GMInsideNews says that the 2010 Saturn Aura, a clone of Opel's new Insignia midsize sedan, is on hold. GM has already shipped much of the tooling to the Kansas facility where it was planning on churning-out the Aura in late 2009 as a 2010 model. While GM hasn't made an announcement, GMI confirmed that the program has been paused, and speculates that the move will, at the very minimum, delay the next gen Aura's arrival in America. This after recent rumors that one or more of GM's brands is headed to the great automotive dealership in the sky. Is Saturn about to be strategically reviewed to death? We're not exactly talking about a critical brand for GM here, with about 7k – 8k non-SUV sales per month. Lest we forget, GM did the same product pause prior to Oldsmobile's euthanasia a few years ago. Talk about irony: Oldsmobile was starved for product and funding in the 1980s to develop the Saturn brand. On the other hand, some commenters at GMInsideNews see it differently: the pause is for fresh fuel efficient engine development. Or alternatively, Saturn will delay the Aura until 2012 or 2013, adding "Oh, and by 2013 GM will be picking up momentum at which time the 4-Door Sedan version of the Aura can return." With apologies to all you extremists, I respectfully think that's notgonnahappenatall.com.
Find Reviews by Make:
Read all comments
“All new lineup” similarities?
Oldsmobile:
Van: Silhouette
SUV: Bravada
Mid-car: Intrigue
Small Car: Alero
Big Car: Aurora
Saturn:
Van: Relay
SUV: Outlook
Mid Car: Aura
Small Car: Astra
Big Car: None (Sky instead)
What’s that word they use for people who expect a different result from the same action?
1. Make the Insignia the next generation Malibu.
2. Put plastic panels on the Daewoo Tosca and Lacetti and sell them as new, budget Saturn models.
Problem solved. Saturn returned to its inexpensive, plastic roots.
Not the classiest way of handling things at this point, but GM can’t afford “classy” right now, either in time or money. It would get value-competitive cars into showrooms with minimal investment.
Mikey,
Here’s a nice experiment for you. Buy flowers for you wife or girlfriend (or both).
:)
Now do it everyday, and see if you get the same reaction.
Just saying.
I would think of all of GM’s groups, Saturn would not be the one first to the block.
GM poured a lot of money and revised Saturn’s entire lineup – but pushed it much further upmarket over its more plebeian roots – so the old dedicated customers are now completely alienated and Saturn to survive needs to conquest new customers from foreign nameplates – the hardest thing to do. Recall the success of VW with the Phaeton.
Pity.
Saturn really had a chance. Good demographics (some ten-plus years younger than Pontiac), great customer retention, great customer service rankings and decent product. Well, for a while.
Saturn was, initially, a better Scion than Scion. It launched well, got a lot of good marketing and had decent product. Then GM got it’s talons into it and started stripping off whatever made Saturn worthwhile, and failing to do what was needed to keep the brand alive.
* The L-Series was pretty good, but it wasn’t good enough to provide upward-moving S-Series buyers with a good option.
* The Ion sucked. Just flat sucked.
* The Vue was, what, three or four years late to the small SUV party?
* Ditto the hybrid models–and what we eventually got was weak. Saturn and Saab had perfect demographics for hybrid adoption, and GM fumbled badly.
* Dropping what made Saturn unique (plastic panels, the Spring Hill syndrome) without something to replace it (the Opel West strategy) with was dumb. See below for more
Hamstringing the Opel West effort with mediocre product resulted in the failure of what would have otherwise been a great idea: use Saturn to fight VW (on the ropes for quality), Acura (on the ropes due to strategic misfires) and an ascending Mazda for the premium mainstream buyer. It was brilliant: BMW, Acura and Volvo were leaving that price point, and VW was fumbling badly. Saturn had a shot at the well-off, young, urban demographic that GM is incredibly weak on. And unlike Pontiac, Saturn’s brand image wasn’t crap.
In typical GM fashion, though, the execution was awful:
* the Aura wasn’t quite good enough. Materials and handling were below the Accord, let alone the Jetta. That it wasn’t unique next to the Malibu was the nail in the coffin.
* the Outlook was just the wrong product for this demographic. Too big, to downmarket. The Zafira would have been a smarter idea.
* the Astra’s just not interesting enough, next to the 3 and Rabbit. Mostly it’s the engine, but there’s no standout reason to buy the car.
