General Motors design chief Ed Welburn told the Detroit Free Press earlier this week that Saturn's Kappa-base roadster will share interior – but not exterior – styling cues with the Curve concept car. The rear-wheel-drive vehicle won't look like the Saturn Sky concept from two years ago either. So what can Saturn fans expect? "We really have to crank up the sex appeal of the Saturn product line. We can and we will," GM vice chairman Bob Lutz told Automotive News in January. The production version of the Curve will be nothing less than "a game-changer for Saturn," he said to the Detroit Free Press.

The next generation of Saturn vehicles, beginning with both the aforementioned Kappa coupe and Saturn's next generation midsize car due in 2006, will reportedly sport Saturn's new look both inside and out. The design will be "precise and substantial but not showy," Welburn told the Detroit Free Press. The paper also said that other GM executives have indicated that "Saturn aspires to have buyers think of it as they do Volkswagen: solid, dependable and slightly classier than a run-of-the-mill car."

The unnamed convertible will be built alongside the Pontiac Solstice in Wilmington, Delaware. Saturn's next midsize car will be based on GM's global Epsilon architecture and will likely be built at either the company's Fairfax assembly plant in Kansas or its Orion Township assembly plant in Michigan.

Pictures of the Curve and Sky concept cars are online in the photo gallery.

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Source: Detroit Free Press, Automotive News