Saturn (automobile)

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Saturn is a division of the General Motors automobile manufacturer and a brand of automobiles. GM began manufacturing Saturn automobiles in 1990, largely in response to the success of Japanese small-car imports in the United States. Saturn vehicles are marketed in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico.

Its motto was "A different kind of company, a different kind of car". Not only would it copy Japanese car style, it would try to copy Japanese management style: workers would have more control and involvement in the plant, the UAW agreed to lay off the Saturn division, and in general things were 'done differently' than they had been at GM. Saturn inspired a cult following with annual 'meetings' in Tennessee of Saturn owners. However, the division never made a profit and by the 2000s was a several billion dollar loss for General Motors, which due to its massive financial problems closed the 'experiment' and folded Saturn back into its traditional corporate landscape.

Saturn's headquarters and primary manufacturing facility are located in Spring Hill, Tennessee, which was chosen in 1985, after a highly publicized nationwide search for a site. Since 2005, Jill Lajdziak has been the General Manager of Saturn.

Saturn is known for its company-wide "no-haggle" sale policy. Saturn dealers (called "retailers" by the company) are encouraged to sell vehicles at list price. Customer satisfaction with dealer service is among the highest of any car brand in the U.S. The company also won praise for its environmentally-conscious manufacturing processes and for its innovations such as using flexible plastic side panels on its cars to avoid minor dents. However, in 2005, the Saturn Relay became the first Saturn vehicle without polymer side paneling.

Contents 1 History 2 Future 3 Customer Service 4 Saturn models 5 Saturn timeline 6 External links

[edit] History

When it was launched, Saturn was a significant departure for GM. The company's products used a dedicated platform (the Z-body), a dedicated engine (the 1.9 L Saturn I4 engine), and were made at a dedicated plant (in Spring Hill). In fact, the company's three car models (SL, SC, and SW) were all just a single car in three different body styles, and the company referred to all three as Saturns. All of the original Saturns featured dent-resistant plastic body panels which were also touted as allowing the company to change the look of the vehicles at will. However, in practice, the company kept the vehicles mostly unchanged for years.

The first real change came with the 2000 Saturn L-series mid-size car. It shared the GM2900 platform with the Opel Vectra, along with its engine, and was built at a GM factory in Wilmington, Delaware. The Saturn Sky is now being produced in the Wilmington facility.

Today, the company shares GM's Delta and Theta automobile platforms, along with the company's Ecotec engine, and vehicles are built at many GM plants along with the Spring Hill factory. The Saturn VUE even uses a Honda engine, and the plastic body panels will be discontinued on most future vehicles.

In recent years, Saturn has been criticized for not keeping pace with the rest of the automotive industry. Sales have been declining, and the ION production lines were halted for two weeks in 2003 to allow dealer inventory to reduce. The L-series was canceled after production of the 2005 models.

Since Saturn never made a profit, GM decided to take back control of the division, eliminating its independence from the corporate behemoth.

[edit] Future

Saturn is currently in transition. General Motors has given Saturn a wealth of new products including the Sky roadster, Aura sedan, redesigned ION, redesigned Relay, concept PREVUE, and Outlook large SUV built off of the GM Lambda platform. To save money, GM decided that Saturn and Opel will share numerous models that differ only slightly. For example, the Saturn Vue will be the same as the Opel Antara, the Saturn Sky is the same as the new Opel GT, Saturn Astra will replace the current ION as the entry-level car, and the Saturn Aura is very similar to the Opel Vectra.

The Saturn brand will be repositioned in the upper-end of the family car market, stopping just south of entry-level luxury; roughly where Oldsmobile used to be. Volkswagen is in the same market position that GM wants to take Saturn (only going as high as the Passat). Saturn faces a struggle in achieving a premium image. When GM showed the Aura to a focus group with no badge on it, participants gave it a rating of 5/5 in terms of desirability and style. When they discovered that they were looking at a Saturn, the average rating dropped to 2.5/5.^{[citation needed]}

The company's independent manufacturing operations are in doubt, however. GM has begun moving Saturn production away from Spring Hill, and announced that that plant would be integrated with the company's regular plant mix, producing products for all GM brands. It is currently being retooled for larger cars, and the shop to produce Saturn's iconic plastic body panels is being dismantled as the company moves to conventional steel panels. Besides the obvious cost and assembly benefits to using industry-standard steel panels, Saturn's trademark polymer skins require larger gaps in between body panels to allow for heat expansion. The lack of understanding by automotive critics has led to past Saturns being periodically criticized for poor assembly quality, something that is true among sheetmetal-clad cars with larger gaps.

The company offers two sub-lines of vehicles: "Red Line" Saturns are performance-oriented, while "Green Line" cars will be more environmentally friendly. The VUE and ION Red Line models, launched in 2004, will be joined by a Green Line VUE and Aura and Red Line Aura and Sky in 2007.

[edit] Customer Service

Saturn is relatively well known for their commitment to customer service. When General Motors launched the division, their goal was to make Saturn showrooms friendly for first time car buyers, and car buyers in general. They are noted for their no-haggle pricing, where the cars are sold at their exact sticker price, their no-pressure sales environments, and professional sales staff. A recent survey ranked Saturn as one of the highest ranked companies by customer satisfaction. According to the same survey, Saturn was the only economy car maker in the top five, and the rest of the top five consisted of luxury car makers.

[edit] Saturn models

• Saturn S-series (1991-2002)
• Saturn L-series (1999-2005)
• Saturn ION (2003-2007)
• Saturn VUE (2002-present)
• Saturn AURA (2007-present)
• Saturn OUTLOOK (2008-present)
• Saturn RELAY (2005-present)
• Saturn SKY (2007-present)
• Saturn Astra (2008-)

[edit] Saturn timeline

Saturn, a division of General Motors, road car timeline, 1990s-present - [edit]
Type	1990s										2000s
	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
Compact		S-series					S-series							ION					Astra
Mid-size											L-series							Aura
Compact SUV													VUE
Crossover																		Outlook
Minivan																Relay
Roadster																		Sky

[edit] External links

• Saturn official website
• SaturnFans website
• Saturn Motorsports website
• Turbo Saturns
• Cheers and Gears - Information on Current and Future Saturn vehicles
• End of innovative UAW contract
• Different Racing Saturn Dragster and S-series Technical Information website
• Saturn hacking, modification and reverse engineering site