* none of these models got anything resembling marketing support
* all these models had to fight not only the competition, but also competing models in other GM brands.
When I first heard the Opel West idea, I first thought it was brilliant: diesel power, European chassis, and a noted weakness in the competition. Then I thought: wait, this is GM, they’ll just do a half-assed job and it’ll fail just as badly as the Spring Hill initiative did.
Wow! They have some interesting forum members there. One person suggested that GM make Buick into a competitor against Lexus/Bentley and Cadillac into a competitor against Porsche. That sounds like a smart move.
jwltch :
I just finished cleaning my screen after reading your comment. I want what they’re drinking over on those forums….
If GM kills a brand, I doubt that it will be Saturn. It has too many standalone dealers. Buying out the dealers was the big expense associated with the Olds shutdown. GM doesn’t have the cash to do this. The delay of the new Aura could simply be a cost-saving move.
Pontiac is more vulnerable. It is largely sold with Buick and GMC, which means that GM wouldn’t necessarily have to buy out the dealers if the brand is killed. Plus, the only Pontiac model scheduled to be replaced with a new version is the G6, and that project is supposedly on hold.
Maybe we should start a TTAC Mini-Deathwatch pool, with members betting on which GM brand goes first. My money is on Pontiac…
I’m glad it’s not my decision. It’s a hard one. I do think Saturn makes the most sense. They’ve remade themselves a few times so I don’t think there is much in the way of owner loyalty. And is the Saturn experience really any different? I doubt it. Plus, Saturn, as far as I know, is a stand alone dealership. Correct?
Bancho – I went back before posting just to make sure I wasn’t crazy. At least it’s inventive, I guess.
geeber:
I’ll put my money on either Pontiac or GMC. Probably Pontiac since the most desireable car in their lineup is the new G8 and that’ll be most likely sold at a loss.
mikey:
I believe the word is “insane.”
The level of denial over there at GMI about the state of affairs at GM is almost unbelievable. At least several of the site moderators seem to be catching on to the desperate times GM finds itself in.
geeber : Maybe we should start a TTAC Mini-Deathwatch pool, with members betting on which GM brand goes first. My money is on Pontiac…
I’m torn between Saturn and GMC, but I think I’ll go with GMC due to all the stand-alone Saturn dealers, and the fact that GMC sells nothing but rebadged trucks and SUVs.
Look for GMC to go pre-C11, but Saturn to be part of the bankruptcy bloodbath (it’s gonna really REALLY suck for a lot of folks when Saturn goes). Pontiac and Buick will be pried from GM’s cold, (literally) dead hands.
I’d hate to be a GM dealer right now. Or any dealer really.
jwltch : I’d hate to be a GM dealer right now. Or any dealer really.
Honda dealers seem to have it pretty good right now. They can just kick back in their office and play solitaire, as they tend to have deposits down on Civics before they even reach the lot.
It seems to me the Saturn “Franchise” needs to be sold off. Far-reaching (in most areas) dealer network and some still very loyal to the brand. Other than the “Hummer” name, this seems like the most reasonable asset GM has other than Chevy and Cadillac, where someone like Fiat would have instant dealer network, and their product that would lend itself well to the “old” Saturn. Entry -level SL buyers moving up to an LS. Smallish SUV.
Off the top of my head, I think the dealer network would generate 3 billion breaking all ties with GM product. Anything think I’m high/low? Would Saturn franchisees throw a fit?
Of the existing brands, GMC has no reason to exist, followed closely by the U.S. division of Buick. Saturn may have independent dealers, but those dealers are not vast in number, and the company retains little of the mindshare or product of Pontiac.
Pontiac’s problem is that many of their products are inferior to those from Chevrolet. Those that aren’t could be moved over with little more than a grille change. That said, Pontiac is such a large part of GM that I don’t see it disappearing until after they’ve already whittled down the three above.
History repeats itself.
There’s no reason Opels can’t be sold as Chevrolets here just like they are in other parts of the Americas.
This whole thread should be classified as another “Wild Ass Rumor of the Day”.
There have been no announcements, this is all speculation.
RayH : Off the top of my head, I think the dealer network would generate 3 billion breaking all ties with GM product. Anything think I’m high/low? Would Saturn franchisees throw a fit?
