Saturn (automobile)
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Saturn logo |
Saturn is a division of
automobile manufacturer
General Motors and a brand of car produced by the company. GM began manufacturing Saturn automobiles in 1990, largely in response to the success of
Japanese small-car imports in the
United States. 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.
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.
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, the next
Saturn Ion will be the same as the next
Opel Astra, 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.
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.
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 will soon offer two sub-lines of vehicles: "Redline" Saturns are performance-oriented, while "Greenline" cars will be more environmentally friendly. The VUE and ION Redline models, launched in
2004, will be joined by a Greenline VUE and Aura and Redline Aura and Sky in
2007.
Saturn is relatively well known for their committment 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 companies ranked by customer satisfaction. According to the same survey, Satun was the only economy car maker in the top five, and the rest of the top five consisted of luxury car makers.
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Saturn S-series (1991-2002)
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Saturn L-series (1999-2005)
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Saturn ION (2003-present)
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Saturn VUE (2002-present)
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Saturn Aura (2007-present)
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Saturn Outlook (forthcoming)
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Saturn Relay (2005-present)
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Saturn Sky (2007-present)
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Saturn official website*
Saturn fans website*
Saturn Motorsports website*
Turbo Saturns
