An automotive eulogy for Saturn, a brand that fell far short of its goal
When Saturn first arrived on the scene, it hit the market strong and showed a significant amount of promise as a special General Motors project aimed at building an affordable, high-quality small car to compete with in-demand imports like the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla. So, what went wrong? Let me take you through an "automotive eulogy" to explain how a brand that was meant to revolutionize the world's largest automaker ended up as a mere footnote in automotive history.
On June 15, 1982, GM engineers developed a cutting-edge plan that would eventually manifest itself as the Saturn nameplate. By July of that year, GM dubbed its new brand "Saturn," a reference to the Saturn rocket that propelled the American astronauts to the moon – the ultimate symbol of unmatched American ingenuity. The Saturn brand would be the first stand-alone brand added to General Motors since Chevrolet was added in 1918.
Saturn was a unique, out-of-the box product for GM from the start. Its dedicated team of engineers and executives committed to using state-of-the-art technology to design and build Saturn vehicles. A new concept for GM, Saturn used flexible manufacturing techniques to prepare operations to react and adapt to any changes, whether expected or unforeseen, that could compromise production.
Saturn systems were primed and ready to handle modifications like new product types and changes in volume, capacity and capability. Along with the completely separate UAW contract, which encouraged employees and managers to work together with less friction and just-in-time inventory systems introduced at the new Saturn Spring Hill, Tenn., plant, it seemed like Saturn would rise to the top of the automotive food chain and swallow any brands that dared to step in its path.
Both behind the scenes on the production side and front and center in its core marketing strategies, Saturns were aimed at capturing the traditional "non-GM buyer." The first truckload of Saturns reached dealers in California on Oct. 11, 1990. This peppy new product quickly began to earn quality awards and reliability ratings that even beat Honda and Nissan. The brand continued to take hold and by November, the cars garnered several accolades, including the Popular Science "1990 Best of What's New in Automobiles" award.
Contrary to traditional car sales representatives, Saturn dealers practiced putting their low-pressure sales training to the test and paid salaries rather than commissions. The initial out-of-the-gate strong demand for these cars, along with unheard of dealership control over market territories, enabled Saturn dealers to average twice the unit sales volume of other car dealerships. Unheard of "no-haggle pricing" also gave dealers a boost, allowing them to experience a higher gross profit margin. Dealers also adopted kitschy yet effective customer strategies, like taking instant Polaroid pictures of new owners next to their cars – a tactic that many new car dealers now employ digitally.
All of these strategies certainly seemed to be an equation for a phenomenal success story – and it was. But early on, several key problems began to percolate. First, the use of thermoplastic panels over a space frame design meant that it took 35 hours to assemble a Saturn, more than 10 hours longer than other small cars. More production hours meant higher costs, which squeezed any potential profitability out of the picture. GM's cash shortage in the mid-1990s sparked the beginning of Saturn's pattern of neglect as ad budget and dealer expansion plans soon hit the cutting room floor never to see the light of day.
The most detrimental misstep ultimately leading to the downward spiral was GM's decision to neglect the car itself. The original platform for the Saturn SL remained basically unchanged for an entire decade – until 2000 – and Saturn limited its consumers by making only a small sedan, coupe or wagon available to the thousands waiting for something more.
The original Saturn SL-Series showed a remarkable effort, but their noisy engines and plastic exterior panels that left huge panel gaps to accommodate expansion detracted from what could have been a very promising product. By 1994, the original styling, which looked very much like a 1990s Oldsmobile Cutlass, could be described in one word – dated. Saturn tried to pull itself out of this slump by releasing an attractive restyle to the existing SL platform, which did boost sales briefly. In this case, the change was too little too late, as Saturn's shrinking customer base matured and began having families and experiencing other lifestyle changes that dictated the need for another type of vehicle that Saturn didn't have. Opting to instead spend its money to revitalize Oldsmobile, GM further neglected Saturn through the end of the nineties.
GM wouldn't let Saturn go down without a good fight though, and in 2000 it finally launched the L-Series, which was based on a German Opel Vectra platform. The Saturn L-Series handled well and when equipped with the V6 engine could really put the rubber to the road, but it was expensive compared to other domestic sedans. Combined with the expense, the plastic panels that dictated cavernous panel gaps and the unusual front-end styling with razor thin headlamps that made the car appear like it was squinting, the model did not bode well with consumers. Determined to fight the good fight, the L-Series came out swinging after a hasty restyle in 2003, but GM dropped the model in 2006 in favor of another Opel-based vehicle, the AURA.
In efforts to avoid a knock out and increase Saturn's appeal, in 2001 GM introduced the VUE, its plastic-paneled small SUV. This unconventional product wasn't quite the heavyweight it needed to be to match up to the competition. The VUE's trouble-prone continuously variable transmission and electric servo assisted steering led to lackluster performance that gave as much road feel as a video game controller.
The last of the plastic-paneled Saturn vehicles introduced, the ION, featured some unusual styling elements, also was not so well received. When trying to appeal to as broad of an audience as possible, it's risky to go quirky as it did with its polarizing center-mounted instrument pod. The ION also featured numb electric servo assisted steering and bolt-on roof drip rails that could be customized in different colors and patterns, though few owners elected to do that. Those waiting for a world-class small car effort from GM and the United States experienced profound disappointment.
As the reinvention of the Oldsmobile lost steam, GM again began to try to resurrect the Saturn from years of neglect by abandoning plastic panels and grabbing the best of GM's world-class designs. Saturn adopted a sports car from Pontiac, which became the Saturn SKY, and a small car from Opel, which became the Saturn ASTRA. Saturn also revamped the second generation VUE, basing it off of the Opel Antara.
This line of cars is the best Saturn has ever offered, but they came too late. After years of neglect from GM, Saturn finally began to pick itself up and dust itself off and fully ready to roll, but the brand had been damaged beyond repair, leaving car guys mourning an untimely and unnecessary demise.
All is not lost, however; GM has announced plans to keep Opel/Vauxhall, its European arm, which produced many of the platforms that Saturn leveraged in its current lineup. These vehicles might find their way to the U.S. market under GM's surviving nameplates.