Would Saturn franchisees have a choice?
What if GM cut all ties with Daewoo and Suzuki, and gave Daewoo the Saturn brand and dealer network as a parting “gift?” The idea of rebadging Daewoos as Saturns makes a lot of sense from both a business and branding perspective.
Saturn should be going head to head with Kia in the economy wars, which will be fighting over a bigger and bigger pie as gas continues to climb in price.
Axel – Honda is doing well. But, when people looking to trade in suvs with an upside down loan due to accelerating depreciation they are bound to get angry when a dealer can’t give them a deal. I’ve found that when you have a dealer with an in-demand car they aren’t likely to bargain.
Lichtronamo, they’re catching on about 10 years too late, as is GM itself.
GM killed Saturn when it killed the grossly cheap, cheerful, plastic cars with great fuel economy that the brand was known for.
Everything they sell now from the Outlook to the Astra is priced right out of Saturn fan’s hands.
If I had to bet on a brand for the executioner, probably Hummer I’d guess.
It’s politcally correct right now to kick Hummer while it’s down.
Wagoner can market the engineered implosion of the brand as a “success of vision for the future” angle or whatever, handy for the Annual (Final?) Report.
Killing Hummer would not effect revenue flow much.
I’ve personally never seen a stand-alone Hummer dealer. They always seem to be integrated in either large multi-brand GM dealerships, or as a add-on to some boutique car place.
Killing Hummer at this point kills an internal competitor against so many other widgets GM is trying to sell, to like ten people. Fratricide triage has never been a GM strongsuit, but sense might finally make sense to these morons in this case.
Brand-loyalty to Hummer is low, the whole thing was a fad commensurate with the wide-ranging fad for SUV’s that crashed just 24 months ago. Easy come easy go. All GM’s other brands have a following of some sort that will be pissed off if you kill it.
GM could actually recover a couple of nickels for Rick’s perma-pension by selling Hummer instead of axeing it. Hummer still has valuable contracts with the government for on-going procurement, depot-maintenance and logistics for the all HMMVW’s operated by Uncle Sam, and all the thousands and thousands Uncle Sam has given/subsidized etc. for foreign operators like those stand up guys, the Egyptian paramilitary secret police.
For all those reasons my money is on the Death of Hummer. Of course at this point I imagine the Rickinator probably will want to kill whatever makes the biggest cost-reduction that is legal to put on the books RIGHT NOW. I have no idea what the internal dynamics at GM are like that would identify that brand. But then again I think Rick Wagoner is just as confused and uninformed about GM’s internal dynamics as I am, so it could just be a lottery crapshoot I guess.
I can almost see a dartboard in the luxurious wood-paneled board-room at RenCen now, with blindfolded Armani suits chucking darts to see where they land at this point frankly. It’s how they seem to run the company anyways.
jwltch : Axel – Honda is doing well. But, when people looking to trade in suvs with an upside down loan due to accelerating depreciation they are bound to get angry when a dealer can’t give them a deal. I’ve found that when you have a maker has a hot selling, in-demand car they aren’t in the market to bargain.
It sucks for current SUV owners, but I still wouldn’t hate to be a Honda dealer. I may also get some bargain basement SUV trade-ins and still turn a profit, since there will always be a market of people who just need something to haul the boat to the launch on weekends, or moms who live a mile from soccer practice.
Saturn is the hole in the ground where GM throws it’s money into. Always has been, always will be. Their “all new” line up is a dud. Their sales were down 32.7% in May and 19.9% YTD, mostly due to the replacement of the old and lousy but profitable (because the tooling et al had long since been paid for) Ion (which sold 5,000 units or so a month) with the unprofitable (the US dollar to Euro exchange rate sucks) and slow selling Astra (which sells 1,000 units a month). Everything else in their “all new” lineup has also sold below expectations since introduction. They sell fewer vehicles now with five models than they did back when they only had one.
It didn’t make sense to create an all new dealer network to merely sell plastic-sided Corolla-clones, and once you’ve convinced the world that “Saturn” means “plastic-sided Corolla-clone”, you can’t then turn around and sell them sportscars and crossovers that cost thirty thousand dollars, especially since Saturn dealers don’t haggle and those same products, wearing slightly different sheet metal, can be found at dealers for other GM brands that do haggle.
