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Saturn Targeted for Extinction in GM Plan for Survival (Visit this link)
Jim Mateja from the Chicago Tribune: Roger Smith's dream is officially a nightmare. The General Motors chairman came up with an idea in the mid-'80s to create a division called Saturn to compete directly with Japanese imports by selling small, low-priced, high-mileage cars. The first Saturn, the SL, bowed with a 1991 model. Smith spent $3 billion to develop Saturn. And it did create a halo with no-haggle sales and the flower left on the driver's seat after the car was serviced. It did well early on as evidenced by a 17-day supply of cars at some dealerships in an industry where 60 days is considered normal. It beat expectations by posting a profit by 1993. But Saturn never realized its potential.There are those who would attribute that to a lack of love—too few models updated too infrequently. Saturn also may have suffered from the fact that Smith served as GM chairman when the automaker's market share fell to 30 percent from 40 percent, opening the door wider to Toyota and Honda with their small cars first and leading to their successful luxury divisions. Smith retired in mid-1990 before the first Saturn came out. No small wonder that GM now plans to sell or fold the division by 2011, ironically after it finally has a strong product mix.
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