SaturnFans.com Links

From AutoWeek: "All of our efforts will be to sell down our remaining 2009 inventory," Susan Docherty, GM's vice president of U.S. sales, said today at a press event. "We'll have a little bit of carryover of that into the first quarter of 2010, but the objective is to keep our inventory somewhere between 425,000 to 450,000 units." Docherty said she is confident that GM will clear out the 2009-model-year inventory by January. Meanwhile, the company likely will shutter its Pontiac and Saturn brand...

Barbara Wieland from the Lansing State Journal: Sherrill Freeborough is finding there is life after Saturn. Freeborough was one of 340 Saturn dealers left hanging when GM's deal to sell the division to Penske Automotive Group collapsed September 30. GM quickly halted Saturn production - including dropping the Outlook crossover made at its Lansing Delta Township assembly plant - and began shutting down the brand. "It was sickening, disheartening," said the normally upbeat, optimistic Freeborough....

Micheline Maynard from the New York Times: It is a company that helped lift hundreds of thousands of American workers into the middle class. It transformed Detroit into the Silicon Valley of its day, a symbol of America's talent for innovation. It built celebrated cars, like Cadillacs, that became synonymous with luxury. And now it is filing for bankruptcy, something that would have been unfathomable even a few years ago, much less decades ago, when it was a dominant force in the American econom...

Terry Box from the Dallas Morning News: Black Oak wants to bundle Saturn's 400 privately owned dealerships into a new Saturn corporation that would then seek vehicles to sell – probably from GM initially but also from other automakers. Moreover, the corporation might eventually design vehicles and hire a manufacturer to build them. One focus would be electric vehicles. It would not be involved directly in manufacturing, Pappanastos said. "This proposal is not capital-intensive from a manufactu...

As the workers and residents of this small town that launched the Saturn automobile see it, there are several villains in the collapse of the automakers' rescue plan. But what stuns many in this place defined by the General Motors auto plant and its 4,200 workers is that no person played a larger role in the demise of autoworker hopes than their own Sen. Bob Corker, who is now regarded by some here with the kind of disdain reserved for traitors. Corker emerged as one of the leading critics of t...

I couldn't have asked for a better car to experience a New Brunswick road trip. The vehicle's modern looks kept us cool in the city; its comfortable interior and smooth ride had us content on the open road; and it enabled us to check out some of eastern Canada's famous landmarks and attractions. Its sexy, sporty exterior and muscular rear fascia suited downtown Moncton's trendier neighbourhoods to a tee. By the time we pulled up to the swanky, boutique-style L'Hotel St. James, the Astras had gar...

A $14 billion emergency bailout for U.S. automakers collapsed in the Senate Thursday night after the United Auto Workers refused to accede to Republican demands for swift wage cuts. The collapse came after bipartisan talks on the auto rescue broke down over GOP demands that the United Auto Workers union agree to steep wage cuts by 2009 to bring their pay into line with Japanese carmakers. Majority Leader Harry Reid said he hoped President George W. Bush would tap the $700 billion Wall Street bai...

Frank Filipponio from AutoBlog: Amidst all the recent bailout talk, one question being asked is what role GM's Opel division will serve in a new-and-hopefully-improved General Motors. More succinctly, will Vauxhall and Saturn soldier on unchanged or will they simply fade into automotive landscape? Automotive News seems to think the question of Opel and how it relates to Vauxhall and Saturn is so important that it's worth devoting three separate editorials to the issue, with varying levels of cla...

Justin Hyde and Todd Spangler from the Detroit Free Press Washington Staff: The Bush administration was considering some tough conditions for unions and creditors as it began Friday to craft a multibillion-dollar rescue of General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC from the wreckage of a $14-billion plan that crashed in Congress this week. People familiar with the planning said Treasury officials expected to work through the weekend on a rescue drawing from the $15 billion remaining in the first half...

Jamie LaReau Automotive News: General Motors is trying to find a new vehicle supplier for Saturn by September 1, General Manager Jill Lajdziak said in a broadcast to dealers last week, according to some participating dealers. Meantime, Saturn executives will entertain proposals through May from investors to acquire Saturn, the dealers say. Investors also could be manufacturers that could supply vehicles. Separately, a Saturn task force studied the feasibility of spinning off the brand. It turned...

There's a very happy ending available for Saturn dealers that General Motors brass should be seriously discussing: Handing the keys to the Saturn brand to GM's German affiliate, Opel. GM doesn't have an extra billion or so dollars to buy out Saturn dealers and shutter the brand. And GM could be in legal trouble if it starves Saturn to death. So, the obvious and best thing for GM to do is merge Saturn and Opel. Tomorrow and Friday, Saturn's Franchise Operations Team, consisting of eight dealers, ...

It's nearing decision time for Saturn. Sometime in the next several days, perhaps as early as this week, General Motors – actually the U.S. Treasury Dept. – will decide whether to allow the brand to survive. Insiders tell Ward's the decision will be made by the government and not necessarily GM executives. Apparently, the question is whether to sell Saturn and allow it to become a potentially viable competitor to GM. According to several Saturn dealers, the real question is whether President...

Tom Krisher from the Associated Press: Such a deal would create something completely new, because an independent company would be telling manufacturers what to make for its dealerships, rather than the manufactures deciding what goes on dealer lots. "It's upside down from what the traditional distribution process looked like," Sandler said. "I think it's exciting."Saturn's 440 U.S. and Canadian dealers, with laid-back salesmen and no-haggle pricing, often match luxury brands' scores in independe...

Tim Petruk from Kamloops This Week via BCLocalNews.com: It's the end of one era for a long-time Kamloops auto dealership. Terry Lowe, president and dealer principal of Saturn of Kamloops announced Thursday the Valleyview dealership that has been selling Saturns for almost two decades would be changing brands after Roger Penske, the new owner of the Saturn brand, decided not to carry the cars north of the 49th. "It's a bit of a sad day because I've put 18 years of blood, sweat and tears into Satu...

Kelly Johnson from the Sacramento Business Journal: New corporate owners could boost Hummer, Saturn and Saab sales, and help ease car-shoppers' concerns about future of the still-struggling brands. Saturn's pending purchase by Penske has support from dealers and consumers. They know of company chairman Roger Penske's success as a racecar driver and racing team owner, in truck rentals and with auto retailing. "Penske has a track record," said George Hoffer, a Virginia Commonwealth University econ...