Oh yeah, and they’ve quit selling plastic-sided Corolla-clones to boot! (The Astra is a hatchback, not a sedan, and is not plastic-sided or particularlly fuel efficient.)
What GM should have done, decades ago, was to make Saturn to Oldsmobile what Scion is to Toyota-that is, a seperate dealer “experience” within the existing Oldsmobile dealer framework. The Toyota situation when it created Scion (an established brand which was considered to skew too old) was identical to Oldsmobile’s at the time. Both Scion and Saturn are no-haggle (no-haggle works great with low-end, unique product). Both are a “different kind of car company”. In fact, one could say that Toyota learned from GM’s mistakes in making Saturn, and took what worked and threw away what didn’t, when they made Scion.
There is one thing no one has said GM doesn’t do rational things, in their mind would it make sense to kill of a CAR brand with the SUV/truck market falling to it’s knees. I agree Saturn has some value to someone trying to get into our market and should just be sold, plus the limited dealers makes sense as a small ramp up but they wont do it because cars are so hot right now. Buick just need to be tossed in the trash, but it wont because of the small Enclave success. That leaves GM with killing off GMC because right now they aren’t making any money on there sales and GM tends to make rash decisions when they finally do something. Couldn’t they just sell GMC to the same people who bought the medium truck devision and be done with it.
Maybe we should start a TTAC Mini-Deathwatch pool, with members betting on which GM brand goes first. My money is on Pontiac…
I personally think they should get rid of Buick but I have a feeling GMC will be the one GM gets rid of.
jwltch: make Buick into a competitor against Lexus/Bentley
Buick is already supposed to be competing against Lexus, have you seen the ads, well when they had them. But Bentley, seriously Bentley, for real someone actually said that and wasn’t joking. GM doesn’t have anything to compete with Bentley not even Cadillac has enough of a brand reputaion these days to comete in the price range, just look at the XLR sales, and that’s still $40,000 shy of a baby Bentley.
Axel – very true. They are in a hell of a good position right now.
Redbarchetta – It was there. And he didn’t take it back or claim later to be joking. Buick..I don’t know. A lot of older folks still buy Buick cars. A cliche, yes, but they do. Where will they go brand-wise if Buick would be killed? I think it would be another population segment lost by GM. Although maybe it’s not enough of a segment to matter.
A lot of older folks still buy Buick cars. A cliche, yes, but they do. Where will they go brand-wise if Buick would be killed?
DEC 22, 2010 — The last Buick, a 2010 Lucerne, rolled off the assembly line today. Its final destination is the Smithsonian museum.
In related news, Toyota and Nissan report record shortages of their respective Avalon and Maxima sedans…
jwltch send the older folks over to Cadillac for their floaty boats. They do still make them it’s not only CTS’s now. The crap DTS for example, what a royal pile of sh*t, I should know I have one in DeVille naming collecting dust and peeing all over the driveway. Styling would be the only problem. Not that they would really get rid of Buick, I still think GMC is going to be axed after Hummer for the same reasons.
True about the Avalon. I have seen that make in-roads in the older driver segment. Buick has always been more understated than Cadillac. And, cheaper, too. Although I think the Lucerne Super is now in the Caddy price range. I think if GM tanks it will cause a major shake-up for all GM buyers and I don’t know where they will end up. A lot people I know buy GM because they like the car AND they like their dealer. Will they stay with the dealer they like or look for another brand that more closely suits their needs?
Good riddence to the money pit!
Redbarchetta :
June 27th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
There is one thing no one has said GM doesn’t do rational things, in their mind would it make sense to kill of a CAR brand with the SUV/truck market falling to it’s knees.
Saturn is no longer a car brand.
Jan-May 2008 Saturn sales:
Cars: 34,840
Trucks: 48,453
The “trucks” in question are, of course, Outlooks, Vues, and a few (134) leftover Relays. But there you go-Saturn sells more SUVs than cars these days.
Geotpf I know Saturn sells SUV’s also after all it is a part of GM, I didnt realize it was so much more then 50/50. My point was GMC sells not a single car only trucks and SUV’s, this has got to hurt bad right now. I jumped on the website of the GMC/Buick dealer I drive by every day on eh way home and they still have more then a dozen left over 2007’s and not all the super expensive 4×4’s. Plus alot and I mean A LOT 2008 trucks and SUV’s considering it’s not a big dealer lot. They also have a considerable amount of Buicks including Enclaves. I wondered if I could get a really sweet deal on that 2007 Sierra I test drive a few months back since it’s still there, then I remembered the Cadillac and came back to reality.
