After what some critics called a painfully slow start, Saturn's all-new Ion is finally getting traction in the marketplace. The company sold 5,387 Ions in January and 7,340 in February. "We're going to do over 10,000 units this month," Jill Lajdziak, Saturn's vice president of sales, service, and marketing recently told the Detroit News. "I think we're finally headed in the right direction."

The Ion's slow start is largely blamed on the lack of advertising at the start of production last fall. Commercials about the Ion didn't begin airing until January - three months after the car went on sale. Saturn delayed the ads to give retailers time to clear out existing S-Series stock, and to ensure they had a sufficient supply of Ion on their lots. The arrival of the new quad coupe next month should not only help solidify Ion sales, but also push them even higher. The Detroit News reports that Saturn expects the quad coupe to account for one quarter of Ion sales this year. That percentage could rise as high as one-third in subsequent years.

Saturn plans to sell only 150,000 Ions this year, which is far from the nearly 300,000 S-Series cars Saturn sold annually in the mid-1990s. However, in the Ion's defense, the car will not be able to challenge S-Series sales figures without a significant investment in Saturn's Spring Hill, TN manufacturing facility. In the 1990s Saturn built only one car - the S-Series - in Spring Hill. Since 2001, plant resources have been reallocated to support production of both the Ion and Vue sport-utility.

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Source: Detroit News