Saturn: A Different Kind Of Car Company

There’s going to be a lot of you that may not know a single thing about Saturn, so gather round my friends as I tell you the story of a brand that was on a completely different level of innovation. A brand that changed the way people bought cars. That brand, was Saturn.

The year is 1985. Bruce Springsteen was halfway through is Born In The U.S.A tour, Michael Jordan received his Rookie of the Year award, Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union, Nintendo released the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) to the North American market, and the famous Route 66 was removed from the United States Highway System as the much larger Interstate System was being built. Over at General Motors, the research and development teams were hard at work creating a cheap front-wheel drive car to compete against Toyota and Honda. The project was named Saturn.

See, American cars were just starting to get the hang of things again, with horsepower numbers, futuristic styling, and reliability all on the rise. GM was going to release this new small car under one of their many brands, but decided to forge a completely different route and establish a separate company. Saturn, the name of this prototype car, became the name of the company. In 1986, construction of the first Saturn factory began in Spring Hill, Tennessee. Production began in 1990, the first car off the production line was a Brilliant Red Metallic SL2.

In the first six months, Saturn managed to sell 2,000 cars. Over the first full production year, they managed to sell 100,000 cars. Branding themselves as “A Different Kind Of Car Company” made Saturn the perfect addition to GM’s brand portfolio. Saturn was a success, for the most part. The Saturn lineup consisted of two vehicles, The SL, a sedan, and the SC, a coupe. For 1993, The SW, a wagon variant of the SL was launched. By the end of 1993, Saturn surpassed 300,000 sales, had an established dealer network, and produced a line of vehicles that didn’t share parts with any other GM products at the time.

Saturn had a unique way of selling it’s cars. Saturn would produce a vehicle, options varied across the models, as with most cars, but the MSRP of the car was the price you paid. No haggling, no bargaining. It was like buying a fridge, or any other appliance. You walked in, you bought a Saturn, and you left. Simple. What you got for the money, was a reliable American car that did well on gas, a rarity in the early 1990s.

During Saturn’s inception, the GM Impact, seen above, was unveiled at the 1990 Los Angeles Auto Show. This futuristic tadpole with wheels was GM’s concept for a fully electric vehicle. Throughout the early 90s, as the project was developed it became known as the GM EV1. In 1996, when EV1 production began, Saturn dealerships in California and Arizona began to lease these vehicles.
Saturn, one of the newest companies in GM’s portfolio, a company that was still gaining a foothold in the market, was put in charge of one of the most innovative vehicles General Motors made at the time. The name EV1 fit in with the rest of Saturn’s line up as well. Although the EV1 was never produced as a Saturn, it continued to be leased through those select dealerships until production ceased in 2003. To this day, the EV1 is the only vehicle to exclusively wear the GM Mark of Excellence as it’s only badge.

The late 1990’s and early 2000’s were great for Saturn. In 1999, the L-Series was launched, which used the GM2900 chassis, which also underpinned the Vauxhall/Opel Vectra of the same model years. This mid-size sedan took off quickly, with 94,000 examples sold in it’s first full model year, and 98,000 examples sold the next year, but sales dropped off after 2003, even with a front fascia update. The L-Series was replaced for 2005 with the Saturn Aura, which used GM’s Epsilon Platform, which underpinned the Saab 9-3, Pontiac G6, Opel Vectra, and the Chevrolet Malibu.

In 2002, Saturn launched the Vue, a compact SUV, which offered four engine options. The first four-cylinder engine was a variant of GM’s Ecotec engine line. The first V6 was a 3.0L unit also produced by GM, but in 2004 the 3.0L was replaced by a 3.5L V6 built by Honda. This 3.5L V6 was the same V6 that could be found in the Honda Pilot and Acura MDX at the time, and produced 70 more horsepower, and 58 more lb-ft than the 3.0L.
The Vue was the only vehicle involved in this partnership with Honda, and was part of a move by Saturn to introduce two new versions of the Vue. The Red Line which debuted in 2004, pictured above, used the V6 from Honda, and included a full body kit, 18-inch alloy wheels, chrome exhaust tips and unique black leather and suede seats. The other version of the Vue was the Green Line, which launched in 2007. The Vue Green Line used a 2.4L four-cylinder hybrid powertrain that could also be found in the Chevrolet Malibu Hybrid and Buick LaCrosse Hybrid.

2007 saw the introduction of the Saturn Sky. A two-seater roadster, that was produced along the Pontiac Solstice and Opel GT. While styled differently than the Solstice, the Opel GT and Saturn Sky are nearly identical. The Sky was an incredible vehicle, offering a 290 horsepower turbocharged engine, and styling unlike anything else on the road at the time.
I saw one of these in black the other day, and was dumbfounded by how modern it looked, knowing it was at least ten years old. If you pulled up a picture of any other vehicle from 2007, this would look newer, hands down. I digress.

The Sky and Opel GT’s badge-engineering was due to General Motors consolidating it’s models and platforms on a global scale. Although this process started with the Vue and Ion, all future Saturns built after 2001 shared parts with other GM vehicles either in the US or abroad.

2008 saw the introduction of the Astra, a vehicle that shared almost everything, including the name, with it’s European counterparts from Vauxhall and Opel. The Astra was the first Saturn to be imported to the United States, and is the rarest Saturn out of the entire history of the brand, with just 17,000 examples making their way across the sea. Power came from a 1.8L four-cylinder, making 138 horsepower and 129 lb-ft. While the Astra was set up to be a great driving car, it was discontinued after 2009 when the Vauxhall/Opel Astra was getting a redesign. GM was expecting to move 30,000 units and when they barely managed to move half of that number during the launch of the vehicle, they decided to cancel the Saturn Astra altogether.

Which brings us to 2009, when GM attempted to sell Saturn off to Penske Automotive, and when the deal fell through, GM decided to close down Saturn. Production was halted in October 2009, and the Saturn closed down entirely on October 31, 2010. In the company’s 25 years of life, they managed to move 4,543,569 cars. Which is about how many vehicles Chevrolet moves every two years.
Saturn was a company that started off so strong, and was so innovative and unique, that other GM executives grew envious of the company’s success, and pushed to cut Saturn’s research and development budget. This caused the influx of global GM products like the Ion compact, Aura mid-size, Astra hatchback, Sky convertible and Outlook three-row SUV.

Saturn is now just another company that’s in the great big scrapyard in the sky, but for a brief moment, they were one of the hottest car companies in the world. Creating incredible vehicles that sold as fast as they were produced. Some of them have stood the test of time, and can be found with incredibly low miles for their age, like this maroon SW2.

It’s a shame to look back at Saturn, and see the ambition from the executives, only to see the brand’s principles be cast aside for the sake of the bottom line, a brand that hosted owner parties at it’s Spring Hill factory, which drew thousands of Saturn owners from across the country, a brand that completely changed the car-buying experience. A brand that is now nothing more than a dead branch in the giant tree that is General Motors.

Got a cool Saturn story? I’d love to hear about it! Comment below with any interesting Saturn story you have!