Redbarchetta : But there’s (basically) no such thing as a “GMC dealer”. Instead, most are combined Pontiac/Buick/GMC dealers (some only have one of the two car lines instead of both; although the dealer nearest to me has all three plus Cadillac). I consider PBG to be one “brand”, a Chevy Part Deux. If you factors in Ponitac and Buick, a PBG dealer has plenty of cars (although trucks traditionally make up a majority of sales at such dealers).
It is my opinion that if the three brands are joined at the hip. If you kill one of them, you have to kill them all. Plus, they make a much larger percentage of GM’s sales (combined) than Saturn, and have many more dealers.
The following brands, IMHO, should be killed (or sold if possible):
Saturn
Hummer
Saab (domestically; it probably should survive in Europe and in some/all other world markets outside US/Canada)
That would leave Chevy, Caddy, and PBG in the US, which is much more managable than the current mess they have now. The three brands I would kill all have collapsing sales with no chance of recovery, with Hummer and Saab’s domestic sales both being microscopic in particular. Saturn, although with more sales than the other two, has equally bad chances of recovery. PBG has a possibility of stabalizing, or at least will shrink slower than Saturn.
We’ve strayed from wether or not Saturn will get killed, but that’s ok. If a division from the BPG sales channel is to be killed, my money is on Buick, since it’s the poorest performer. The average BPG dealer wouldn’t be able to tell whether Buick had been axed or he just forgot to order any.
IMHO, the only way killing GMC (pre C-11) makes any sense is as a Machiavellian plot to kill off as many BPG dealers as possible w/o having to buy them out. Ok, sure, PUs and SUVs are a declining market. They were declining last year also, but GMC sold a half million units while Pontiac sold 358K. I havn’t been paying attention to sales numbers this year, but I’m guessing GMC will still outsell Pontiac. What all this boils down to is this – if you have a BPG dealership, GMC is your best seller, followed by Pontiac, and then Buick. Eliminate GMC and you’ll eliminate many of the dealers.
Saturn, it’s going to stay until C11. Too costly to buy out the dealers.
Lucerne got hammered in Autoweek this week, not typical treatment from them.
if they blow up Saturn, where will they sell the Opels?
“GMI confirmed that the program has been paused”
Classic GM BS. They pull the start and stop levers so often it is a wonder anything gets done.
I agree with one thing: Further investment in the Aura would be stupid. It’s a flop, and goes after the exact same market as the Malibu does.
Stop advertising Saturn. Don’t develop any new Saturns. Let the brand die a slow, but inexpensive death. Hire the guys who managed Isuzu’s retreat to do it for you at the lowest possible cost.
Saturn was the wrong answer to the questions GM faced in the 1980s and remains a money sucking bad idea. Enough, already.
People keep assuming that winding down Saturn would cost billions because of the Oldsmobile experience. That is wrong on two counts. One, there are far fewer Saturn dealers than their were Olds dealers, and since they are stand alone showrooms GM doesn’t need to make nice for ongoing relationship purposes. Two … look at the Isuzu example instead of the Oldsmobile example. Starve ’em to death is the cheapest plan.
Kill Saturn
Kill Buick in the US.
Kill GMC
Kill Pontiac
Sell Saab to someone from China or India.
Hummer – whatever
Leave Chevy and Cadillac.
Nonsense, GM isn’t going to kill any of its brands. The U.S. taxpayer is going to pay the workers, Rick’s salary, the light bills at the dealers, and the transportation costs to move all of G.M.’s cars and trucks to landfills after they sit on the dealer lots for 2 years.
Not one of my many associates ‘aspires’ to a GM, with the exception of the Corvette and CTS.
GM’s core clientele have slowly died out with my dad’s generation. My uncle buys a new Chevy every 2 years like clock work (old habits die hard). He is 84. Who will replace him?
It would be an act of mercy at this point! We don’t even let stray dogs linger around in misery this way….
I wonder if Ford is about to suffer the same fate? Kerkorian does sounds a lot like Kevorkian…wonder if ol’ Kirk is a doctor, too??? =)