaken Daihatsu is also part of the Toyota umbrella. Subaru's sales numbers aren't included but that brand is also partially owned.

r_driver04 - 2/17/2009 1:17:56 PM

+1 Boost

Saturn was GM's answer to the Japanese. It actually did quite well before GM started announcing to the public how they were the parent company. After the SL Model, their days were numbered.

91z4me - 2/17/2009 3:16:47 PM

+1 Boost

Saturn has never made a profit, it never really evolved beyond a small car brand until GM took a firm hold and started the Opel transition and in the end it became just another GM brand and that killed what made Saturn unique.