No more Saturn

[porsche4life]

Umm what lotus is front engine?

[Nostril Cheese]

Originally Posted by porsche4life

Umm what lotus is front engine?

Lotus Elan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia second generation, which, like the Saturn, was mostly GM

I gotta say that the SL I had was a damn fine car for what it was. Better mileage than a Civic and great A/C.

[m21sniper]

The Sky was a super cool car. Shame.

[porsche4life]

Ok modern cars. My point is that there is nothing lotus like about a SKY. The Opel speedster is a different story....

[Nostril Cheese]

Originally Posted by porsche4life

Ok modern cars. My point is that there is nothing lotus like about a SKY. The Opel speedster is a different story....

You're also forgetting the Lotus Eclat.

[porsche4life]

I know GM uses some outdated crap but surely they wouldn't go that far back...

[pwd72s]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

And here I was so sure the taxpayers were gonna get their investment back. Never saw this coming.

You meant to type the above in green, right?

[dd74]

At least Mercury is safe. Then again, that planet is a Ford product.

[strupgolf]

GM also said there would be no layoffs. How in the world can they NOT lay anyone off. Only in UAW land can this happen. They and the companies got so much Gov't money fron US they can still go on like business as usual. That's not a good business plan, but they never had one.

[The Gaijin]

GM wanted a clean sheet of paper, with a new dealer network and a ground-up new car. Look what they got.

Toyota does it the old fashioned way "kaizen suru" (incremental improvement).

[Porsche-O-Phile]

The UAW's incessant parasitic draining finally killed the host. Which now has to be kept alive artificially with taxpayer money. If it weren't true it'd make for great comedy fiction.

[jyl]

I think Saturn's three current models are all rebadged products shared with other GM divisions. Not positive about the Aura, but GM stopped producing those a while ago. Pretty sure this is true for the Vue and Outlook.

As such, GM may be able to absorb some or most of Saturn's production capacity in its other divisions. GM announced Saturn's closure in April, before the bankruptcy and a lot of announced plant closures, even with the Penske talks GM planned to terminate all Saturn production in 2011, so I think Saturn's closure in 2009 would have been included in GM's contingency planning.

True, GM has an excess of assembly capacity, but I think its biggest excess is in full-sized traditional pickups and SUVs. Probably not as much in the smaller vehicles.

As a related aside, it is remarkable how much production capacity is being cut out of the global auto industry, in 2009-2011.
GM is cutting capacity in NorAm by 1.8MM units (-35%).
Chrysler by 1.2MM -41%
Ford by 0.6MM -16%
That is 3.6MM units cut, takes capacity from appx 19MM to appx 15.7MM. The US market is 16-17MM in normal times.

Saturn, BTW, was on track to sell something like 0.1MM cars this year, maybe less. It is an insignificant brand. I'm not sure I've seen a Saturn in the past few years, I've never known anyone who owned one.

[john70t]

When Saturn was introduced, it had the potential to take a large portion of the japanese marketshare: cheap, plastic body panels, and the things drove forever with decent milage(dad and I drove back from Florida with almost 50mpg). Sales and customer service was friendly and inviting.

What a difference between that and the bait-n-switch pressure sales and sucker loans from the parent company.

If GM hadn't stuck their fingers in the works, there would be another generation of buyers lining up in Saturn dealerships right now.

[kaisen]

Originally Posted by tcar

The SKY is an Opel, too.

Actually they're both Lotuses.

Other way around: The Opel is a Sky/Solstice. They are built in Wilmington, DE in the good ol' USA

[Zef]

That's a fu**** good thing...the less GM crap on the road, the best it is.

[tcar]

Originally Posted by kaisen

Other way around: The Opel is a Sky/Solstice. They are built in Wilmington, DE in the good ol' USA

No.

The Opel/Vauxhall Speedster was built from about 2000 to 2005 in England - before the Sky/Solstice were even a glimmer.

The Opel GT (Speedster replacement) is now built in the US and is identical to the Sky except for badging.

The Opel, Sky, Solstice are all built on a modified (by GM) Elise platform.

So is the Tesla, but it's assembled in England at the Lotus plant.

[kaisen]

Originally Posted by tcar

No.

The Opel/Vauxhall Speedster was built from about 2000 to 2005 in England - before the Sky/Solstice were even a glimmer.

The Opel GT (Speedster replacement) is now built in the US and is identical to the Sky except for badging.

The Opel, Sky, Solstice are all built on a modified (by GM) Elise platform.

So is the Tesla, but it's assembled in England at the Lotus plant.

No.

The Opel GT / Vauxhall VX220 is the English-built Lotus Elise relative you are thinking of.

The SKY/Solstice/GT are built on the GM-engineered-and-built Kappa platform. Kappa is front engined longitudinal. The Lotus Elise is mid-engined transverse. So you are just plain mistaken.

The Saturn SKY was launched first, then the Pontiac Solstice, then the Opel GT. All three are basically the same car. The Opel GT is really just a rebadged Saturn SKY.

IN FACT, the 2007-2009 Opel GT is LEFT HAND DRIVE and built in the USA.

Check your facts

[porsche4life]

+1. The Elise is mid engined. I would want nothing to do with a GM attempt at a midengine car....

[strupgolf]

I do a lot of driving around the midwest and all I see are trailers full of full size pick-ups and SUV's. The other brands I see are Lexus, Mercedes, Infinities, and Honda's. I can't tell you when I've seen a trailer full of GM based small cars. They just wont learn.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by kaisen

The only Opels they ever rebadged was the Astra and the new VUE

Wasn't the Aura as well?

Originally Posted by kaisen

I have a friend with a 1996 SL1 with 530K miles and still going strong
The 1996-2002 S-series cars were good little cars, for the money

It's the old saying, GM cars run badly longer than any other car. I drove both an early coupe and sedan that belonged to friends in high school, both were total crap.